Exiled Love: Maurice From The Perspective Of Queer Theory

E.M. Forster was a novelist, literary critic and humanist thinker famous in England inthe first half of the20th century. As a cross-century writer, he had seen a great deal of life,experienced great changes in the fields of politics, economy, culture, etc. in the Britishsociety and two world wars. He wrote six novels, two collections of short stories, severalbiographies and a number of review articles. Of all his novels Maurice is a classichomosexual novel and just because of this theme, it is controversial. E.M. Forster has a deepthought over homosexuality in this heterosexual society. What he expressed in this novel isbeyond the boundaries of his times.Shortly after E.M. Forster’s death, queer theory as a new theory about sex and genderemerged and now it is prevalent in the west. After several decades of development, it hasdeveloped into a new cultural theory. Queer theory is not like what it has been mistaken for,an advocacy and preaching of homosexuality, it actually contains not only malehomosexuality and female homosexuality in traditional sense, but also transvestism,hermaphroditism, denaturation and the so-called “the third gender” phenomenon. Its corelies in the questioning of heterosexual hegemony. In E.M. Forster’s novel Maurice what isadvocated is the opposition to the strict dichotomy of homosexuality and heterosexualitywith the aim of eliminating the prejudice against sexual identity and of pursuing freedomand social harmony.With the help of Forster’s own experience the thesis aims at analyzing homosexualityand heterosexuality in the novel from the aspects of cultural and social background under theperspective of queer theory and finding certain agreement between queer theory andForster’s view on homosexuality and heterosexuality.The thesis is made up of four parts. The first part is the introduction. It is a briefintroduction of the works of EM Forster and the literature review of Maurice. Then itelaborates on the formation, development and the main idea of the Queer Theory.The second part is Chapter1, mainly introducing the concept of sex in the patriarchalsociety, including two sections. The first section describes the formal formation anddevelopment of the homosexual and heterosexual concept in the patriarchal society, as wellas the social status quo of homosexuality in the heterosexual society. The second section isthe social background of the novel Maurice.The third part is Chapter2, mainly listing two kinds of love: the homosexual love andheterosexual love in the novel.The fourth part is Chapter3, focusing on the novel’s exploration of homosexuality fromthe perspective of the Queer Theory.