Maurice By Em Forster ❲Complete • Walkthrough❳

Childhood and upbringing

The novel follows Maurice Hall from his teenage years to his early thirties. Maurice is conventional, decent, and deeply confused. He is a middle-class suburbanite who follows the rules, but feels a “vast gap” between himself and other boys at school. He is not effeminate; he is not “tragic” in the Wildean sense. He is ordinary. And that ordinariness is Forster’s greatest weapon. maurice by em forster

Maurice looked at him—this rough, unlettered man with mud on his boots—and saw, for the first time, the only thing he had ever truly wanted. Not an idea. Not a cure. Not a respectable life. But this . A hand in his. A body beside him. A shared defiance. Childhood and upbringing The novel follows Maurice Hall

The story is a Bildungsroman (a novel of character formation) centered on Maurice Hall. He is not effeminate; he is not “tragic”

The novel heavily critiques the Anglican Church. Maurice is terrified of hell due to his upbringing; Clive uses the Church to sanctify his rejection of Maurice (marrying Anne in a religious ceremony). Forster posits that conventional morality is actually immoral because it forces living people into spiritual death.

At Pendersleigh, Maurice encounters Alec Scudder, the under-gamekeeper. Initially, Maurice views him with classist disdain. However, Alec calls Maurice’s bluff one night, climbing through his window for a sexual encounter. This act breaks Maurice's chaste idealization; for the first time, he experiences physical love rather than just intellectual romance. Maurice panics, fearing blackmail and exposure. He plans to pay Alec off and flee to Argentina. However, in a climactic scene at the British Museum (surrounded by artifacts of an empire that rejects him), Maurice realizes he cannot abandon Alec. He returns to Pendersleigh to find Alec. They reunite in a boat house, and Maurice makes the ultimate decision to abandon his social standing and fortune to live a life of exile with Alec.