A Room with a View

“Built by faith indeed! That simply means the workmen weren't paid properly.”

In the Santa Croce Cathedral, Mr. Emerson speaks over Reverend Eager's lecture to point out the flaws in the man's thinking. While the priest is eager to credit the great artworks to “faith” alone, Emerson insists that the “workmen” are due their credit. His intrusion into the lecture is a demonstration of why his actions offend the middle-class English people. His comments are not incorrect, but the uncouth manner in which he frames them causes the same middle-class people to confront the prospect of income inequality. They would rather exist in their comfortable bubble of etiquette and wealth than imagine a world where rude, working-class men like Emerson are properly compensated. He functions as a dreadful harbinger of an uncouth socialist future.

“They don't understand our ways. They must find their level.”

In the hotel, the common consensus amongst the middle-class English guests is that the Emersons are very much outsiders who don’t understand “[their] ways.” A clear differentiation is made between “them” and “us,” a differentiation drawn along class lines and one that is innately understood by everyone. No one offers a dissenting voice to this class distinction because the understanding of class is so deeply engrained in the Edwardian middle-class consciousness.

“Their mission was to inspire others to achievement rather than to achieve themselves.”

The women in Edwardian Britain are marginalized, to the point where they have internalized society's misogyny and repeat it verbatim. Charlotte lectures Lucy on the role of women in society: Even though she is a woman, Charlotte cannot imagine a world where she is to achieve anything herself. Ironically, Charlotte's lonely existence has done little to inspire anyone, and she has few achievements of her own. She may preach to Lucy about misogynistic gender roles, but conforming to society’s expectations has not made Charlotte happy.

“The river was rushing below them.”

After witnessing the stabbing and growing closer to George, Lucy walks with him beside the Arno. The river rushes below them, a metaphor for the emotional turmoil that Lucy is experiencing (see: Symbols & Motifs). Between the violence of the stabbing and the complex intensity of her interest in George, Lucy feels like the rushing river. Her world is quick and transitory, constantly moving in a dizzying rush that is impossible to hold back.

“To one who loves the Florence of Dante and Savonarola there is something portentous in such desecration—portentous and humiliating.”

Eager lectures people about morals and ethics, preaching the need for a conservative and restrained society. He highlights Savonarola as an example of how people should revere history and Italian culture, something that—he believes—is impossible for working-class people to do. Ironically, Savonarola was a preacher in Renaissance Florence who preached a similar message. He decried the decadent sexual debauchery of the Florentine people and, a short time later, was burned alive in the same square where Lucy saw a man stab another man to death. Eager arrogantly assumes himself to have an idea of Florence that is undermined by the events of history: In the Florence he claimed to love, men with his morals were executed in public.

“Happy Charlotte.”

Lucy bridles under Charlotte's oversight. She uses the phrase "happy Charlotte" (61) to refer to her cousin, seemingly mocking Charlotte’s lack of purpose or love in her life. Charlotte has nothing to make her happy, so she clings to the status quo and her understanding of social etiquette as a way to give structure and meaning to her life. Lucy's sarcastic use of the word "happy" (61) suggests that she has identified the status quo's failure to make Charlotte happy and the way in which the same status quo and sense of proprietary may deny her happiness in the future as well.

“Some critics believe that her garden was the scene of The Decameron, which lends it an additional interest, does it not?”

Eager again shows the shallowness of his character when acting as a tour guide. He speaks from inside the carriage, boasting that an acquaintance's garden may have been the setting for Boccaccio's medieval story collection, The Decameron. In The Decameron, the characters tell each other stories filled with sex and immorality. Many of the stories mock the clergy. If anyone in the carriage were to tell any of these stories, then Eager would be deeply offended and scandalized. When he has the chance to brag and show off, however, he is proud to align himself with a literary work that is packed full of the very subjects he claims to abhor.

“Dove buoni uomini?”

In her rough Italian, Lucy asks the carriage driver to help her find “good men.” She is searching for Beebe and Eager, but the carriage driver takes her straight to George. Her question is a subtle comment on her lovelorn struggles: Lucy is not searching for romance and actively tries to disentangle herself from George, but the carriage driver takes her to the only “good man,” rather than the ones she has deluded herself into trying to find. George is a good man, even if he may not be a suitable man. In this sense, he is exactly the kind of man that Lucy asked the driver to help her find.

“It is so hard to be absolutely truthful.”

In an ironic quirk of Edwardian society, Lucy is encouraged to either lie or withhold the truth about her feelings in the name of propriety. In this sense, the entire society is built on a foundation of mistruth. Meanwhile, men like George and his father speak their minds, and they are unreserved about telling uncomfortable truths, marking them out as unfit to inhabit the same society. Learning to exist in Edwardian Britain is a case of learning how best to withhold the truth from everyone else.

“I promessi sposi.”

Cecil chooses to announce his engagement to Lucy's family by referring to a classic Italian novel, I Promessi Sposi. Translated as The Betrothed, the novel tells the story of two young lovers in 1600s Lombardy who endure plague, war, and separation. Cecil is so embedded in the class and etiquette system of Edwardian society that he is scared to express a sincere emotion. Instead, he cloaks his emotions in pretentious references and allusions that are not understood by either Mrs. Honeychurch or Freddy. Furthermore, Cecil’s reference to I Promessi Sposi shows the extent to which he has misunderstood his relationship with Lucy: She does not love him, and their bond is almost the complete opposite of the one portrayed in Manzoni's novel. Not only is Cecil's choice of words murky and unclear, but it also reveals his vapid understanding of his own existence.

“She was like a woman of Leonardo da Vinci’s.”

When Cecil tries to conceptualize Lucy, even his complimentary thoughts are possessive. He thinks of her as a painting, an object, a product that belongs to a man. In comparing her to a subject in Leonardo's paintings, he frames her as a flat and beguiling piece of art rather than as a person in her own right. As George will later comment, Cecil is incapable of truly understanding anyone else, least of all women.

“But it is such an awkward size. It is too large for the peasant class and too small for any one the least like ourselves.”

The house made available for rent is a physical manifestation of class awareness. As they stand outside it, the middle-class English people all understand that the house does not fit neatly into their preconceived notions of class. They cannot abide the idea of a working-class person being able to live in a large house, nor a middle-class person being made to live in a small house. As a result, a house of this size is a problematic challenge to the status quo of Summer Street.

“Life, so far as she troubled to conceive it, was a circle of rich, pleasant people, with identical interests and identical foes. In this circle, one thought, married, and died.”

Lucy's trip to Italy has awakened her to the true state of her society. After spending most of her life in a small, fairly rural middle-class community, she has come to regard her pleasant life as a prison. This prison is populated by people with the exact same interests, beliefs, and class status. The only escape, she imagines, is death. For all their rich and pleasant demeanors, Lucy has come to see these people and this community as something from which she must escape if she is to be happy.

“Make her one of us.”

Cecil's mother tells him to make Lucy "one of us" (131). Her request suggests that class is neither as fixed nor as immutable as many of the characters choose to believe. To move up the rigid class structure, Lucy must be taught more refined manners and opinions. Her material condition will not change. As such, the notions of class boundaries are social constructs more than reflections of actual wealth. Lucy can move up in the class system by changing her behavior, rather than her wealth.

“Marriage is a duty.”

Emerson is an advocate for social change in Edwardian society, but his perspective can seem distinctly unromantic. Emerson claims that marriage is "a duty" (135), rather than a celebration of love between people—a claim that removes the passion of marriage and turns it into an obligatory institution. Following his wife's death, Emerson may seek to deny the existence of romance, passion, or love in his life. In reality, this perspective of marriage is just as conservative as that of the middle-class elites, as both deny the importance of love with regard to the institution of marriage. Emerson, however, will advocate for a marriage based on love at the novel’s end, when he urges Lucy to follow her heart by marrying George.

“Everything is fate.”

George claims to Beebe that "everything is fate" (136) and, in doing so, he removes any responsibility around his actions. He is not responsible for kissing Lucy, nor is he responsible for any romance that blossoms between them, as such events would be predetermined by fate and placed out of his control. As a working-class man in a middle-class community, George already feels marginalized and lacking in agency. He extends this feeling of disenfranchisement to fate itself.

“Nothing roused Mrs. Honeychurch so much as literature in the hands of females. She would abandon every topic to inveigh against those women who (instead of minding their houses and their children) seek notoriety by print.”

Like Charlotte, Mrs. Honeychurch has internalized the misogynistic ideals of Edwardian society. She has accepted the prevailing ideas about women's diminished role in society, to the point where the thought of a female novelist actively angers her. Rather than having any artistic ambitions or accomplishments, she believes that such women only crave "notoriety" (147). People in this misogynistic society can only conceive of someone battling against gender stereotypes as a self-important person who craves fame, rather than as a sincere believer in equality or social justice.

“It sometimes seemed as if she planned every word she spoke or caused to be spoken; as if all this worry about cabs and change had been a ruse to surprise the soul.”

Throughout the novel, Charlotte occasionally finds ways to manipulate those around her without compromising her belief in social etiquette. Charlotte dares not discuss certain topics, nor speak about certain matters in front of certain people. By manufacturing a scene involving "cabs and change" (155), however, she is able to get Lucy into a private position to have a much-needed conversation. Charlotte lacks agency in society—a marginalization that she supports—but she can subtly manipulate social expectations in her own unique way.

“It was the old, old battle of the room with the view.”

The “room with the view” is a contentious representation of the friction between social classes. In Italy, the dispute of whether or not Lucy and Charlotte should accept the Emersons' offer of a room change was the product of centuries of social conditioning. Edwardian society and its class-based ideals come to a head in the conversation in the hotel, meaning that the "old, old battle" (163) is far more than a recent spat over a room swap. The battle has been raging for longer than the characters have been alive, and none of them can envision it ever ending.

“Everyone writes for money in these days.”

Cecil criticizes modern literature on the basis that writers want to be paid for their work. This criticism comes from a person who is wealthy enough that he does not need to work and who makes jokes about his disdain for any form of labor. As such, Cecil's views on literature and art are rooted in his material condition. As a wealthy man, insulated from the practicalities and anxieties of the world, the thought of doing anything for money seems—to him—gauche. His true love is the thought of being protected from the idea of needing to work for money; classic literature does not threaten his conception of social class by reminding him that people want to be compensated for their labor.

“He should know no one intimately, least of all a woman.”

George criticizes Cecil as emotionally distant and incapable of truly “knowing” anyone. He uses the term "intimately" (177) in the emotional rather than the romantic sense, as he does not believe that Cecil has the empathy to truly acknowledge another person's feelings as sincere and valid. This resonates with Lucy, who feels distant from Cecil. She knows that he is right, which is why she paraphrases George while ending her relationship with Cecil.

“I’m the same kind of brute at bottom.”

After listing Cecil's many faults, Lucy points out George’s hypocrisy. George, she says, is guilty of many of the same mistakes. In this moment, however, George reveals why he is different from Cecil—he accepts Lucy's rebuke and recognizes his own flaws, something that Cecil could never do. George is self-aware with the capacity for reflection, differentiating himself from Cecil by accepting criticism from a woman.

“I cannot break the whole of life for his sake.”

In debating a relationship with George, Lucy must choose between love and social etiquette. To marry George would be to "break the whole of life" (216), as marriage to a working-class man would fundamentally upend her middle-class existence. Lucy must sacrifice her role in society in exchange for love, or accept that love is impossible in her middle-class world. As she wrestles with this idea, Emerson tries to show her the fragility of the entire social system. Lucy can break the “whole of her life” for the sake of George and, in a short while, she will do so.