Lucy In A Room With A View

The status of women has been an important issue for many years. In the past, the expectation of them was to marry and do simple tasks such as entertaining guests or housekeeping, rather than pursuing their own desires. The result of this was that many women lived boring and unfulfilled lives, as these restrictions prevented them from sharing their ideas or reaching their full potential. The character Lucy Honeychurch is one such woman, and the reader witnesses her transformation as she forms her own identity despite the restrictive society she lives in. In A Room with A View by E. M. Forster, the author uses characterization as the primary technique to advocate his ideas about equality. The author first shows the expectations that are placed upon Lucy throughout the course of the novel and how they affect her. This is seen when she is with her fiancé Cecil. Cecil desires for Lucy to fit his ideal of a woman. When Lucy begins to voice her opinions, he dismisses her saying “charm is in a woman’s mystery, not in muscular rant” (Forester 111). Doing this, he devalues Lucy as a person by discarding her opinions and viewing her as only useful when quiet. Lucy is also burdened by the expectation of continually acting like a lady. Throughout the novel Miss Bartlett and

There are several characters that attempt to force past societal rules onto others, such as Cecil or Mrs. Honeychurch. These types of characters are portrayed by the author as cruel or foolish (Forester 156, 196). Conversely, the characters that treat Lucy equally and give her more intellectual freedom, such as Mr. Emerson and George, are displayed differently. They are shown as kind, knowledgeable, and in some ways enlightened compared to the other characters. In this way, the author associates the old restrictive values as negative and new ideas and open mindedness as positive. Thus he influences the reader to support his views on