He seeks a cure from a hypnotist, asking, “What’s the name of my trouble? Has it one?” The hypnotist replies: “Congenital homosexuality.” This is the first time Maurice - and Forster’s readers - can name his condition and appreciate the legal obstacles preventing men from being part of a couple in England.įorster refused to end this uneven but intriguing novel as a tragedy. Maurice is devastated and profoundly lonely. Clive declares that he has “become normal,” finding himself attracted to women and choosing to marry. Their relationship lasts three years and is never sexually fulfilled. Unprotected against the deep feelings love inspires, Maurice falls hard for Clive, a fellow student at Cambridge. Given time, it can know and impart ecstasy given time, it can sink to the heart of Hell.” Once gripped, it feels acutely, and its sensations in love are particularly profound. “Its instinct is to assume that nothing either for good or evil has happened, and to resist the invader. “A slow nature such as Maurice’s appears insensitive, for it needs time even to feel,” Forster wrote in the novel. This characterization allowed him to plumb the depths of a person not particularly well suited to introspection. He cast Maurice as a person in every way comfortable and average except in his sexual desires.

He kept his sexuality private, fearing professional and legal repercussions.įorster wondered, in this novel, what it might be like to make a different choice. Forster, like Maurice, was gay and struggled to understand and accept himself. In this work alone, Forster explored the inner life of a male character who slowly grows aware of his sexual attraction to men. The one novel Forster chose not to publish in his lifetime was Maurice, which he wrote in 19. His compelling characters and their emotional dilemmas have kept the novels fresh for generations of readers, even inspiring film adaptations. In each of these novels, Forster explored psychological and political tensions related to sex, race, gender, and class. Best known and loved are A Room With a View, Howards End, and A Passage to India. Forster (1879-1970) wrote six novels and published five of these between 19.

Alec william di canzio