Howards End: "Who Shall Inherit England?" Beatrice Craig
For my house presentation, I chose Howards End (1910) by E. M. Forster. Set in England around the turn of the 20th century, this novel focuses on three families—the Schlegels, Wilcoxes, and Basts. Through their interactions with each other and their respective homes, we get a sense of the irreconcilable class struggle of the time. Though Forster’s writing was often quite funny, he provided perceptive and fastidious analyses of class, modernity, social fragmentation, and gender.
The titular estate is heavily inspired by Forster’s childhood home, Rooks Nest in Stevenage, England. Previously owned by the Howard family—where the estate and thus the novel found its title—this estate is just north of London and still stands today, decorated with a commemorative plaque of Forster’s time there. Surrounded by acres of what used to be farmland, there is an obvious distinction between this pastoral setting and the metropolitan London scene. Spending some of the first ten years of his life here, Forster said of the estate, “From the time I entered the house at the age of four… I took it to my heart and hoped…that I should live and die there.” Though the furnishing of the house today is quite provincial, we can see from this quote why he was inspired to write a novel centered around it.
In Forster’s eyes, this estate was a symbolic, idyllic place. As such, when he began writing his novel, it was not so much the physical house that inspired Howards End, but rather what the house embodied. At the time the novel was written—from 1908 to 1910—England was near the start of a transitional period between the Victorian age and the Edwardian age. Though this had plenty of social ramifications, it had an interesting effect on the housing market. Because Victorian styled flats were cramped and outdated, whole blocks would be knocked down to make way for the new Edwardian style, decked out with “modern conveniences.” Whether or not this change was for the better, it signaled the transition toward Modernity, something which many people—including Forster—seemed to question. This movement toward urbanizing was largely promoted by the kinds of “die-hard capitalists” Forster met in London during his uni years, the likes of whom inspired the Wilcox family in the novel. This change in ethos is at the heart of the Wilcox versus Schlegel disparity.
As such, Forster poses Howards End as this physical embodiment of the past and present of England. Mrs. Wilcox, the original owner of the estate, is the only character to fully understand the power of the estate, often describing it as a life force. Though her husband represents the materialism and capitalism of the modern age, she represents the placidity and spirituality of old England. After her death near the start of the novel, the narration discloses “To them Howards End was a house: they could not know that to her it had been a spirit, for which she sought a spiritual heir” (Forster 111). Just as Forster felt this great nostalgia for Rooks Nest, Mrs. Wilcox assigns her home a spiritual power. Margaret Schelegel is the only other character to even begin to see the estate in this light; “She recaptured the sense of space, which is the basis of all earthly beauty, and, starting from Howards End, she attempted to realize England” (Forster 233). However, the quote goes on to say that Margaret was not able to “realize England.” To me, this has great implications on Forster’s understanding of the class dynamic of England.
This is the first time the novel puts into words the question around which the novel focuses: who shall inherit England? Though this isn’t explicitly answered, the ending seems to point in favor of diluting class barriers. Despite Mr. Wilcox Sr. and Jr. attempt to keep the estate within the family—ignoring Mrs. Wilcox’s explicit desire for Margaret to inherit it—the families are forced to come together and determine who should receive it. This ending suggests that the only way for anyone to “inherit England” is for the class barriers to become diluted.
Though Howards End is the titular estate, very little of the novel is set at the house, though it continuously embodies the novel’s dream for England. Rather, most of the plot unravels at the Schlegel family home, Wickham Place. A Victorian style apartment in London, Wickham Place presents a very different lifestyle than what Howards End does. It isn’t until the flat is set to be torn down by the housing committee to be replaced by a more contemporary set of apartments that the Schlegels—Margaret in particular—realize how much of their identity will be lost with the house’s destruction. In this, Forster characterizes homes as containers for memories and selves, rather than material architectural structures. This conflict also reinstates Forster’s argument that modernity, despite all its benefits, undeniably involves the erasure of prominent parts of cultures past.
As such, this is the conflict present in Forster’s novel: how do we bridge the gap between the past and the future, the countryside and the city. Or, as it is famously put in the novel, “Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its highest. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect!” By using each family’s respective homes as the battleground for the novel’s conflict, Forster characterized houses as representations of society’s fundamental sentiments.
Ashby, Margaret (1991). Forster Country. Flaunden Press. ISBN 0951824201.
https://academic.oup.com/camqtly/article/50/2/159/6276036
https://interestingliterature.com/2019/12/revisiting-howards-end-notes-towards-an-analysis-of-forsters-novel/
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