Flashcards for Howards End

Aunt Juley (Mrs. Munt)

Mrs. Munt, affectionately called Aunt Juley, is the maternal aunt and self-appointed guardian of the Schlegel siblings in E. M. Forster's Howards End.

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Charles Wilcox

Charles Wilcox is Henry Wilcox's oldest son and the most forceful representative of Wilcox values in E. M. Forster's Howards End.

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Evie Wilcox

Evie Wilcox is the only daughter of Henry Wilcox and serves as a secondary yet significant character in E. M. Forster's Howards End (1910).

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Helen Schlegel

Helen Schlegel is the younger and more impulsive of the two Schlegel sisters in E. M. Forster's Howards End (1910).

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Henry Wilcox

Henry Wilcox is the wealthy and self-assured head of the Wilcox family, representing the essence of Edwardian capitalism and masculine pragmatism in the novel.

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Jacky Bast

Jacky Bast is Leonard Bast's older, weary wife in E. M. Forster's Howards End, serving mainly as a representation of the social divide that threatens to engulf those living on the economic fringes.

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Leonard Bast

Leonard Bast is E. M. Forster's most insightful portrayal of the Edwardian lower-middle class—a young insurance clerk who lingers throughout the novel as both a social case study and a deeply felt individual.

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Margaret Schlegel

Margaret Schlegel is the moral and intellectual heart of E. M. Forster's Howards End (1910).

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Ruth Wilcox

Ruth Wilcox is the spiritual and symbolic heart of Howards End, despite passing away before the novel's first third concludes.

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Tibby Schlegel

Theobald "Tibby" Schlegel is the youngest of the three Schlegel siblings in E. M. Forster's Howards End (1910).

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“Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height.”

This well-known passage is from E. M. Forster's Howards End (1910) and reveals Margaret Schlegel's deepest beliefs as she navigates her relationship with Henry Wilcox.

Margaret Schlegel (narrative free indirect discourse) · 22

“She was not a barren woman. She was not a woman who had failed. She was a woman who had succeeded, and her success was this: she had loved.”

This reflection comes from E. M. Forster's Howards End (1910) and focuses on Ruth Wilcox, the first Mrs. Wilcox, whose gentle, intuitive spirit guides the moral direction of the novel.

Narrator (narrative voice / E. M. Forster)

“Margaret greeted her lord with peculiar tenderness on the morrow. Mature as he was, she might yet be able to help him to the building of the rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion.”

This passage comes from E. M. Forster's Howards End (1910) and is narrated through free indirect discourse that closely aligns with Margaret Schlegel's perspective as she reflects on her husband, Henry Wilcox, the morning after a significant emotional rupture.

Narrator (free indirect discourse / Margaret Schlegel) · Chapter 22

“It will be generally admitted that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man.”

This famous opening line of Chapter 5 comes from the narrator in E. M. Forster's Howards End (1910), as the Schlegel sisters — Margaret, Helen, and their brother Tibby — attend a performance of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony at Queen's Hall in London.

Narrator · Chapter 5

“Death destroys a man: the idea of Death saves him.”

This line comes from the narrator in E. M. Forster's Howards End (1910) and emerges from the reflection on mortality that follows Mrs. Wilcox's sudden death.

Narrator (E. M. Forster) · Chapter 27

“To be humble and kind, to go straight ahead, to love people rather than pity them, to remember the submerged—well, one can't do all these things at once, worse luck, because they're all right.”

This reflective observation comes from Margaret Schlegel in E. M. Forster's Howards End (1910), during one of her typical moments of moral introspection.

Margaret Schlegel

“We are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable, and only to be approached by the statistician or the poet.”

This unsettling declaration appears in E. M. Forster's Howards End (1910), spoken by the narrative voice in Chapter 6 while reflecting on the social world of the Schlegel sisters.

Narrative voice (Forster's narrator) · Chapter 6

“The present flowed by them like a stream. The tree rustled. It had made music before they were born, and would continue after their deaths.”

This lyrical passage is found in E. M. Forster's Howards End (1910) during a moment of quiet reflection at the Howards End property, where the ancient wych-elm tree silently observes the lives around it.

Narrator (free indirect discourse / Margaret Schlegel) · Chapter 19

“The poor cannot always reach those who can help them, whether they come from the city or the country, and the rich, for all their wealth, are not always able to reach the poor.”

This reflective observation appears in E. M. Forster's Howards End (1910) and captures one of the novel's key themes: the significant and often unbridgeable divide between the prosperous middle class and the working poor.

Narrator (E. M. Forster) · Indeterminate — thematic narratorial passage

“All the same, London's creeping. I can see it from the Purbeck Hills. And London is only part of something else, I'm afraid.”

This line is spoken by Ruth Wilcox (Mrs. Henry Wilcox) in E. M. Forster's Howards End (1910), during an early conversation where she reflects on the spread of urban development into the English countryside.

Ruth Wilcox (Mrs. Henry Wilcox) · Chapter 3

Books and Culture

In Howards End, books and culture reflect the struggle between a meaningful inner life and superficial social behavior.

Hay

In E. M. Forster's Howards End, hay symbolizes the deep, organic life of rural England and the earth's ability to renew itself in the face of modernity and commercialism.

Howards End (the house)

In E. M. Forster's Howards End (1910), the house represents England's spiritual and cultural legacy—a deeply rooted way of life that faces threats from capitalism, imperialism, and the disconnection of modernity.

Mrs. Wilcox's Handwritten Note

In E. M. Forster's Howards End, Mrs. Wilcox's handwritten note—written on her deathbed and leaving the house to Margaret Schlegel—highlights the importance of intuitive, spiritual connections over legal and social norms.

The Motor Car

In E. M. Forster's Howards End (1910), the motor car symbolizes the restless, dehumanizing forces of modernity and the reckless power of the wealthy.

The Wych Elm

In E. M. Forster's Howards End, the old Wych Elm in the garden of the house represents the enduring connection to England's history and the potential for real human relationships that transcend class and time.

Epigraph

The novel's moral and structural foundation is encapsulated in its two-word epigraph: 'Only connect…' This phrase, taken from within the novel and placed at the beginning, serves as both guidance and irony.

Symbolism

Howards End itself — the old wych-elm house in Hertfordshire — gains meaning from its very first mention.

Extended Metaphor

Forster uses the 'prose and passion' contrast as a recurring metaphor throughout the novel, aligning it with themes of class, gender, and culture.

Motif

The motif of 'telegrams and anger' appears repeatedly as a symbol of Wilcox-style crisis management — a masculine tendency to prioritize action over contemplation.

Irony

Forster's narrative irony runs deep and cuts both ways.

Juxtaposition

Forster often places characters from different social classes in the same setting to highlight the harsh realities of class differences.

Imagery

Forster's imagery consistently ties the natural world to clear moral values while depicting the urban environment as confusing and filled with loss.

Personification

London is portrayed throughout the novel as a living, consuming force.

Dramatic Monologue

Although Howards End is told in the third person, Forster often dives into extended free indirect discourse that resembles a dramatic monologue, allowing us to closely follow a character's thoughts.

Pathetic Fallacy

Weather and landscape often reflect or contrast the emotional states of the characters.

Allusion

The novel brims with literary and cultural references, especially to Beethoven, Ibsen, and the English pastoral tradition.

Conceit

Forster crafts a detailed idea around 'telegrams and anger' as the core technology of Wilcox masculinity.