In E.M. Forster’s A Room With A View, sharp contrasts take the center stage between Cecil and George. Their stark differences are displayed through nature imagery, depictions of Italian and English culture, and foreshadowing to the relationships that they will have with Lucy later.
George kisses Lucy without talking first or asking, showing his spontaneous nature and wilder approach to life, while Cecil makes a long and awkward show of proposing the idea. Cecil’s manner is more representative of the reserved English society, while George’s style is open and impulsive. Both kisses take place in nature, but while Cecil and Lucy are near the house in the restrictive culture of England, George and Lucy are out in the unpredictable society of Italy. When Cecil and Lucy kiss, the word “businesslike” is used to describe Lucy lifting her veil, and epitomizes the entire event: from the unromantic words used, Lucy’s matter-of-fact answer when Cecil asks for permission, and the description afterwards of it as a failure. “Passion should believe itself irresistible,” follows the failed kiss. Because Cecil is
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He has too much self-consciousness to be fully genuine. He is stiff and colorless like a statue instead of soft and nuanced, like a painting. Though he is a classic figure of medieval man that Lucy is interested in, he is too held back by asceticism, the practice of restraint. George, represented by the Greek statue, is the antithesis of Cecil- he is muscular, athletic, and connected with nature through his nudity, the form in which humans first arrive in nature. Cecil is dressed in stiff and restrictive clothing, often with many layers, which prevents him from entering back to the birthplace of man, known to the English and other Christians as Eden. Cecil’s statuesque nature stiffens him from partaking in the fun conversations or exciting parts of life, like traveling or going beyond what she