Lastly, analyzing Persuasion and A Room With A View will reveal to the reader how Jane Austen’s and E. M. Forster’s societies’ view social class. In Persuasion, British society was class based. People had different expectations, restrictions and ambitions depending on what class they belonged to. They dressed, spoke, behaved and carried themselves according to social status and rarely entered marriages transgressing class-boundaries. It is best put by Mr. Elliot, “Good company requires only birth, education, and manners, and with regard to education is not very nice. Birth and good manners are essential; but a little learning is by no means a dangerous thing in good company, on the contrary, it will do very well” (Austen, p. 141). Mr. Elliot's
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Although a century later, people in the early 20th century are still effected by social class just like in Jane Austen’s Persuasion. E. M. Forster uses Cecil Vyse to convey to the reader that there is still a very distant separation in social classes and the people in those classes are confined to them. Cecil says, “It makes a difference, doesn't it, whether we fence ourselves in, or whether we are fenced out by the barriers of others?” (Forster, p. 98). Making the separation of classes very clear here, Cecil says that he is separated from the low class people of Summer Street by an immovable barrier which in the metaphor he gives is the fence. The reader is also informed that what people wear determines their class. Evidence of this is seen when George, Freddy, and Mr. Beebe, who are in different social classes, go for a swim. In this scene once all of them take off their clothes they become equals; they don't care about society or anything. But as soon as they put their clothes back on, everything returns to normal and social class is back in charge (Forster, p. 130-133). Identity as a theme, is also orchestrated in A Room With A View. Just like Persuasion, whatever class one is born into is the determining factor of who them will become. Even though Persuasion and A Room With A View are separated by a century it does not change how social class is seen by the society. In
Although a century later, people in the early 20th century are still effected by social class just like in Jane Austen’s Persuasion. E. M. Forster uses Cecil Vyse to convey to the reader that there is still a very distant separation in social classes and the people in those classes are confined to them. Cecil says, “It makes a difference, doesn't it, whether we fence ourselves in, or whether we are fenced out by the barriers of others?” (Forster, p. 98). Making the separation of classes very clear here, Cecil says that he is separated from the low class people of Summer Street by an immovable barrier which in the metaphor he gives is the fence. The reader is also informed that what people wear determines their class. Evidence of this is seen when George, Freddy, and Mr. Beebe, who are in different social classes, go for a swim. In this scene once all of them take off their clothes they become equals; they don't care about society or anything. But as soon as they put their clothes back on, everything returns to normal and social class is back in charge (Forster, p. 130-133). Identity as a theme, is also orchestrated in A Room With A View. Just like Persuasion, whatever class one is born into is the determining factor of who them will become. Even though Persuasion and A Room With A View are separated by a century it does not change how social class is seen by the society. In