Few topics seem better suited to traditional conversation in a Victorian drawing room than that of social class. Written in 1910, EM Forster's Howards End has just enough Victorian influence to concern itself with social class struggles, while being just Edwardian enough for Forster to look out of the drawing room towards the future of England. Throughout the novel, Forster pits the wealthy Schlegel and Wilcox families against the economically struggling Basts. Forster gradually interweaves the three families, blurring social boundaries and using their ultimate confluence to represent hope for a kind of classless utopia in England's future. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayBoth the Schlegel and Wilcox families represent the privileged upper class, with their main contrast being ideology. While the Schlegels adhered to liberal and emotional ideas based on art and literature, the Wilcoxes represented a more traditional and materialistic background. Margaret sums up these ideological differences by remarking of the Wilcoxes: “Personal relationships, which we think are supreme, are not supreme here. There, love is marriage, death, inheritance rights” (18). From the beginning, the Wilcox family is obviously associated with money, with Helen herself instinctively admitting to "associating them with expensive hotels" (1). Although the Schlegels also come from a privileged background, their observations of the Wilcoxes make them fear the threat that wealth poses to their idealism. Helen admits to fearing that behind their money, "the whole Wilcox family was just a wall of newspapers, automobiles and golf clubs, and that if he fell, I would find behind him only panic and emptiness » (17). ). Margaret, too, fears the power of her own wealth, remarking, "You and I and the Wilcoxes rely on money like islands." Last night…I began to think that the very soul of the world is economic and that the lowest abyss is not the absence of love, but the absence of money” (42). Here, Margaret laments society's dependence on wealth, echoing the earlier fear that "this outward life, though manifestly horrible, often seems the real one" because it may not There is in reality nothing behind their wealth other than “panic and emptiness” (18). By uniting the Schlegels and the Wilcoxes through the marriage of Margaret and Henry, Forster attempts to dispel this fear of panic and emptiness, suggesting that as England continues to change, the boundaries between materialism and idealism are blurred. will fade, which will give rise to a society in which “personal relationships” “Social relationships” have as much weight as “telegrams and anger” (18). The ultimate convergence of social classes according to Forster, however, is not possible without his third party, Leonard Bast. Unlike the wealthy Schlegel and Wilcox families, Leonard is “on the extreme edge of nobility.” He was not in the abyss, but he could see it” (31). While the Schlegels fear that wealth will trump their ideals of culture and "personal relationships", Leonard believes that he can only achieve wealth through culture, feeling "compelled to assert his nobility, to fear of slipping into the abyss” (32). However, although Leonard has clear ambitions, his social status continually thwarts his quest for culture, leading him to wonder "how it was possible to catch up with the quiet women who had read regularly since childhood" (27). Throughout the novel, Leonard's interactions with the.