Opening a WindowA Room with a View by E. D. Forster explores the struggle between the expectations of a conventional lady of the British upper class and pursuing the heart. Miss Lucy Honeychurch must choose between class concerns and personal desires.
Honeychurch is a respectable young lady from a well-known family. She travels with Miss Charlotte Bartlett to Italy at the turn of the century. In Italy they meet Mr. Emerson and George Emerson.
George is young man who falls in love with Lucy. Mr. Emerson is an idealist and a dreamer. Only a couple of days after they get to Italy George kisses Lucy while standing in the middle of a waving field of grass.
George does this with out her permission or discussion. Even though this surprises Lucy and backs away she still participates in the kiss that tells the readers that there is something in her heart that drives her toward George. George’s function in A Room with a View is clear: he is a source of passion in a society that is tightly sealed with convention, timidity, and dryness. When Lucy comes home to Britain she is proposed to by Cecil. She accepts the offer because she knows that it is the proper thing to do.
Cecil is an intelligent, well-respected man but lacks the passion that George penetrates. When Cecil attempts to kiss Lucy it is very different than George. He first of all asks permission, then Cecil timidly moves in to kiss her, and lastly his glasses fall off. This example shows the difference between Cecil and George and how Cecil lacks the aggression and desire that George has. Lucy has to make the decision between the mind and the heart. She is torn between Cecil’s world of books and conformity and George’s world of passion and nature.
This decision is not easy for Lucy to make. Lucy came really close to marring the wrong man due to her lack of thought. She has grown up and lived a life of proper existence. However, Lucy possesses passionate qualities they have just been repressed her entire life.
Her only emotion outlet is the piano, in which she prefers dramatic pieces by Beethoven. She plays the piano in order to let out her frustrations brought on by her surrounding characters. Lucy is brought up to be proper and not outgoing or passionate. George will eventually show her how to be passionate and open to new ideas. George is a man that breaks the chains of conformity to free Lucy’s spirit and he does this efficiency.
George kisses Lucy for the second time and he explains that love exists between them. He tells Lucy that she can not marry Cecil because he does not understand women and will never understand Lucy. George also explains that Cecil only thinks that he loves but in actuality only wants her for an ornament. George, on the other hand, wants her as his partner in the great adventure of life. Lucy has lied to herself and to everyone else around her until she is eventually cornered into tearfully admitting her love for George.
A Room with a View is a love story about a young proper women who is engaged to a proper man she does not love, and the frantic efforts a another young man to her see what love is and that she loves him. Lucy struggles between what is expected of her and what she really wants. By the end of the novel, George will have offered Lucy a view out of the window of her life. George will have opened a window for her.
