A Room With A View by E. M. Forster – analysis and review

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E. M. Forster was known for writing on the theme of hypocrisy. And he did so wonderfully in this 1908 novel, a sunny story about love and social convention – this has been called the most readable of Forster's novels. This is a critique of Edwardian restraint. It is also a consideration of expectation and propriety, and how they stand up to genuine feeling and truth. Though the Edwardian era may be an alien world to many modern readers, these themes are everlasting. Do we not still live in a world of people torn between expectation and genuine feelings?

Lucy Honeychurch is visiting Italy, with her prim and proper cousin Charlotte acting as chaperone. And this is the beginning of things. Between the unconventional Emersons – Mr Emerson and his son, George – and her family, Lucy is pulled between social expectation and what stirs in her own heart. Confused by her feelings, she begins to wander down the path that she believes she ought to travel. But signs that this is not the way of greatest fulfillment and happiness reveal themselves.

The heart and truth must win out . . .

At 114 years old, the conventions and hypocrosies that Forster critiqued here might seem dated to the modern reader. But what does not date or become irrelevant is the struggle of trying to bridge the gap between one's inner and outer life. That is something that many a reader can understand. The question of being true to oneself when that might just upset your whole world. 

Forster though, a gay man who lived in a time and place when it was criminal to be so, knew that the heart must win. That truth and real feeling should rise. A world without these, a world of empty ceremony and loveless engagements, is a confusing and suffocating world.

You can purchase a copy of E. M. Forster's A Room With A View here.

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