The Vision Of Connection In Howards End,Nice Work,and On Beauty

First proposed by Forster in Howards End as a literary motif,the vision of connection concerns substantial social transformation and the ensuing cultural crisis.It has remained the backbone of intellectual thinking throughout the century,undergoing re-visits within various social contexts to examine the cruxes of each era and provide possible solutions.In light of the shifting focus of cultural studies,this thesis intends to scrutinise the vision of connection portrayed in E.M.Forster’s Howards End,David Lodge’s Nice Work,and Zadie Smith’s On Beauty,focusing upon the particular disconnections and the underlying causes,intellectuals’striving in their pursuit of connection,and the ultimate dilemma of connection presented in the three novels.This thesis is composed of five chapters.Chapter One sketches an overview of the three authors and their works,provides a literature review,and introduces the definition of"connection" as well as the ideas of three cultural critics,namely Matthew Arnold,Raymond Williams,and Stuart Hall,as the primary theoretical references.Chapter Two focuses upon the antithesis between culture as "inner life" and industrial civilisation as "outer life" during the Edwardian era in Howards End.Resorting to the Arnoldian idea of Culture as the harmonious and general perfection",Forster attempts to balance the spiritual and the material on both individual and social levels,which eventually culminates in pastoral escapism.Chapter Three explores the alienation between the intellectual and the general public against the backdrop of Thatcherism in Nice Work.Echoing Williams’s promotion of a "common culture",Lodge foregrounds education as the crucial means to ameliorate the division between different social groups,which remains an unfulfilled idealism due to the elitism of higher education.Chapter Four surveys the conflict between the local and the global under post-colonial context in On Beauty.Addressing the tension between "difference"and "equality" emphasised by Hall as the multicultural predicament,Smith foregrounds art as the aesthetic and ethical bond to establish connections between and within races,which ultimately falls into the pitfalls of cultural hegemony.In view of the earlier chapters,Chapter Five concludes the shifts of the vision of connection and the transitions of intellectuals’ expectation towards culture’s social position throughout the three novels,shedding light upon the development of intellectuals’ awareness of the necessity of openness and inclusiveness in order to deal with the substantial social transformation.Despite the utopian nature of the vision of connection illustrated in the three novels,it is the unrelenting self-reflection and the unwavering will for a more harmonious society that contribute to the stronger momentum for future intellectuals’ ongoing endeavour to cross boundaries and their unremitting pursuit of a better realisation of connection.