A Study Of Lucy’s Transcendence In A Room With A View From The Perspective Of Transcendentalism

Edward Morgan Forster(1879-1970) is one of the most distinguished British writers in the early 20 th century. In all his novels, A Room with a View is the liveliest and the most optimistic one. It is a story about Lucy’s growth from an innocent girl to a mature lady with independent spirit. There are many critics and researchers at home and abroad who have made critical studies on this novel from various aspects, such as feminism, symbolism, humanism, discourse analysis, narrative voice, and so on. However, few of them have ever tried to analyze Lucy’s process of becoming self-reliant in light of Emersonian Transcendentalism.Transcendentalism is Ralph Waldo Emerson’s most remarkable contribution to American literary theories and Romantic literature of the 19 th century, which stresses the importance of reaching the realm of the Over-Soul by becoming self-reliant as an individual. By adopting the Emersonian Transcendentalism as the theoretical guide, this thesis attempts to analyze the process of Lucy’s transcendence from a typical conformist to an independent individual full of self-reliant spirit. In the whole process, although Lucy keeps struggling with mental confusion, she fulfills her pursuit of self-reliance and finds her true self to reach the realm of the Over-Soul in the end.This thesis contains six parts. The first part is a brief introduction of E. M. Forster and his novel A Room with a View which is followed by a critical overview of previous studies both at home and abroad on Forster and the novel under discussion. The second part is about the theoretical foundation of this thesis, which expounds the concepts of Emersonian Transcendentalism chiefly in terms of its origin, major ideas and suggested approaches of realizing self-reliance. The third part aims to explore Lucy’s state of being a conformist unconscious of self-reliance before she gains experience in true reality. The fourth part examines the experience Lucy has gained from three aspects---the community, the significant events in reality, and the nature. The experience from any aspect can be divided into two different kinds. The first kind of the experience makes Lucy a typical conformist of English conventions. The second kind is completely opposite to the first kind, which enlightens Lucy to follow her heart and to be a real individual conscious of self-reliance. These two opposite kinds of experience make Lucy feel puzzled and confused. The fifth part is an interpretation of Lucy’s ultimate fulfillment of Emersonian transcendence. After clearly knowing the nature of Cecil and the innate character of English middle class, Lucy starts to follow her heart and tries to restart her life in her own will. Under the guidance of Emersonian Transcendentalism, and with the help of her deep instinct for self-reliance, she has finally achieved self-reliance and reached the realm of the Over-Soul. The sixth part is the conclusion which generalizes the process from Lucy’s puzzlement to her realization of self-reliance and points out the positive influences of self-reliance on man’s mental world. And in the contemporary world, the Emersonian transcendence still has realistic significance for modern people. The analysis of Lucy’s Emersonian transcendence can inspire people to pay more attention to our spiritual world, since the modern life has been blurring man’s spiritual pursuit.