UNDER THE SAME ROOF: RECONCILIATION OF THE OPPOSITE ENDS IN E. M. FORSTER’S HOWARDS END

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47333/modernizm.2021171846

Keywords:

E. M. Forster, Howards End, Reconciliation, Opposite Ends, Social Class, Cultural Inheritance

Abstract

The twentieth century marks the beginning of a new period in England during which the norms and the traditions pertaining to the Victorian age start to be questioned. While the echoes of this change have been audible from the 1890s onwards, they reach their climax with the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 because it announces not only the physical death of the Queen but also the symbolic death of the Victorian mindset. With the reign of King Edward VII, therefore, the literary texts of the period illustrate a liberal outlook that questions the outdated ideals of the previous era. Within this context, this article examines E. M. Forster’s Howards End (1910) by foregrounding and analysing the clash between the ideals of the past and those of the present, which in the wider perspective demonstrates Forster’s modernist agenda to go beyond the strict dualities and to introduce a totally fresh synthesis. Epitomising the cultural inheritance of the country, Howards End is more than a house; it represents the future of England. Thus, it is important that Howards End should function as a unifying force that will bring these opposite ends together – as represented through different socio-economic classes embodied through three families whose lives get connected to one another at the end of the novel. Thereby, Forster aptly weaves the stories of the Schlegels, the Wilcoxes, and the Bast family by counterbalancing the intellectual and the material; the spiritual and the physical; the feminine and the masculine; the past and the present, and he presents a modern synthesis that, he believes, will shape England in the future.

Author Biography

SEÇİL ERKOÇ, Inonu University

Seçil Erkoç received her B.A. (2010) from the Department of Western Languages and Literatures at Boğaziçi University. She had her M.A. degree (2013) in English Language and Literature Department at İstanbul University, with her dissertation entitled “Deconstruction of the Self in Aldous Huxley’s Island and John Fowles’ The Magus.” During her graduate studies she worked at İstanbul University, and then at Hacettepe University where she got her PhD from English Language and Literature Department in July 2020 with her dissertation entitled “‘Out of the Maze of Dualisms’: Posthuman Space in Mario Petrucci and Alice Oswald’s Poetry.” Since 2018 she has been working at the Department of Western Languages and Literatures at İnönü University. Her research interests include Contemporary Nature Poetry, Ecological Posthumanism, English Novel, Comparative Literature, Contemporary Literary Theories and Criticism.

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Published

2021-09-25

How to Cite

ERKOÇ, S. (2021). UNDER THE SAME ROOF: RECONCILIATION OF THE OPPOSITE ENDS IN E. M. FORSTER’S HOWARDS END. JOURNAL OF MODERNISM AND POSTMODERNISM STUDIES (JOMOPS), 2(1), 151-163. https://doi.org/10.47333/modernizm.2021171846

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ARTICLES