A Room With A View By Charlotte Bartlett

1240 Words5 Pages

A room with a view follows the romantic and adventurous journey of a girl entering womanhood. Charlotte Bartlett, although not a main character, plays an important role in not only the story line but also the humour of the book. Mentioned in both the first and last pages, she acts as an influential force on Lucy by representing the repressive values of the old Victorians.
Miss Bartlett appears during the key events of the book therefore, is structurally important. It is not left unnoticed that she is mentioned in the first and last pages of the book. The story starts with her words and ends with her influence; Forster has implied her importance from the very first page. Miss Bartlett herself admits to this when she apologises about how she …show more content…

There is the implication that Charlotte does, in fact, have Lucy’s best interests at heart and does not have sinister intentions - as the readers may be lead to believe. “Don’t blame her, please, Mr Eager. The fault is mine: I left her unchaperoned” The idea that she tries to deflect blame from Lucy illustrates the point that she does want the best for her cousin and does not wish any harm. Forster surrounds the word “please” by comma which adds pauses around the word, giving the readers a sense of desperateness. While, she may act as an obstacle in Lucy’s life at times, she helps her at certain points in the novel, including the end when she helps George and Lucy to be together. Without her, this would perhaps not have happened. She acts as a significant influence to what happens to Lucy. She is once again shown to be caring when she envelops “her in a protecting embrace”. This suggests that she is only trying to protect Lucy and wishes to comfort her. Forster gives the readers a different perspective of her character. Her “protective” nature tells us that perhaps she wishes to stop what happened to her from happening to Lucy, which defends certain actions. Forester shows Miss Bartlett in a more sympathetic