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
Maurice tells his mother that he can’t apologize; they had no right to send him down when everyone skips lectures. In the evening, Maurice receives a letter from Clive, which reads, “Maurice! I love you.” Maurice writes back, “Clive, I love you.” They write to each other each day, but the distance strains their relationship. Maurice’s mother is unsure where Maurice fits now, so she sends him to talk to their neighbor, Dr. Barry. Dr. Barry tells Maurice that a proper gentleman would have apologized by instinct if he acted like a cad. The fact that Maurice hasn’t proves he is nothing of the sort. “You are a disgrace to chivalry,” Dr. Barry says. If a woman had been in the side car instead of Clive, Maurice thinks, would Dr. Barry have required that apology? Surely not, he thinks.
Maurice begins to reason through the homophobia he experiences. As a result, when he talks with his mother and Dr. Barry, they are all talking about different things. Knowing the full details of what happened, Maurice knows that he is the victim of injustice—that the Dean punished him for being gay, not for doing something wrong. Maurice senses, then, that apologizing to the Dean would mean betraying himself. His mother and Dr. Barry, not fully understanding the situation, think that Maurice is just being stubborn. Notably, Dr. Barry says that Maurice is not acting like a gentleman and is a “disgrace to chivalry,” again appealing to norms of masculinity to try to shame Maurice into acting a certain way.
Themes
