Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Maurice, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love and Sacrifice
Sexual Orientation, Homophobia, and Self-Acceptance
Masculinity and Patriarchy
Religion
Class
Summary
Analysis
After this crisis, Maurice “becomes a man.” He now has the highest gift to offer. No one may want his love, but he cannot bring himself to be ashamed of it because it’s who he is, animating his body and soul. He has awoken too late to experience true happiness but can feel an austere kind of joy. As the term goes on, to try to save himself and Durham from unnecessary pain, Maurice decides to speak to Durham. He hopes to say that he loves him in the same way, but each time Maurice tries, Durham will leave with others, or invent an excuse to avoid a meal together, and the conversation won’t happen. Eventually, Maurice finds an opportunity to be alone with Durham in his room.
Interestingly, Forster writes that Maurice “becomes a man” by breaking free of the time’s prevailing norms of masculinity, presenting a critique for the shallowness of that time period’s restrictive understanding of masculinity. According to the novel, being “a man,” means being able to love with every ounce of one’s body and soul.
Themes
“I’m in Hell,” Maurice says. “Oh, you’ll get out,” Durham responds. Durham apologizes. He says he thought their relationship was something else, and he’s sorry to have insulted Maurice. I love you, Maurice says. Durham laughs bitterly. I have always been like the Greeks and didn’t know, Maurice says. Durham brushes him off. “Most men would have reported me to the Dean or the Police,” Durham says. Maurice cries out and leaves the room, slamming the door. From the courtyard, he looks at Durham’s window. You love and are loved, he thinks. In the rain, he hears his name shouted. A new emotion finds him and leaves him speechless for a moment. “His friend” is calling to his name, Maurice. He goes back through the window to Durham’s room, puts his hands on the pillows, and then responds, “Clive!” (Clive is Durham’s first name.)
While this passage is dramatically rich because Maurice bears his soul to Durham and tells him that he loves him, it also marks the first time that Maurice has told anyone that he is gay. Durham doesn’t believe him on either count, and his disbelief drives Maurice to leave. After Maurice has left, though, his dream from Sunnington finds him again. When he hears “his friend” calling to him, the beauty and tenderness of that dream fill him with tranquility. In that tranquility, Maurice finds the strength to return to Durham’s room. The change in their relationship, from friends to lovers, is signaled when Maurice uses Durham’s first name, Clive, to refer to him for the first time, dropping the formality of using only his last name.
Themes
