Penguin Readers Factsheets Level 6 – Advanced A Room with a View 6 – Advanced A Room Level Teacher’s Notes A Room with a View by E.M.Forster Council for Civil Liberties. From the late 1920s Forster taught at Summary Cambridge University. He spent his last years there and died in 1970. Lucy Honeychurch, a young English woman, and her much older cousin, Miss Bartlett, are on holiday in Florence, staying in a Background and themes pension. They meet Mr Emerson and his son George who offer them their rooms, which have views. The other guests are stuffy English people. Lucy is torn between being conventional, like them, A Room with a View takes the conflict between duty, respectability and freethinking, like the Emersons. She witnesses a murder one and social approval and the desire for passion, freedom and day and George helps her. Then, one day he kisses her satisfaction as its main theme. The novel was published in 1908 passionately in a field of violets. Miss Bartlett sees this and she and when the choices for a middle class, English girl like Lucy Lucy leave Florence, swearing to keep everything a secret. Honeychurch were limited. In the fashion of writing at the time Forster draws a detailed picture of a section of society, its manners In England Lucy agrees to marry Cecil Vyse, a cultured, but cool and its values. He uses characters of various types who illustrate and passionless man. The Emersons rent a cottage in the town how society works, and sometimes why it doesn’t. For example, where Lucy lives and she is anxious her family will find out about Miss Bartlett’s tortured desire to do the right thing provides a sharp George kissing her. George meets Cecil and dislikes him. He contrast to the Emersons’ clumsy honesty. It makes the Emersons kisses Lucy again and tells her that she must not marry Cecil. Lucy appear eccentric within society, when, in fact, they are just straight is angry, but then comes to realize that she longs for freedom, real forward. natural feelings and passion, which an artificial man like Cecil can never give her. She breaks off her engagement and arranges to go The use of a bright and passionate foreign country, like Italy, to on a trip with some friends. illustrate how cold and stifling English society can be is a common theme of English writing. Forster certainly had little time for the The novel ends with Mr Emerson pleading with Lucy to follow her artificial and over-educated people who inhabited much of middle heart. She understands he is right and she marries George. They and upper class Britain. It is a particular aspect of the English novel go back to the pension in Florence to their room with a view. Her to use comedy to show how ridiculous people can be; Eliot, family and friends do not approve, but Lucy does not care. She has Dickens and Thackeray all used it. Instead of attacking people, done the right thing for herself. Forster shows how silly all of us might be. There is much gentle comedy in this novel. Miss Bartlett’s complaints, Miss Lavish’s awful novel, the wild scene by the pool: these things make us smile. About E.M.Forster Above all, Forster is compassionate in his view of all humans. Lucy is one of the most attractive heroines in English literature, a Edward Morgan Forster was born in 1879 into a secure, middle confused young girl longing for love. Cecil Vyse is easy to dislike, class Victorian family. He went to Cambridge University and but his reaction to Lucy breaking off her engagement reveals him traveled in Italy and Greece, using his experiences of typical to have more insight and understanding than we might have English people abroad for his early novels, A Room with a View in thought. Miss Bartlett, a narrow-minded woman who causes so particular. Forster wrote six novels, although one, Maurice, about much trouble, is given a moment of tender friendship at the end of homosexual men, was only published after his death. His most the novel when it is revealed that she possibly brought George and famous novel, A Passage to India, published in 1924, was his last. Lucy together. As usual, the novel criticizes the destructive values of British In its form, A Room with a View closely resembles the novels of reserve and its refusal to face up to the realities of life. In later years Jane Austen from almost a century before. Forster creates a tightly- Forster wrote volumes of short stories and essays, including knit group of characters who move in a small world, and who are Aspects of the Novel, his collected thoughts on what a novel is and concerned with social values and their own feelings. It is a form of how it should be written. the novel that was already being tested by Henry James and would All his life Forster campaigned against censorship and appeared soon be changed radically by James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. at the trial of the publishers of Lady Chatterley’s Lover (D.H. Lawrence) in 1960. He was the first president of the National © Pearson Education Limited 2003 Penguin Readers Factsheets Level 6 – Advanced A Room with a View 6 – Advanced A Room Level Teacher’s Notes 3 Students work in groups. Ask students to think about Cecil’s Communicative activities reaction when Lucy breaks off their engagement. How do they feel about him now? Could he be a good husband to The following teacher-led activities cover the same sections of text another woman? Students write down their thoughts then in as the exercises at the back of the reader, and supplement those class they should discuss their feelings. exercises. Further supplementary exercises, covering shorter Chapters 13–15 sections of the book, can be found on the photocopiable Student’s Activities pages of this Factsheet. These are primarily for use with Students to work in pairs. We do not see Lucy and George meeting class readers, but with the exception of pair/groupwork questions, after her conversation with Mr Emerson. Students should think can also be used by students working alone or in self-access about what might have happened when they did meet, and write a centres. short dialogue. In class the pairs read their dialogues out loud. ACTIVITIES BEFORE READING THE BOOK ACTIVITIES AFTER READING THE BOOK Ask students to think about the title of the book and tell you what Class discussion: The Introduction opens with words about love, they think it might be about. Then tell them to read the extract that and the final paragraph of the book describes love, too. What type opens the Introduction. Put students into pairs and ask them to of love does Forster write about in his novel? Love between two discuss how the extract relates to the title. Does it seem romantic people or something else? Is love the most important thing in the or exciting? Why/why not? Choose two or three pairs to give their world, or are there other things? ideas to the class. ACTIVITIES AFTER READING A SECTION Glossary Chapters 1–3 1 Students work in pairs. Ask students to think of different titles It will be useful for your students to know the following new words. They for Chapters 1–3. Students read their new titles out to the are practiced in the ‘Before You Read’ sections of exercises in the back of the book. (Definitions are based on those in the Longman Active Study class. Dictionary.) 2 Write the words listed below on the board. Ask students to Chapters 1–3 Chapters 4–6 work in groups. What do these words tell them about the cab (n) a taxi bachelor (n) an unmarried man English in Italy? chaperone (n) usually an older woman conventional (adj) without originality, musical instruments electric trams blue sky who accompanies a younger one on a always doing what other people do unlocked tired a smell wander a snack social occasion to see she is safe embrace (n) to hold someone in your charm difficult Excuse me hobby clergyman (n) a minister of the church arms with love or affection despise (v) to think someone is maid (n) a woman servant Chapters 4–6 worthless or is less important than you outing (n) a short trip for fun or 1 Students work in pairs. In chapter 4 how do the following exclaim (v) to cry out, speak with a lot pleasure, usually only for one day people react to the murder: Miss Bartlett, Miss Lavish and of emotion passion (n) a very strong, Mr Eager? What does this tell you about them? Write some gratitude (n) to be thankful to someone uncontrollable feeling sentences for each. Compare some of the sentences in or something porter (n) someone who carries bags class. muddle (n) a confused mess and luggage in a hotel or train station murmur (v) to speak very quietly and respectable (adj) somebody who is 2 In groups ask students to think about George Emerson in softly decent and good in the eyes of society Chapter 5 and Cecil Vyse in Chapter 6. Students should nude (n) with no clothes on villa (n) a large house in the country, or make two lists saying what is the same about the two men pension (n) a small, inexpensive hotel, outside a town and what is different. They should write down as many things usually in Europe Chapters 7–9 as they can.