Queer Phenomenology: Love, Pain, and Truth in E.M. Forster's Maurice (2012)
Undergraduate: Jacob Nouriel
Faculty Advisor: Jordynn Jack
Department: Economics
Love is what Forster values highly, if not most. He calls it "the highest gift" and, with life, "the greatest things." Moreover, love is that which Maurice, Forster tells us, must have, and is for which destined. However, Forster does not make love come without difficulty. R.K. Martin showed that Forster is concerned here with two types of love: one is idealized by involving allusions to fantasy, whereas the other is realistic by incorporating fantasy and the present, represented as the body. Martin concluded that Forster, by the nature of each, rejects the idealized love and accepts the realistic love and that it is through the progression from the former to the latter that Maurice develops. This paper argues that Maurice affirms that the progression is only possible through both an openness to persuasion, to see two sides of a matter, and an examination of each, even if, or precisely because, this endeavor brings pain.