Love and Sacrifice
In Maurice, sacrifice is associated with the highest form of love and is presented as a defining factor of what it means to be human. If one is incapable of this kind of sacrifice, the novel suggests, then they are missing out on genuine love and are thus not living a full life.
When Maurice first goes to public school at Sunnington, he has a dream in which a face he can hardly make…
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Sexual Orientation, Homophobia, and Self-Acceptance
More than anything, Maurice wants to find love. To do that, though, he must learn to accept himself, which ultimately means accepting his sexual orientation. However, the world in which he lives—1913 England—is blatantly homophobic. Without always fully realizing it, then, Maurice is at war with a society that has imprisoned him. In order to find love, he must break out of that prison.
Throughout the novel, Maurice encounters multiple different manifestations of the homophobia…
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Masculinity and Patriarchy
Throughout the novel, various characters tell Maurice that if he wants success, he should copy his father’s example. These suggestions serve as invitations to uphold norms of masculinity and patriarchal power—norms and power structures that Maurice gradually discovers he does not believe in. By turning his back on these norms of masculinity and renouncing the hold they have over him, Maurice can then identify and pursue his more authentic desires.
Through each phase of…
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Religion
Maurice shows that in 1913 England, religion—and Christianity specifically—was used more as a tool to uphold social rules (particularly homophobic norms) than as a means to find spiritual understanding or enlightenment. In that sense, the novel presents Christianity as an obstacle to spiritual understanding; to break free of such conformity and find some kind of spiritual awakening, the novel suggests, one must look beyond the prevailing customs and prejudices of the religion.
Maurice first encounters…
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Class
Maurice presents the rigid class hierarchies of 1913 England as another arbitrary social stricture that leads to discrimination and prejudice, oppressing some and inhibiting others from living authentic, fulfilling lives. Though it comes late in the novel, one of the central conflicts of Maurice is that the two lovers who hope to spend their lives together, Maurice and Alec, come from different classes. After he first sleeps with Alec, Maurice admonishes himself, telling himself…
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