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 opposition to religion through Clive, who has recently split from his Christian upbringing. For Clive, the last straw was the church’s opposition to homosexuality. He ultimately determines that he “could not find any rest for his soul in [Christianity]” without causing himself damage. Maurice follows suit, in part to impress Clive, and in part because of genuine skepticism. With that in mind, it is not a coincidence that Maurice’s search for true love is framed in spiritual terms. He initially confuses the “friend” he is looking for—his true love—for Christ; even after he rejects that interpretation, his search for his “friend” fills him with a kind of universal, spiritual love for humanity.
It is especially notable, then, that in one of the novel’s climactic scenes, when Maurice has gone to the harbor to see off the ship he presumes will carry Alec to Argentina, the rector at Penge, Mr. Borenius, is there to act as kind of police officer, ready to catch Alec and Maurice in the act of loving one another and use his power as a religious authority to bring them down. Mr. Borenius takes on the role of a clear villain, and one of Alec’s main triumphs, through Maurice’s eyes, is outsmarting the rector and, in doing so, vanquishing the symbol of religion, which is—in the context of the novel—the primary enforcer of homophobic norms. By rejecting Christianity in this way, Alec and Maurice are then free to fall in love and pursue their own spiritual awakenings.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Religion ThemeTracker
Religion Quotes in Maurice
To love a noble woman, to protect and serve her—this, he told the little boy, was the crown of life… “It all hangs together—all—and God’s in heaven. All’s right with the world. Male and female! Ah wonderful!”
He scarcely saw a voice, scarcely heard a voice say, “That is your friend,” and then it was over, having filled him with beauty and taught him tenderness. He could die for such a friend, he would allow such a friend to die for him; they would make any sacrifice for each other, and count the world nothing, neither death nor distance nor crossness could part them, because “this is my friend.”
As soon as he thought of other people as real, Maurice became modest and conscious of sin: in all creation, there could be no one as vile as himself: no wonder he pretended to be a piece of cardboard; if known as he was, he would be hounded out of the world.
During this Lent term Maurice came out as a theologian. It was not humbug entirely. He believed that he believed, and felt genuine pain when anything he was accustomed to met criticism—the pain that masquerades among the middle classes as Faith. It was not Faith, being inactive… it didn’t exist till opposition touched it, when it ached like a useless nerve.
“You’ve read the Symposium? … It’s all in there—not meat for babes, of course, but you ought to read it this vac.”
No more was said at the time, but he was free of another subject, and one that he had never mentioned to any living soul. He hadn’t known it could be mentioned, and when Durham did so in the middle of the sunlit court a breath of liberty touched him.
So deeply had Clive become one with the beloved that he began to loathe himself. His whole philosophy of life broke down, and the sense of sin was reborn in its ruins, and crawled along corridors … He was damned.
Love had caught him out of triviality and Maurice out of bewilderment in order that two imperfect souls might touch perfection.
He saw only dying light and a dead land. He uttered no prayer, believed in no deity, and knew that the past was devoid of meaning like the present, and a refuge for cowards
Well, he had written to Maurice at last … “Against my will I have become normal. I cannot help it.” The words had been written …
He descended the theatre wearily. Who could help anything? … μὴ φῦναι τὸν ἅπαντα νικᾷ λόγον, sighed the actors in this very place two thousand years ago. Even that remark, though further from vanity than most, was vain.
It humiliated him, for he had understood his soul, or, as he said, himself, ever since he was fifteen. But the body is deeper than the soul and its secrets inscrutable. There had been no warning—just a blind alteration of the life spirit, just an announcement, “You who loved men, will henceforward love women. Understand or not, it’s the same to me.” Whereupon he collapsed. He tried to clothe the change in reason, and understand it, in order that he might feel less humiliated: but it was of the nature of death or birth, and he failed.
Yes: the heart of his agony would be loneliness… he began to contemplate suicide. There was nothing to deter him. He had no initial fear of death, and no sense of a world beyond it, nor did he mind disgracing his family. He knew that loneliness was poisoning him, so that he grew viler as well as more unhappy. Under these circumstances, might he not cease?
“I am an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort.” […]
“Now listen to me, Maurice, never let that evil hallucination, that temptation from the devil, occur to you again.”
The voice impressed him, and was not Science speaking?
He had abused his host’s confidence and defiled his house in his absence, he had insulted Mrs Durham and Anne. And when he reached home there came a worse blow; he had sinned against his family.
He faced Mr Borenius, who had lost all grasp of events. Alec had completely routed him. Mr Borenius assumed that love between two men must be ignoble, and so could not interpret what had happened. He became an ordinary person at once, his irony vanished.
