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
The next term, Maurice and Durham pick up where they left off, though, if anything, the vacation has drawn them closer. Durham tells Maurice about how his mother took it when he told her that he wasn’t Christian and how it came up again at Christmas when he decided not to receive communion. She said that he was wicked. Durham tells Maurice that he must have been pretending to like his mother, and now the lie has been shattered: he despises her. He asks Maurice for advice, but as they talk, they begin playing with each other’s hair, and the thoughts of religion and family turmoil fade into the background.
Durham tells Maurice that he is no longer a Christian but does not tell him why. In a later chapter, Durham explains that he split with the church explicitly because of its homophobia and persecution of gay people. This withholding of information shows just how careful Durham has to be about being gay. He can’t even trust a close friend like Maurice, who is also gay.
Themes
As they spend more time together, Maurice and Durham walk arm in arm through campus, and Maurice often strokes Durham’s hair, none of which attracts the attention of their friends. Maurice also has an overwhelming desire to impress Durham. While Durham is “unorthodox,” in the sense that he is a nonbeliever, Maurice feels comforted by the beliefs he grew up with. He tells Durham that he cares a lot about the Holy Trinity, and religion, which, ultimately, prompts Durham to take him to task. “It doesn’t seem to me that you have any opinions to respect,” Durham says. “They’re all second-hand tags—no, tenth-hand.”
Maurice and Durham’s differences in character are firmly established here. Durham is an intellectual who is curious about philosophical questions and likes to dig deep into his beliefs and those of others. Maurice, on the other hand, is comforted by tradition, which frustrates Durham. This difference will become especially notable as they decide how to navigate their adult lives as gay men. This conversation foreshadows significant decisions that each man will make at the end of the novel.
Themes
Maurice and Durham debate the Trinity, and Maurice feels himself losing ground. He tells Durham that it may be true, that he may not believe in the Trinity, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a Christian. Instead, he believes in the essentials. Durham asks him what he means. “The Redemption,” Maurice says. But, Maurice thinks, he does not believe in the Redemption any more than the Trinity, and he fears that Durham will sense this lack of conviction. Durham responds that belief is always right, and it’s unmistakable. Each person has a belief they would die for, Durham says. But he wishes, he tells Maurice, that Maurice should find his own beliefs to die for instead of accepting ones handed down to him. Within 10 days, Maurice has given up taking communion and feels a profound dislike of Christianity.
Maurice gives up taking communion 10 days after Durham challenges his faith, showing how much Durham means to Maurice. Durham’s insistence that Maurice should find his own beliefs to die for also evokes Maurice’s dream from Sunnington. That dream made Maurice wish that he would find a friend he would die for and who would die for him, showing that Maurice might believe in love enough to die for it, or at least that he hopes to find that kind of love. While the conversation with Durham evokes Maurice’s latent, deep-seated belief in love, it also points toward Maurice’s unwillingness to acknowledge that he is gay, even if only to himself. Breaking from Christianity, with its deeply entrenched homophobia, can be seen as a step in that direction for Maurice, though.
Themes
In a translation class, Cornwallis says to omit any mention of the “unspeakable vice of the Greeks.” Afterward, Durham says that Cornwallis should lose his fellowship for that kind of academic hypocrisy. To omit mention of it, Durham says, is to omit a mainstay of Greek society. He tells Maurice that he should read the Symposium. It’s all in there, Durham says, and when he says it, Maurice feels a “breath of liberty” touch him.
Durham exhibits a kind of ferocity—brought on by his commitment to scholarship and intellectual honesty—that diverges from his normal, tranquil character. Durham’s commitment to truth, both in terms of academic honesty and in acknowledging his own sexual orientation, begins to rub off on Maurice, who feels the weight of oppression lifted, at least a little bit, when Durham tells him that he will find open discussion of homosexuality in The Symposium.
Themes
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