The destructive power of love/the pain of unrequited love
- Love causes weakness and depression in losing it
o Non sum – ‘then falls thy shadow…’ – she makes him
depressed, caesuras, alexandrine verse, Adelaide context,
decadent hedonism and egotism, she is not responsible for his
feelings, feminism – lack of respect for female agency, men
can’t handle rejection
o ARWAV – ‘he will not think it worthwhile to live…’ – light and
dark imagery ‘George had gone away into… the darkness’,
repetition, Forster’s struggles with not being able to love who
he wants, feminism – contrastingly, George respects lucy’s
denial and retreats, not putting blame on her, valuing female
autonomy, and accepting his depression as his own weakness,
not her fault
- Love is not always a unifying and comforting source, and often
isolates and alienates women from society
o Remember – the speaker is abandoned by her lover as she
approaches death, not supported, and left alienated as her
marriage is all she has a woman in the Victorian era –
‘remember me when I am…’ – anadiplosis, pleas, imperatives,
euphemism of death and loneliness, Petrarchan sonnet,
eternal love, yet also unrequited love, inspired by pre-
Raphaelite exploration of femininity, typical of pre-Raphaelite
poetry with the medieval sonnet form and the portrayal of an
emotionally complex woman, and conforms to tradition as
although she is the speaker, she is ultimately passive and
powerless, feminism – no power over her own legacy,
coverture left women with nothing but their husband and love
o ARWAV – lucy is isolated by love as she is forced to suppress it
and retreat into herself as society does not accept cross-class
marriage – ‘love felt and returned… love which is the most
real thing we shall ever meet, reappeared now as the world’s
enemy, and she must stifle it’ – sibilance, stifling sound,
pessimism, personification, power of love to control and
isolate her, ‘lying to’ chapters, war imagery ‘lucy’s first aim
was to defeat herself’, Wagner, Edwardian era clung to
Victorian values, class divide, title shows preoccupation with
status and appearances over substance and real love
, Love as a force of nature
- Love as a force that withstands time and its obstacles
o Sonnet 116 – ‘Love’s not Time’s fool’ – love withstands death,
age, personification, capitalisation, caesura after to
emphasise, iambic pentameter passing of time, sonnet
enduring love, method typical of Shakespeare’s sonnets,
positivity of fair youth, Thomas ledger ‘battered sea mark…’,
alt view of time as the era, withstands convention,
Shakespeare’s sonnet is subversive in its portrayal of a more
equal love, no pronouns or objectification, not conforming to
the patriarchal values of typical sonnets written by men
o ARWAV – ‘George will work in your thoughts till you die. it isn’t
possible to love and to part’ – love is eternal, never fades,
despite separation and denial, progress from the ‘lying to..’
chapters to the end of the novel show despite lucy’s denial,
love is undeniable and will prevail eventually, queer theorist
would assert that lucy’s love reflects Forster’s homosexuality,
and by presenting it as natural and undeniable, Forster
attempts to support his sexuality and show how it isn’t
something that can be repressed, illegal in England
- Love as a transformative force, whether that be negative or positive
o Non Sum – ‘then falls thy shadow…’ – love weakens him,
makes him submissive to a woman, and makes him depressed
– negative transformation – metaphor, caesuras, female
power, alexandrine verse showing decline and French
decadent influence, typical in its perversity with a man weak,
Adelaide’s rejections, feminist assert that she is not
empowered, but villainised in her denials, male egotism, also
typical
o ARWAV – positive in its transformation of lucy to an
empowered young woman – ‘for the first time lucy’s rebellious
thoughts swept out in words- for the first time in her life’ –
repetition, caesura, shift, Wagner, influence of socialism and
love, both parental and romantic, has empowered her,
Edwardian society stuck in the Victorian era, patriarchy and
suppression of women, arranged marriages, Forster shows
potential beyond this with help of socialism
- Love causes weakness and depression in losing it
o Non sum – ‘then falls thy shadow…’ – she makes him
depressed, caesuras, alexandrine verse, Adelaide context,
decadent hedonism and egotism, she is not responsible for his
feelings, feminism – lack of respect for female agency, men
can’t handle rejection
o ARWAV – ‘he will not think it worthwhile to live…’ – light and
dark imagery ‘George had gone away into… the darkness’,
repetition, Forster’s struggles with not being able to love who
he wants, feminism – contrastingly, George respects lucy’s
denial and retreats, not putting blame on her, valuing female
autonomy, and accepting his depression as his own weakness,
not her fault
- Love is not always a unifying and comforting source, and often
isolates and alienates women from society
o Remember – the speaker is abandoned by her lover as she
approaches death, not supported, and left alienated as her
marriage is all she has a woman in the Victorian era –
‘remember me when I am…’ – anadiplosis, pleas, imperatives,
euphemism of death and loneliness, Petrarchan sonnet,
eternal love, yet also unrequited love, inspired by pre-
Raphaelite exploration of femininity, typical of pre-Raphaelite
poetry with the medieval sonnet form and the portrayal of an
emotionally complex woman, and conforms to tradition as
although she is the speaker, she is ultimately passive and
powerless, feminism – no power over her own legacy,
coverture left women with nothing but their husband and love
o ARWAV – lucy is isolated by love as she is forced to suppress it
and retreat into herself as society does not accept cross-class
marriage – ‘love felt and returned… love which is the most
real thing we shall ever meet, reappeared now as the world’s
enemy, and she must stifle it’ – sibilance, stifling sound,
pessimism, personification, power of love to control and
isolate her, ‘lying to’ chapters, war imagery ‘lucy’s first aim
was to defeat herself’, Wagner, Edwardian era clung to
Victorian values, class divide, title shows preoccupation with
status and appearances over substance and real love
, Love as a force of nature
- Love as a force that withstands time and its obstacles
o Sonnet 116 – ‘Love’s not Time’s fool’ – love withstands death,
age, personification, capitalisation, caesura after to
emphasise, iambic pentameter passing of time, sonnet
enduring love, method typical of Shakespeare’s sonnets,
positivity of fair youth, Thomas ledger ‘battered sea mark…’,
alt view of time as the era, withstands convention,
Shakespeare’s sonnet is subversive in its portrayal of a more
equal love, no pronouns or objectification, not conforming to
the patriarchal values of typical sonnets written by men
o ARWAV – ‘George will work in your thoughts till you die. it isn’t
possible to love and to part’ – love is eternal, never fades,
despite separation and denial, progress from the ‘lying to..’
chapters to the end of the novel show despite lucy’s denial,
love is undeniable and will prevail eventually, queer theorist
would assert that lucy’s love reflects Forster’s homosexuality,
and by presenting it as natural and undeniable, Forster
attempts to support his sexuality and show how it isn’t
something that can be repressed, illegal in England
- Love as a transformative force, whether that be negative or positive
o Non Sum – ‘then falls thy shadow…’ – love weakens him,
makes him submissive to a woman, and makes him depressed
– negative transformation – metaphor, caesuras, female
power, alexandrine verse showing decline and French
decadent influence, typical in its perversity with a man weak,
Adelaide’s rejections, feminist assert that she is not
empowered, but villainised in her denials, male egotism, also
typical
o ARWAV – positive in its transformation of lucy to an
empowered young woman – ‘for the first time lucy’s rebellious
thoughts swept out in words- for the first time in her life’ –
repetition, caesura, shift, Wagner, influence of socialism and
love, both parental and romantic, has empowered her,
Edwardian society stuck in the Victorian era, patriarchy and
suppression of women, arranged marriages, Forster shows
potential beyond this with help of socialism
