Inner and Outer Life in E.M. Forsters Maurice - Essay Example

English Literature: ic and Modern Topic: Inner and Outer Life in E.M. Forster’s “Maurice” ____ _____ This essay will explore the concepts of an Inner and Outer life in the Protagonist of the novel “Maurice” by E.M. Forster. THE ESSAY E.M. Forster wrote the novel “Maurice” at a time in which the wide public acceptance of a romantic, homosexual novel, with a happy ending, would have been impossible. Thus the novel was first published only in 1971. Yet even then the novel was from some quarters criticized on a critical, literary level as compared to the other works of Forster, and from a conservative standpoint, critical of its open treatment of homosexual love.(p. 23)4 The plot of the novel traces the development of the personality of Maurice Hall from his first exposure to sex, through the advice of a teacher, Mr. Ducie. The teacher’s claim that: “It all hangs together … Male and Female! Ah, wonderful!”(p. 6) 1 does not convince Maurice, however. The reader is given an insight into the inner thoughts of Maurice when he says, “I think I shall not marry” (p. 7)1 and considers that the lecture is all lies. In a sense, Maurice is already aware of the ethos and morality of his society – Edwardian, conservative, and religious England – and his unrealized sense that he is not part of that dominant culture. This unspoken, unthought-of sense of being an outsider that remains with the character right up to his second year at university, when he meets Clive Durham, and becomes infatuated with him.(p. 45)4 Maurice’s feelings for Durham are described by Forster at their first meeting: “His heart had lit never to be quenched again, and one thing in him at last was real”.(p. 24)1 Despite the fact that Maurice recognizes that his feelings are homosexual, the relationship does not develop into a physical one: the outward perception is that Maurice and Durham are friends, in the traditional sense.(p. 63)2 It is only in Maurice’s inner life that he has realized the truth about his feelings. And when Durham reveals that he is going onto a life of convention, and that he will find a wife to settle with, and marry, Maurice again moves into a period in which he represses all homosexual feelings. While the relationship between Durham and Maurice does survive as a conventionally acceptable friendship between two men, the end of the possibility of real love between them causes Maurice to be near-suicudal.(p67)5 He has not yet, though, recognized the implications of his feelings fully. Forster has created this character as a very typical middle-class Englishman of the early twentieth Century. He is ordinary, and not exceptional in any way. Thus the superficial perception of Maurice at this stage remains intact3 while his inner life only recognizes that he is leading a double life: he is “nothing but falsities” (p. 22)1 and should he continue into life in the manner of Clive Durham, and marry, he will always assume an outer life in direct opposition to his inner life. It is only when Maurice encounters very real, and very powerful physical desire for another man that the full implications of his feelings of difference can be explored. He sees a young visitor who lies “unashamed, embraced, and penetrated by the sun”.(p. 91)1 The conflict between his inner sense that this desire is natural to him, and his external cues from the society around him, including Clive Durham, cause him to seek to avoid these feelings. He visits a hypnotist, in the hope of overcoming his now emotional and physical feelings. In the meeting with the hypnotist, he is guided toward recognizing a woman as the object of his emotional and physical desire – this is not successful but he does continue to deny his real nature. It is only when he is staying at Penge, the ancestral family home of Durham, however, that he has to acknowledge the emotional and physical side of his inner feelings, and spends the night with a gamekeeper, Alec Scudder. It is in this relationship that Maurice is able to make his inner life consistent with his outer. Once he has slept with Scudder, a second visit to the hypnotist proves fruitless, with no effect and the hypnotist’s attempts to put him into a trance unsuccessful: “Nothing happened”.(p. 1114)1 It is clear that Maurice will have to come to terms with his true nature on his own terms.(p. 62)5 It is in this process that the reality of what will have to be sacrificed by the character in order to become authentic is revealed. It is also in this process that Forster reveals more about his perspectives on the society of his day, its attitudes and his responses to those attitudes. The character of Maurice is confined by Forster to being a “handsome, healthy, bodily attractive, mentally torpid man … not a bad businessman and rather a snob: (see the “terminal note” in the novel). Intentionally, though, Forster sees homosexuality as the element that torments, but also saves Maurice. Maurice is saved from middle class society and is able to grow into being his real self. Additionally, he is able to achieve what few people were able to do – to make a real connection with another, even if that means he has to reject society in its totality. Maurice and Scudder “drop out” of society and have to reject its conventions and mores completely in order to live happily together. They are from separate classes; they have differing educational standards; they are perceived completely differently by society – and yet they are able to achieve this happiness, as implied by Forster. Thus, the society in which the novel is set is completely rejected by Forster.(p. 64)2As the characters in the novel see the injustices in society, as a result of their homosexuality, so too must Forster have. Forster is unable to present a society in which attitudes could change, and thus the characters have to escape.(website)3 Forster’s rejection of the class system is also revealed in the connection between these two men – one typifying the ordinary Englishman, the other a working man, relatively uneducated and unsophisticated. In Forster’s own life, he was attracted to foreigners and men from the lower social classes, as is evidenced by his relationship with a foreign train driver and a policeman.(p. 26)4 He was even known to propose that homosexuality could serve a positive social function by destroying barriers between social classes.(p. 27)4 Forster’s conception of “Maurice” was inspired by his visit to Edward Carpenter, a known homosexual of the time, who espoused the type of comradeship ethic written about by Walt Whitman. Carpenter lived with George Merrill, a man of completely different class, social and educational background. Yet these men presented to Forster an ideal, where two men could be true to their natures outside of the conventions of society, and, indeed, independent of society as a whole (see the “terminal note” in the novel). Perhaps almost directly Forster’s experience of the relationship of these two men inspired the retreat of Maurice and Scudder out of the mainstream of society, the class differences between the characters, and the nature of the emotional and physical love between them that he describes. The novel explores a homosexual man coming to terms with his homosexuality in a society which would only in 1967 legalize homosexual relationships.(p.85)5 The conflict between the inner life of this character – which attempts to love according to personal and internal emotions and beliefs – and the outer life – which attempts to ensure that the individual lives in accordance with the norms and morality of a dominant group in society – is presented to the reader. In order to survive the character has to love outside the values of middle class society but Forster shows that there is a world beyond the norms imposed by society.(p. 53)2 In an internal debate, after leaving the hypnotist’s office, Maurice debates with himself internally about what future course is open to him. His words: "The life of the earth, Maurice? Don't you belong to that?" (p. 160)1 imply that there is more available to him than the false restrictions of society. And his words later in the novel to Scudder: “when two are gathered together majorities shall not triumph”(p. 163)1 confirm that sentiment. It is evident that there are very definite elements of Forster’s own thinking in his treatment of the characters in “Maurice”. He was certainly aware of and resentful of the social and political injustice rife in society at the turn of the Twentieth Century. A note from his diary reveals his personal thoughts: “…how annoyed I am with society for wasting my time by making homosexuality criminal. The subterfuges, the self-consciousness that might have been avoided”.(p. 143)5 Maurice, the character, seems to have been engineered to avoid exactly those things within society that annoyed Forster. Similarly to Maurice he also felt a sense of being “at a slight angle to the universe”.(p. 76)5 As an exploration of the internal life of a person opposed to the society of the day, this novel reflects an intense journey to the realization of a true self, and also the acceptance of that self. Maurice, while not being intellectually or politically opposed to his own society, does manage to break its rules completely. He becomes an hero in the sense that he is an ordinary man forced to represent freedom, albeit from outside his society. As an example of the conflict that can exist between the inner and outer lives of people, this novel delivers a message which is universal even today. NOTES AND REFERENCES 1 E. M. Forster (1913 - ) “Maurice” London: Edward Arnold, 1971 (First Publication) Page references from online text available st: www.onread.com/book/Maurice-191403/ 2 Rob Doll (2002) “An Interpretation of E.M. Forster’s ‘Maurice’” in InterviewMagazine, June 2002 3 Genna Rhoswen (2010) “A Brief Interpretation of ‘Maurice’ by E.M. Forster” on website www.yahoocontributers.com (accessed October 27, 2011). 4 Quentin Bailey (2002) “Heroes and Homosexuals: Education and Empire in E.M. Forster” Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 5 June Perry Levine (2008) “E.M. Forster’s Posthumous Fiction” Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Read More