Humanism In A Room With A View

E.M. Forster is regarded as a famous novelist, essayist and critic. In the twentieth-century literature stage, he has established his position with the novel Howards End(1910). Except it, there are five novels in all, Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908), A Passage to India (1920) and Maurice (1914). His literature career as a novelist is not prominent as his essay creation. However, his literature idea and humanistic thinking have been reflected in the novel. He has got influence from the work of Jane Austen and Samuel Butler. His works cover different levels: the story, character's dialogue, author's narration and commentary. He chooses different countries as the main settings in some of his novels. Where Angels Fear to Tread and A Room with a View are settled in Italy and England. In the latter work, Forster focuses on the romantic plot on the one side, and on the other side, he analyses the different culture and its influence on the characters. In the literature critics, Forster's Aspects of the novel is more influential, analyzing characters, setting, plot and other four aspects.This thesis focuses on his work A Room with a View. Compared with A Passage to India, it is not complicated as the latter. However, it is full of meaning on the aspect of human nature. Commentaries overseas on A Room with a View mainly concentrate on its plot and the cultural influence. The inboard literary comment mainly focuses on its analysis of the female character's development and the artistic skills of the novel.On the basis of the previous commentary, this thesis is on the basis of humanism to analyze the humanistic characteristics reflected in the novel.This thesis is divided into five parts. In the first part, four points are included, E.M. Forster's contribution to British literature, Forster's reputation, the brief introduction of the novel and thesis statement. After the introduction, it is the theory that this thesis is based on, including the development of humanism and the characteristic of humanism related to the novel.The thesis analyzes the humanistic features in A Room with a View in the third chapter. There are five subparts in this section, namely, Cecil's falsity and pretension comes first. In this part, by analyzing his behavior and words, the representative of Medieval is presented to the readers. Contrast to Cecil, Mr. Emerson, Freddy, and George are the representatives of honesty and sincerity, which is the focus in the second part. They are not complex persons. And the oppression of humane nature comes next. Miss Bartlett's oppression to Lucy makes her cannot make her own choice. In the last two subparts of the third section, pursuit of art and pursuit of liberty are commented. Lucy and George's pursuit of liberty is against Miss Bartlett, which is the important aspect of human value.The novel not only tells a romantic story, but also relates to the social life in England and Italy. Thus, humanistic influence of the novel upon Western world is analyzed in the fourth part, and also the theme of this thesis. Social influence contains social morality, human nature's reflection and conversation between different culture. The author does not depict British society directly at first, but from the attitude of people to the others, and the Italian relationship is also contained. The novel is set in two different countries. The comparison of different culture is revealed in the third section of this part.In the literary influence, the choice of setting, use of symbols, and the depiction of characters are commented. Forster chooses Italy and England as the setting in the two parts of the novel. And the factor of Renaissance is also contained in Italy. Symbols are the other literary device used in this novel. The depiction of characters through conversation and individual words are the features of literary influence.The last part of this thesis is conclusion. By analyzing the humanistic characters in the novel, humanism is used in this thesis, which is the addition to the literary criticism of E.M. Forster's works. From the point of view of humanism, Forster's humanistic features are analyzed in a detailed way. From the above parts, the paper mainly covers its function of reflecting the humanistic factors in the novel.