On The Implications Of Regional Spaces In E. M. Forster’s The Longest Journey

Edward Morgan Forster, who is one of the outstanding novelists and critics in BritishEdwardian period, has enjoyed high reputation in modern English and world literature. TheLongest Journey is E. M. Forster’s most autobiographical novel and the first one set entirelyin the Edwardian England. It concentrates on the life journey of the intellectual Rickie Elliotin Cambridge University, Sawston, and Wiltshire. Since the novel was published, some ofbiographical works about Forster have referred to the three typically British regional spaces.However, there are few comprehensive and thorough researches on them. Combing withForster’s personal experience and social context in Edwardian England, the thesis studies thedifferences and the spatial implications of each space from the perspective of HenriLefebvre’s space theory.As the pioneers of space theory, Henri Lefebvre elaborates that there are physical,mental (or spiritual) and social spaces which are closed related with each other in TheProduction of Space. In his opinion, space is a container of social forces where the socialrelations and social orders can be reconstructed. Lefebvre’s space theory emphasizes the innerrelations of society, people and space as well as the relations of individual and society. Theregional spaces in The Longest Journey are constructed through the description of Rickie’sexperience, feelings, and social interactions in Cambridge University, Sawston, and Wiltshire.They are not only with distinctive physical property and vivid features of individual andsocial psychology, but also show the intellectuals’ reflection on the social conditions. Theintellectuals view Cambridge University in which the liberal humanism is advocated as theirspiritual shelter, Sawston where it is filled with commercial atmosphere as philistine’smercenary market, and Wiltshire as the Utopian Land.This thesis is divided into three chapters. Chapter one analyzes the two prominentfeatures of Cambridge which are the fraternity among intellectuals and the relative freedomcompared with outside world. In Cambridge University, students are in harmonious relationswith each other. Although the world outside school is filled with complexity and disorder,intellectuals can enjoy a rather pleasing spiritual life here. Chapter two concentrates on thedominance of philistinism and the corrosivity of commercial values in Sawston. Money is the only bond of social interaction while morality and liberal humanism are almost neglected inSawston. Chapter three aims to analyze the nostalgia of traditional morality and the utopianvision of future Britain expressed by the rural space Wiltshire. In intellectual’s eyes, Wiltshireis a place of simple and honest morality of traditional England and a symbol of national hopeand continuity. But it will be the one left to suffer the impact of social transformation. In theend, the thesis argues that through the description of multiple spaces, the novel conveys theinsanity and moral predicament in the period of social transformation, as well as expressesForster’s unique humanistic concerns about the dilemmas of intellectual, the inflation ofbenthamism, and the decline of traditional morality in the transitional age.