Sync Narrator: Forster's Ironic Critique Of Economic Ine

The Out-of-Sync Narrator: Forster’s Ironic Critique of Economic Inequality
Although she rarely uses personal pronouns to call attention to herself as a physical character, it is hard to ignore the narrative presence in Howards End that often seems overly harsh and judgmental toward the characters and events being described. If Forster were trying to impart a single moral truth or Victorian ideal on the reader, it would have made more sense to have the narrator’s voice more closely align with Margaret’s growing understanding of the connection between the emotional and the practical, and the inner and outer life. However, in regard to issues such as class and gender, there are numerous instances in which the narrative voice upholds the status-quo
Throughout the novel, one of the many ways in which the Wilcoxes are contrasted with the Schlegel’s is in work ethic. Tibby, the sole living male Schlegel, represents the greatest contrast to the Wilcox men and is a character who receives almost no respect from the narrator. He is seemingly asexual and “untroubled by passions and sincerely indifferent to public opinion” (233). With no other desires than to do well on his mods at Oxford, Tibby is the antithesis of the Wilcoxes, who the narrator sees as the builders of English civilization. Questioning Margaret’s earlier dislike of the Wilcox’s qualities, the narrator asks, “How dare Schlegels despise Wilcoxes, when it takes all sorts to make a world?” (97) While the Schlegel’s may be able to pontificate on meaning in the world, the Wilcoxes are viewed as the ones who actually built it and for this reason, the narrator aligns her traditional capitalist values with a leniency toward them that she does not give to the other
There are many times when she limits her views and outwardly disappears to clarify plot points or describe the thoughts and feelings of the characters. While her judgments range from the flagrant to the very subtle, I chose to focus on the more outrageous moments because that is what I found to be both the most confusing and interesting aspects of her character. From the first sentence of the novel, “One may as well begin with Helen’s letters to her sisters,” it seemed obvious that the narrator was calling into question her role as storyteller (1). This passive construction of this statement made me ask, “Why not begin somewhere else?” and I immediately realized that the narrator is aware of her strong viewpoints that she wants the reader to call them into question. At the end of the novel, when it is decided that Howards End will be left to Helen’s son, we see that the narrator’s social views have fully diminished as the future will be controlled by a new type of person who represents a mixture of the social classes and genders. Forster uses Helen’s son to show that the hyper-capitalist, masculine principles of the Wilcoxes and the narrator will not survive the future of