Maurice Hall
Maurice is the protagonist of the novel. He has a romantic relationship with Clive Durham and another romantic relationship, later in the novel, with Alec Scudder. In the “Terminal Note” that Forster included at…
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Clive Durham
Clive Durham is Maurice’s first romantic partner. They first meet at Cambridge, where Clive is interested in academic and philosophical questions. He insists on a kind of “platonic restraint” in his relationship with Maurice…
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Alec Scudder
Alec Scudder is the person with whom Maurice falls in love at the end of the novel. Alec is an under-gamekeeper at Clive’s estate, Penge, and he and Maurice begin their relationship when they…
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Kitty Hall
Kitty is one of Maurice’s two sisters. She and Maurice have a contentious relationship because of how Maurice treats her over the years. Later in the novel, Maurice tries to mend their relationship by paying…
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Dr. Barry
Dr. Barry is a neighbor and family friend of Maurice’s family. Maurice consults him later in the novel and says that he (Maurice) is “an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde variety.” Dr. Barry tells Maurice…
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Mr. Borenius
Mr. Borenius is the rector at Penge. He attempts to ensure Alec Scudder will be confirmed and insists that single men be married. On the day that Alec is set to depart for Argentina…
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Risley
Risley is an undergraduate with Maurice at Cambridge. Forster describes Risley as using “unmanly” superlatives and says that he speaks with exaggerated gestures. Risley shares the secret that he is gay more freely than Clive…
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Chapman
Chapman is one of Maurice’s friends from Sunnington whom Maurice remains friends with at Cambridge. Maurice and Chapman meet Risley for the first time together, though Chapman has a negative reaction to Risley and encourages…
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Minor Characters
Mrs. Hall
Mrs. Hall is Maurice’s mother. She was widowed when her husband, Maurice’s father, died of pneumonia.
Maurice’s Father
Maurice’s father has died shortly before the opening scenes of the novel. Throughout the novel, various people enjoin Maurice to be like his father in one way or another, showing how the norms of masculinity and patriarchy were transmitted in England at that time.
Ada Hall
Ada is one of Maurice’s two sisters. She marries Maurice’s former classmate Chapman late in the novel.
Mr. Lasker Jones
Mr. Lasker Jones is the hypnotist who Maurice visits. He claims he has a 50-percent success rate in converting people from being gay. But—unsurprisingly—his efforts have no effect on Maurice.
Anne
Anne is Clive’s fiancée who eventually becomes his wife. She appears in the last line of the novel as someone to whom Clive will have to lie, implying that their marriage is built on the many small lies that prop up the larger lie that Clive is heterosexual.
Mr. Ducie
Mr. Ducie is the senior assistant to the schoolmaster at Maurice’s first school. When Maurice is set to leave for public school, Mr. Ducie gives him a birds-and-the-bees type of talk, which, because he only talks about heterosexual relationships, leaves Maurice cold and confused.
Mr. Abrahams
Mr. Abrahams is the schoolmaster at Maurice’s first school. When Maurice is about to leave for public school, Mr. Abrahams tries to serve as a male guide of sorts by telling him that, to be successful, he should copy his father, who has recently passed away from pneumonia.
George
George is a former gardener at Maurice’s mother’s house. George is one of the first people Maurice is attracted to. After Maurice graduates from his first school and comes home to find that George no longer works at the house, Maurice is overtaken by sobs.
Cornwallis
Cornwallis is the Dean of Cambridge while Maurice is a student there. He is also Risley’s uncle. He advocates for the erasure of any mention of homosexuality when he teaches classes on Ancient Greece, and, when Maurice ignores him to spend time with Clive, Cornwallis expels Maurice from college.
Dickie Barry
Dickie is the teenage nephew of Dr. Barry. Maurice finds himself attracted to Dickie, though nothing happens between them.
Mrs. Durham
Mrs. Durham is Clive’s mother.
