Essay on Lucy Honeychurch: Moyifs, Thems, Biography, Plot, and Mood, Tone, and Characterizxation.

“A Room with a View”, by Edward Morgan Forster, presents the story of Lucy Honeychurch, a young woman belonging to English high society. Forster places this young maiden in a state of conflict between the snobbery of her class: the “suitable and traditional” views and advice offered by various family members and friends, and her true heart’s desire. This conflict “forces” Lucy Honeychurch to choose between convention and passion and throws her into a state of internal struggle, as she must sift through the elements of her social conditioning and discern them from her true emotions and desires [Ford]. Forster develops and utilizes Lucy’s internal struggle as a means of transforming her from a pretty young woman, to a subtle heroine. Lucy Honeychurch is introduced to the reader as a somewhat pretty young woman, obviously ignorant to the ways of the world, who is being chaperoned by her cousin, Charlotte Bartlett, while vacationing in Italy. Numerous conversations over matters of dress, the acceptability of various pieces of furniture, and other vacations, suggest the snobbish nature of both Lucy and Charlotte. In fact, matters of convention encompass Lucy’s life until George Emerson’s “caddish,’ yet passionate, display of affection takes over. Lucy and Charlotte are both very alike because they hold true the values of upper class English society. Lucy constantly struggles with how she is supposed to act, think, or even associate herself with: most conflictingly George Emerson, a railroad worker of the lower class (Ford). Their union is forbidden by Miss Bartlett by telling Lucy that he is a socialist, that she shouldn’t associate herself with him and just overall patronizing George excessively. Charlotte and Lucy also share the same renouncement of words when they are talking to people to seem more polite. At the beginning of the novel, Lucy is feebly trying to fit in with the members of the upper class by living by certain class values and rules

Cited: Brennan, Carol. "Frazier, Charles (1950-)." Newsmakers. Ed. Laura Avery. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Discovering Collection. Gale. University of Minnesota Duluth. 7 Jan. 2011 Breslin, John B. "Review of Cold Mountain." America 178.3 (1998): 33-35. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 224. Detroit: Gale, 2006. Literature Resource Center. Web. 7 Jan. 2011. Bryant, Cedric -Gael. " 'To rise and bloom again ': resurrection, race, and rationalism in Charles Frazier 's Cold Mountain." The Mississippi Quarterly 62.3-4 (2009): 591+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 7 Jan. 2011. Frazier, Charles. “Cold Mountain.” New York. The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997. Gibson, Brent. "Cold Mountain as spiritual quest: Inman 's redemptive journey." Christianity and Literature 55.3 (2006): 415+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 7 Jan. 2011. Knoke, Paul. "Symbolic Artistry in Charles Frazier 's Cold Mountain." Notes on Contemporary Literature 29.2 (Mar. 1999): 8-10. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism Select. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 7 Jan. 2011. Piacentino, Ed. "Searching for home: cross-racial bonding in Charles Frazier 's Cold Mountain." The Mississippi Quarterly 55.1 (2001): 97+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 7 Jan. 2011. Way, Albert. " 'A world properly put together ': environmental knowledge in Charles Frazier 's Cold Mountain." Southern Cultures 10.4 (2004): 33+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 7 Jan. 2011.