Mudanças e transições na Inglaterra no século XX em Howards End, de E. M. Forster

Abstract

This master´s dissertation completes a historical-literary analysis of the novel Howards End, written by the English novelist E. M. Forster. The first chapter presents the author´s life, as well as his travels abroad and novels published. Secondly, we analyze the narrative; emphasize the facts, characters and symbolic elements described by the author. Finally, the third chapter, we compare Howards End with On Beauty by Zadie Smith, approaching the facts, characters and symbolic elements written in these works. Howards End was published in 1910 during the Eduardian time, when the Victorian era is over. There was a conflict in England during this time of intense transition between the “new” and “old”, since England has no longer control over its colonies and political and economic questions in Europe seem to increase with totalitarian regimes in German and Italy. In the narrative, there is a resistance to the new changes represented by the sisters Schlegels who are intellectual and emancipated, daughters of an English mother and a German father. On the other hand, the impositions of traditions represented by the clan Wilcox, as well as the integration of another nucleus, the Basts, originally proletarians in that society. The initial conflict begins when the matriarch of the Wilcox, for a symbolic gesture of friendship, decides to leave her old cottage house, Howards End, to the old sister (Margaret), without letting her know about this decision. The families have their paths crossed with that conflict which is the core of most parts of the novel of E. M. Forster, as he seems to suggest that personal relationships represent the only possibility to comprehension of a chaotic world.