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 initially mistakes Dickie for a second Clive, but by the Friday after Dickie leaves, Dickie’s image has faded from Maurice’s mind. Maurice identifies the feeling he experienced as lust. Clive calls Maurice at work to talk about his upcoming wedding. Maurice declines an invitation to lunch and then talks to Anne, Clive’s fiancé, over the phone. She tells Maurice that he’s the eighth of Clive’s friends she has talked to that day, as they’re making the rounds of phone introductions. Anne then asks Maurice to invest some many for her, which he does.
What Maurice thought was love for Dickie he now recognizes as lust. When the person he actually once loved, Clive, calls him, their interaction is superficial and businesslike. Maurice’s conversation with Anne ends with a business transaction, as Maurice invests money for her, reinforcing the sense that, since he left Maurice, Clive has sought refuge in the established order of the world—that is, in the give-and-take of transactional relationships instead of the wholesale sacrifice that marks Maurice’s understanding of love.
Themes
