Gender, Class And Race

Edward Morgan Forster (1879-1970) was one of the most important novelists in the history of British literature in the early half of the20th century, bridging the late Victorian and early modern periods. In the course of his lifetime, he wrote six novels: Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908), Howards End (1910), A Passage to India (1924), and Maurice (1971), which as Forster noted, was begun in1913and finished in1914.This thesis is an analysis of spatiality of gender, of class, and ethnicity based on the text of Forster’s novels. The aim of the present thesis is to enrich the interpretations of Forster’s novels and enable readers, from an entirely new perspective, to better understand and appreciate Forster and his novels.This thesis consists of seven parts. Chapter one gives a brief introduction to E. M. Forster and his novels, moves to a general survey of studies on Forster’s novels at home and abroad, and then points out the focus and the structure of this thesis. Chapter Two provides the spatial theories as the theoretical framework for the analysis of Forster’s novels. Chapter Three focuses on the space of middle class female, analyzing their power relations in domestic space and leisure space. Chapter Four discusses the space of middle class male, paying attention to their domestic space, work space and leisure space. Chapter Five probes into the space of homosexual, explores their external existence and internal sufferings in domestic space, school space, leisure space and connection space. Chapter Six emphasizes on the space of Anglo-Indian and Indians, focusing on racial discrimination and connection in work space and connection space. After a summary of what has been discussed in the previous chapters, the present author draws the conclusion that, through the novels, Forster explores the operation of power in and through space in the communication between the middle class and people of different genders, classes and races.