A Journey To The Discovery Of A True Self

Edward Morgan Forster is a famous English novelist and essayist of the twentieth century. A Room with a View is one of his earliest novels, and it has become one of his most famous and popular novels. Published in 1908, it was blessed with good reviews. A rich gallery of various characters and their subtle relationships combined with a good deal of humor and gentle satire make this elaborately organized social commentary rich in poetic flavor and full of implications.Lucy Honeychurch, the young heroine of the novel, is vacationing with her cousin, Charlotte Bartlett, a prim old spinster of the English middle-class on a trip to Italy. At the novel's start, she is naive, charming but relatively unformed. The city of Florence she visits challenges many of the values and ideas with which she has been raised. The new experience she undergoes there is greatly different from the culture in Windy Corner, her home back in England. She used to live among the wealthy people and hope life would go on in the way she has been familiar with. The series of events she has experienced in Florence force her to face the real life. She cannot remain unchanged after her encounter with young Emerson, an unconventional and less socially worthy person, in Florence. The young girl's undeveloped heart is awakened by George. She finds herself torn between the expectations of the world in which she moves and the passionate yearnings of her heart. Lucy is not free to confront her own feelings and her emancipation from the influence of narrow-minded conventionality is gradual. Standing out as a contrast with the representatives of narrow-minded middle-class English tourists are the Emersons, two fellow British, who offer her a room with a view of the River Arno at the pension in Italy when the story opens. In the end, it turns out that they help Lucy to adopt a new view of life, which is the key cause of her development. Fulfilling her development through love and her relationships with others, she has learned the importance of expressing passion honestly by the end of the novel. She becomes a strong and independent woman who has gained her new life. She becomes mature in the process of her growth towards self-awareness.This thesis is intended to provide a close reading of how Lucy leaps over the cultural differences through her experiences in Italy and England. The impact of differentspiritual conflicts on Lucy makes her realize the narrow-minded conventionality of English middle-class society. She gradually extricates from the "muddle", gives a truthful response to her own feelings and acquires a full understanding of herself.Forster's idea of "connect" is reflected in the dramatic choice of Lucy between two young men and her overcoming the cultural obstacles. His view of the importance of harmony and understanding in human relationships is stressed.This thesis falls into five parts. Part 1 gives an introduction to the novel and the stage theory employed in explaining the growth model of Lucy. Part 2 makes an analysis of the spiritual clash resulting from her experiences in Florence and the influence of the events on her development. Part 3 is devoted to the changes she experiences in the process of her growth towards self-fulfillment and how she acquires a new perspective of life. Part 4 explores Forster's idea of "connect" reflected in the novel. Part 5 makes a conclusion that it is beneficial to experience different cultures in one's growth and it is important to have a full understanding of the world.