You're Becoming Part of the Scenery: an analysis of how Forster uses settings in nature to set the tone for themes and characterization.
Informative Abstract
Foster in his novel Room with a View painstakingly uses settings in nature to set the tone for his three main characters to reveal and elaborate on their true natures. Forster may have characterized the nature of Lucy Honeychurch, Cecil Vyse, and George Emerson through introspection or some other technique but chooses open natural settings to allow his characters to speak for themselves through their actions. Using this technique fills Forster's characters with life and allows us as readers to determine the essence of his characters for ourselves remaining faithful to the art of showing and not telling.
You're Becoming Part of the Scenery: an analysis of how Forster uses settings in nature to set the tone for themes and characterization.
Foster in his novel Room with a View painstakingly uses settings in nature to set the tone for his three main characters to reveal and elaborate on their true natures. Forster may have characterized the nature of Lucy Honeychurch, Cecil Vyse, and George Emerson through introspection or some other technique but chooses open natural settings to allow his characters to speak for themselves through their actions. Using this technique fills Forster's characters with life and allows us as readers to determine the essence of his characters for ourselves remaining faithful to the art of showing and not telling.
The two most memorable scenes in the novel reveal to us the differences in how the two men express their love for Lucy Honeychurch and their desire to be the object of her affection. Each setting reveals the individual character of each man yet both scenes reveal the true nature of Lucy Honeychurch.
While vacationing in Florence, Italy, Lucy goes on a picnic into the countryside with some of the other people she knows from her home in Summer Street, England. The young Italian carriage driver whether he understands Lucy's request to be lead to the clergyman, Mr. Eager is unclear. The carriage driver intuitively understands Lucy's nature and instead takes her to a place that is most fitting of her nature. He picks some violets for her and Lucy thanks him with "real pleasure." Forster then says, "In the company of this common man the world was beautiful and direct. For some time she felt the influence of Spring" (54). The carriage driver leads Lucy to a terrace of scenic beauty.
The ground gives way and Lucy falls on to an open terrace, filled with violets. "From her feet the ground sloped sharply into view, and violets ran down in rivulets and streams and cataracts, irrigating the hillside with blue, eddying round the tree stems, collecting into pools in the hollows, covering the grass with spots of azure foam. But never again were they in such profusion; this terrace was the well-head, the primal source whence beauty gushed out to water the earth" (54). Forster sets Lucy in a place of exquisite beauty for several purposes. The simple purpose is to set up a place for George Emerson to give Lucy Honeychurch a kiss. Secondly, it is not the terrace that is the 'well-head, the primal beauty gushing out of the earth,' but Lucy (54). The third purpose is to place these two people in a setting where they thrive best. Forster develops a beautiful natural open setting that appeals to the heart and the emotions, but he also took this one step further. Forster reveals the season is Spring; The Florence countryside in Spring.
Miss Lavish earlier begged the question "Do you suppose there's any difference between Spring in nature and Spring in man" (55). All living creatures whether man or beast are affected by the gentle nudge of nature to think of procreation and reveal their attraction for the opposite sex. It's nature's way. Forster then draws George Emerson into this elaborate scene to find Miss Honeychurch within her element. Forster reveals that George 'for a moment contemplated her, as one who had fallen out of heaven' (55). Forster paints Lucy into a picture of such beauty that there is a "radiant joy in her face" (54). George observes "the flowers beat against her dress in blue waves" (55). George who is a man by nature not one to withhold his feelings. For George there was no "difference between Spring in Nature and Spring in Man." George is so emotionally moved by Lucy's radiating joy amidst the violets he is compelled by the emotion of the moment to spontaneously kiss Lucy.
Cecil Vyse and Lucy Honeychurch while at Summer Street, England, a suburban setting outside of London, decide to walk through the countryside. Lucy is engaged to marry Cecil and within this open setting both Lucy and Cecil share intimate conversation on their stroll. They stop at a place where there are two possible paths to follow; the road and the wood. Each inquires of the other which path shall we choose. Lucy chooses the road and Cecil states "I'd rather go through the wood" (86). Cecil responds to Lucy's choice with what Forster describes as "subdued irritation" (86). Cecil says to Lucy, "Why is it, Lucy, that you always say the road? Do you know that you have never once been with me in the fields or the wood since we were engaged" (86). The reason why Lucy chooses the road is simple. Lucy thinks this is what Cecil would choose due to his confined, closed, predictable personality and that the road would be most agreeable to his nature. On the other hand, Cecil chooses the wood, because this would be more indicative of Lucy's nature; open, free, and unpredictable. Forster describes Lucy as being "startled at his queerness, but pretty sure that he would explain later; as it was not his habit to leave her in doubt as to his meaning" (86). Note Forster's use of the word "queerness." Cecil's decision to proceed through the wood is not predictable behavior and Lucy intuitively knows that wood is not true to Cecil's nature.
As Cecil and Lucy walk through the wood, Cecil explains, "that you (Lucy) feel more at home with me in a room" (86). Cecil then further explains not just any room, but a "drawing room," a "drawing-room with no view." Cecil is describing himself as a room without a view because of his controlled, closed, predictable, stodgy, boxed-in nature. Cecil is a stuffy controlled environment without a need to express his emotions externally. Cecil has a greater propensity to live his life though thought, logic, and introspection. Cecil continues his dialog and connects Lucy "with a view - a certain type of view." Cecil never describes the view he associates Lucy with but Forster has described many views for us in which Lucy thrives, breathes, and throws off the chains of Edwardianism that shackle her true nature. Lucy is a light, airy, cool breeze with a blue sky and rolling green meadows covered with wildflowers. Lucy's true nature is unpredictable, spontaneous, and free as nature. Lucy's propensity is to live through her emotions and to love with her heart. The title a room, Cecil, with a view, Lucy, and the characterization of the two main characters is a delightfully ironic and witty construction by Forster.
The kiss between Cecil and Lucy is nothing like the kiss between George and Lucy. Cecil desires to kiss Lucy while they are in the wood but because of his confining predictability he makes the moment awkward for both of them. Forster describes Cecil as "becoming self-conscious" and "glancing around to see if they were observed" (87). Forster continues informing us that Cecil's "courage had gone." Instead of just kissing Lucy, Cecil asks Lucy if he can kiss her, which kills any possibility of capturing the spontaneity of the moment. From this moment on every action becomes mechanical and predictable. Lucy blushes to scarlet and with "a business-like" manner lifts her veil. Cecil "as he approaches her finds time to wish that he could recoil." The whole kiss is a complete failure because Cecil will never be able to match Lucy's spontaneity for life. Forster is careful not to develop the beauty of the wood as strongly as he developed the image in Florence. I'm sure that if he had wanted to, Forster could have and this construction may have emphasized the fact that no matter where Cecil was placed in nature he would never be able to open his heart with the freeness that George and Lucy shared.
Forster could have used other literary methods to reveal the characterization of George, Lucy, and Cecil but it is the use of natural settings that establishes a unique way in viewing people. If Forster was to use a different technique the scenes would have not been as memorable nor would they evoke the same emotion from the reader. Living in such close proximity to Baltimore, MD, leads one to ponder would the outcome have been the same for George and Lucy if Forster had set the scene of the kiss in downtown southwest Baltimore or in the Inner Harbor?