A Room with a View

In A Room with a View, two bodies of water have significant symbolic meaning. The River Arno that runs through Florence plays an important role in Lucy's story. It is the view of this river that leads to her first conversation with the Emersons, when they offer to swap rooms with her so that she can see the Arno.

For Lucy, the Arno is closely associated with George and his challenge to the social norms of the era. After Lucy witnesses a stabbing, George helps her. She walks with him alongside the river, and the narration notes the rushing waters that are passing nearby. The rush of the Arno reflects the churning emotions inside Lucy: Like the river itself, George is a powerful force of nature who is not tamed by social etiquette and systems of manners. The river exists beyond the boundaries of human demands, much like the emotions that Lucy is beginning to experience and that society encourages her to hide.

In England, a second body of water also plays an important role in Lucy's life. Near her family home is a small pond that the Honeychurches jokingly refer to as “the Sacred Lake.” The joke is an echo of similarly delusional sentiments in the Summer Street community. Many of the middle-class residents consider themselves to be above working-class people. They possess delusions of grandeur, believing themselves to be more important or significant than they really are. After visiting Italy, Lucy comes to realize that the community is a prison as much as anything else. The Honeychurch family mocks the pond in a self-aggrandizing fashion by referring to it as the Sacred Lake, yet they cannot see those same delusions of grandeur that blight their quasi-pastoral middle-class lives.

At the same time, events in the Sacred Lake reflect the looseness with which characters adhere to the rules of social etiquette. George, Freddy, and Mr. Beebe profane the Sacred Pond with their display of naked horseplay, which is then compounded by the arrival of two women and another man. The pond becomes a scene of social profanity, in which George's ability to transgress the social norms becomes clear to Lucy. She remembers the incident, contrasting it with Cecil's attempts to kiss her beside the same pond. The contrast between George's raw, rebellious nakedness and Cecil's reserved, dull refinement is made clear in their relation to the body of water. While Cecil skirted around the edges, George embraced his passions and impulses and dove in. For Lucy, the two men's proximity to the lake and to social profanity become an important reminder of what she wants and who is best equipped to provide it for her.