A Room With A View
Mock Exam Review 2012
Essay Question
Techniques (How)
• The novel is narrated in a third-person omniscient tone. Forster's
characters are revealed through both their own dialogue and the
narrative, which tends to probe their thoughts and expose what
they are really thinking.
• The petty snobberies of the pension guests are easily exposed by
Forster's pen, especially regarding attitudes toward the British
lower classes and the Italians.
• Often, Forster gently pokes fun at his characters or belittles them,
showing their fallacies, confusions, and weaknesses as well as their
good intentions.
• Lucy receives much of this inward attention, and most of the other
main characters receive some. However, Forster does not enter the
minds of the Emersons, so these two men appear as mysterious to
the reader as they do to the rest of the pension guests.
Techniques (How)
• Use of dichotomies to bring out the irony; English
vs Italian, Medievalism vs Renaissance
• Allusions to art and music:
• “Art is valuable because it has to do with order,
and creates little worlds of its own, possessing
internal harmony, in the bosom of this disordered
planet. It is needed at once and now”
• Allusions to Mythology: introduces free
spiritedness
Techniques & Principal Focus
• The amusing and at the most annoying and irritating
English preoccupation with propriety and conventions
is presented through Forster’s blunted satire as he
mocks characters, their mannerisms, beliefs and values
subtly and humorously through the:
• extensive use of free indirect speech, in order at once
to access characters’ mental processes and to give
shape to their impressions and emotions.
• The principal focus was on the individual’s dilemma
evident largely from the psychological negotiations
brought to us through free indirect discourse wherein
judgments are cast by the narrator subtly.
Themes / Dichotomies
:
• beauty vs delicacy, private vs public,
• hypocrisy vs honesty, medievalism vs
renaissance,
• nature vs society, truth vs ideals.
Important Passage (e.g.)
• Within the first chapter, Lucy asks Charlotte about Mr.
Emerson, questioning "Have you ever noticed that
there are some people who do things which are most
indelicate, and yet at the same time--beautiful?"
Charlotte responds "Are not beauty and delicacy the
same thing?" These questions form the crux of
Forster's exploration of the nature of beauty and the
ways in which refined society can fail to apprehend a
wilder, less authorized kind of beauty and truth. Lucy
begins to understand that she can harbor a personal,
individual idea of beauty that exists outside of society's
official standards.
Context Question
b)
Florence vs England
• “They were now in the newspaper-room at the
Lucy stood by the central table,
heedless of
, trying to answer,
or at all events to
The
, and there emerged
,a
—were these
the daily incidents of her streets? Was there more in
her
than met the eye—the
,
perhaps, to
, and to
?”
Place and Perspective
• Narrative voice echoes Lucy’s sense of displacement and the
ensuing muddle that begins to form in Lucy’s head through the
third person omniscient narrator who gives his readers insights into
Lucy’s thoughts after she encounters the true
of
Italy.
• Forster creates the
in this passage. The place comes with a perspective:
values, beliefs, prejudices, fears and a character that defines its
people. Florence introduces to the protagonist a real world with the
“good and bad” that is able to “evoke passions” that Lucy is
currently experiencing but unable to voice given the rigid and
uncompromising Middle Class English Conventions. The narration
offers us Lucy’s secret admiration for the “lady” who expresses her
passion “clinging to one man and being rude to another” without
fear. Forster captures Lucy’s secret thoughts artfully through this
narrative device: Free Indirect Discourse.
Florence vs Sussex Weald
• There were letters for her at the bureau—one from her
brother, full of athletics and biology; one from her mother,
delightful as only her mother's letters could be. She had
read in it of the
and breaking the heart of Sir Harry
Otway. She recalled the free, pleasant life of her home,
where she was allowed to do everything, and where
nothing ever happened to her.
over
—all hung before her
as the pictures in a gallery to
which, after much experience, a traveller returns.
Florence vs Sussex Weald
• Forster presents contrasts once again in
perspectives, values, norms and expectations by
providing us with glimpses of Englishness evident
in the description of the landscape that the
narrator provides in such detail but the beauty of
the English landscape is undercut through Lucy’s
response presented through free indirect
discourse “where nothing ever happened to
her”…where everything was “bright and distinct”
but “pathetic”.
• The country of Italy is portrayed by Forster as
containing a “frank beauty” that is at once refined and
majestic (great artwork and architecture) and
pedestrian (its people and countryside). Italy is
"chaotic," and "dangerous," and its unpredictability
opposes the rigidity of Britain and its upper classes.
The influence of this foreign land is seen to challenge
and possibly nullify the usual ties that hold British high
society together. Lucy, though the product of years of
English breeding, is still susceptible to other influences
evident in the questions that are raised in her
concerning “beauty”. A thing of beauty she reckons
must “evoke passions, good and bad, and to bring
them speedily to fulfillment.”
Florence vs Walls of the English Bank
over
Charlotte, who, though
, seemed
; who could
conjecture with admirable delicacy "where things
might lead to," but apparently
as she approached it. Now she was
trying to extract a
circular note from a kind of linen nose-bag which
hung in
round her neck. She
had been told that this was the only safe way to
carry money in Italy; it
be broached
within the
Lucy’s Dilemma vs Charlotte’s Dilemma
• This truthful (frank) narration of Lucy’s deep-seated
thoughts and emotions are contrasted in the following
paragraph with Charlotte’s “Happy” state. Here the
narrative voice mocks and satirises English superficiality
and their concern with the frivolous at the expense of what
really matters. The wry humour at the expense of Charlotte
is evident as the narrator bemuses with mock seriousness
“who could conjecture with admirable delicacy…but
apparently lost sight of the goal as she approached it. Now
she was crouching in the corner …linen nose bag…which
hung in chaste concealment…she had been told that this
was the only safe way to carry money. We are reminded
once again of the comic tension that exists between the
English perspective of “beauty and delicacy”
Charlotte Exemplifies Englishness
• Forster thus provides us with a caricature of
Charlotte amplifying her obsessiveness with
being prim, proper and safe with the high
modality words “must” and “only”. She
preserves her delicacy and chastity at the
expense of living life and exploring the true
Italy, and is about to influence Lucy who is at
the brink of discovering herself through her
encounter in the real Italy.
Englishness & Frivolity
• As she groped she murmured: "Whether it is Mr.
Beebe who forgot to tell Mr. Eager, or Mr. Eager
who forgot when he told us, or whether they
have decided to leave Eleanor out altogether—
which they could scarcely do—but in any case we
must be prepared. It is you they really want; I am
only asked for appearances. You shall go with the
two gentlemen, and I and Eleanor will follow
behind. A one-horse carriage would do for us. Yet
how difficult it is!"
Charlotte shields herself from the real
world
• The preoccupation with the frivolous, who did
what and who goes with whom, is further
reinforced with Forster’s inclusion of direct
speech to highlight Lucy’s secret thoughts
with Charlotte’s self proclaimed “dilemma”.
Lucy allows herself to be touched by
the real Italy
• “Yet how difficult it is!"
• "It is indeed," replied the girl, with a gravity
that sounded sympathetic. "What do you
think about it?" asked Miss Bartlett, flushed
from the struggle,
The Encounter in the Real Italy has
Evoked Thoughts and Emotions
• Forster further highlights in this direct
discourse between Lucy and Charlotte the
humorous yet pathetic situation. Lucy’s sense
of displacement evident in her outcry
falls on
deaf ears emphasizing once again the English
preoccupation with appearances at the
expense of apprehending the beauty in truth
for oneself, outside of society’s standards or
norms.
Exploring beyond Place
• They're
people, the Vyses.
—my idea of what's
Don't you long to be in Rome?"
• "I die for it!"
• The Piazza Signoria is
. It has
,
. By an odd chance—unless we believe in a
presiding genius of places—the statues that relieve its severity
suggest, not the innocence of childhood, nor the glorious
bewilderment of youth, but the conscious achievements of
maturity. Perseus and Judith, Hercules and Thusnelda, they have
done or suffered something, and though they are immortal,
immortality has come to them after experience, not before.
The Fetish for the Untainted (Prim and
Proper)
• Forster mocks the response of the typical English
visitor who is unable to see the beauty of the
place beyond the physical. The narrator satirises
the voice of English supremacy and their acute
disappointment of not being confronted with the
picture perfect evident in glossy travel brochures.
The lack of depth of the English is emphasized
through the repetition of ‘no’. The landscape it
suggests defines peoples’ expectations, values,
beliefs and cultural norms.