A Male Sympathizer Of Feminism: E. M. Foster And His Characters

Edward Morgan Forster (1879-1970), one of the most distinguished British novelists of the 20th century, has created many vivid characters in his works. This thesis is inspired by feminism and analyzes the characters in A Room with a View and A Passage to India from the perspective. Foster shows his sympathy for feminism by molding some new women characters struggling for selfhood and emancipation. Lucy Honeychurch, Adela Quested and some Indian women are representatives of such kind of women with feminine consciousness. At the same time, Foster creates many men characters with patriarchal ideology, such as Cecil Vyse, Mr. Beebe, male Anglo-Indian and Aziz, who oppress and marginalize women. Foster is also aware of some conventional women accepting patriarchal ideology, such as Miss Charlotte Bartlett, Mrs. Honeychurch, Miss Lavish and Mrs. Hamidullah. Their existence, like that of the men with patriarchal ideology, is an obstacle for those fighting women to overcome. Through the analysis of these characters, the central argument of this thesis is presented that E. M. Foster is a male sympathizer of feminism.