Howards End

by

E. M. Forster

Helen Schlegel Character Analysis

Helen is twenty-one at the beginning of Howards End, eight years younger than her sister Margaret. The two are very close, and very similar: both unmarried, highly intelligent, cultured, and liberal-thinking. However, Helen is more idealistic, emotional, and impulsive than her responsible older sister. She falls in love with Paul Wilcox immediately after meeting him, then realizes just as quickly that they aren’t compatible at all. She thinks Margaret is wrong to marry Henry Wilcox, a blindly materialistic and sexist man who is older than Margaret by two decades, and she blames Henry for the bad business advice that costs their friend Leonard Bast his job. When Margaret and Henry refuse to help Leonard find a new job because of Henry’s sordid history with Leonard’s wife, Jacky, Helen is overcome with anger and despair and impulsively sleeps with Leonard. Afterwards, she tries to give the Basts all the money they need and then leaves England for Germany. She refuses to return until Margaret compels her to come to Howards End under false circumstances, and Margaret realizes she is heavily pregnant with Leonard’s child. Helen plans to raise the baby in Germany to avoid scandal, but after Leonard’s sudden death, Margaret arranges for her sister to live at Howards End with her and Henry. Helen becomes more sympathetic to Henry, and less emotional about Leonard. Her son will one day inherit Howards End after Margaret dies.

Helen Schlegel Quotes in Howards End

The Howards End quotes below are all either spoken by Helen Schlegel or refer to Helen Schlegel. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Class and Privilege Theme Icon
).
Chapter 4 Quotes

“When I saw all the others so placid, and Paul mad with terror in case I said the wrong thing, I felt for a moment that the whole Wilcox family was a fraud, just a wall of newspapers and motor-cars and golf-clubs, and that if it fell I should find nothing behind it but panic and emptiness.”

Related Characters: Helen Schlegel (speaker), Margaret Schlegel, Paul Wilcox
Related Symbols: Cars and Walks
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:

“The truth is that there is a great outer life that you and I have never touched—a life in which telegrams and anger count. Personal relations, that we think supreme, are not supreme there. There love means marriage settlements, death, death duties. So far I’m clear. But here my difficulty. This outer life, though obviously horrid; often seems the real one—there’s grit in it. It does breed character. Do personal relations lead to sloppiness in the end?”

“Oh, Meg—, that’s what I felt, only not so clearly, when the Wilcoxes were so competent, and seemed to have their hands on all the ropes.”

Related Characters: Margaret Schlegel (speaker), Helen Schlegel (speaker), Paul Wilcox
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 18
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

…[Leonard’s] outburst ended in a swamp of books. No disrespect to these great names. The fault is ours, not theirs. They mean us to use them for sign-posts, and are not to blame if, in our weakness, we mistake the sign-post for the destination. And Leonard had reached the destination. He had visited the county of Surrey when darkness covered its amenities, and its cosy villas had re-entered ancient night. Every twelve hours this miracle happens, but he had troubled to go and see for himself. Within his cramped little mind dwelt something that was greater than Jefferies’ books—the spirit that led Jefferies to write them.

Related Characters: Margaret Schlegel, Helen Schlegel, Leonard Bast
Related Symbols: Cars and Walks, Books
Page Number: 85-86
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 38 Quotes

“You shall see the connection if it kills you, Henry! You have had a mistress—I forgave you. My sister has a lover—you drive her from the house. Do you see the connection? Stupid, hypocritical, cruel—oh, contemptible!—a man who insults his wife when she’s alive and cants with her memory when she’s dead. A man who ruins a woman for his pleasure, and casts her off to ruin other men. And gives bad financial advice, and then says he is not responsible. These men are you. You can’t recognise them, because you cannot connect… Only say to yourself, ‘What Helen has done, I’ve done.’”

Related Characters: Margaret Schlegel (speaker), Helen Schlegel, Henry Wilcox, Leonard Bast, Ruth Wilcox, Jacky Bast
Page Number: 221
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 42 Quotes

Margaret was silent. Something shook her life in its inmost recesses, and she shivered.

“I didn’t do wrong, did I?” [Henry] asked, bending down.

“You didn’t, darling. Nothing has been done wrong.”

From the garden came laughter. “Here they are at last!” exclaimed Henry, disengaging himself with a smile. Helen rushed into the gloom, holding Tom by one hand and carrying her baby on the other. There were shouts of infectious joy.

“The field’s cut!” Helen cried excitedly—“the big meadow! We’ve seen to the very end, and it’ll be such a crop of hay as never!”

Related Characters: Margaret Schlegel (speaker), Helen Schlegel (speaker), Henry Wilcox (speaker), Ruth Wilcox
Related Symbols: Howards End
Page Number: 246
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Howards End LitChart as a printable PDF.
Howards End PDF

Helen Schlegel Quotes in Howards End

The Howards End quotes below are all either spoken by Helen Schlegel or refer to Helen Schlegel. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Class and Privilege Theme Icon
).
Chapter 4 Quotes

“When I saw all the others so placid, and Paul mad with terror in case I said the wrong thing, I felt for a moment that the whole Wilcox family was a fraud, just a wall of newspapers and motor-cars and golf-clubs, and that if it fell I should find nothing behind it but panic and emptiness.”

Related Characters: Helen Schlegel (speaker), Margaret Schlegel, Paul Wilcox
Related Symbols: Cars and Walks
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:

“The truth is that there is a great outer life that you and I have never touched—a life in which telegrams and anger count. Personal relations, that we think supreme, are not supreme there. There love means marriage settlements, death, death duties. So far I’m clear. But here my difficulty. This outer life, though obviously horrid; often seems the real one—there’s grit in it. It does breed character. Do personal relations lead to sloppiness in the end?”

“Oh, Meg—, that’s what I felt, only not so clearly, when the Wilcoxes were so competent, and seemed to have their hands on all the ropes.”

Related Characters: Margaret Schlegel (speaker), Helen Schlegel (speaker), Paul Wilcox
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 18
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

…[Leonard’s] outburst ended in a swamp of books. No disrespect to these great names. The fault is ours, not theirs. They mean us to use them for sign-posts, and are not to blame if, in our weakness, we mistake the sign-post for the destination. And Leonard had reached the destination. He had visited the county of Surrey when darkness covered its amenities, and its cosy villas had re-entered ancient night. Every twelve hours this miracle happens, but he had troubled to go and see for himself. Within his cramped little mind dwelt something that was greater than Jefferies’ books—the spirit that led Jefferies to write them.

Related Characters: Margaret Schlegel, Helen Schlegel, Leonard Bast
Related Symbols: Cars and Walks, Books
Page Number: 85-86
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 38 Quotes

“You shall see the connection if it kills you, Henry! You have had a mistress—I forgave you. My sister has a lover—you drive her from the house. Do you see the connection? Stupid, hypocritical, cruel—oh, contemptible!—a man who insults his wife when she’s alive and cants with her memory when she’s dead. A man who ruins a woman for his pleasure, and casts her off to ruin other men. And gives bad financial advice, and then says he is not responsible. These men are you. You can’t recognise them, because you cannot connect… Only say to yourself, ‘What Helen has done, I’ve done.’”

Related Characters: Margaret Schlegel (speaker), Helen Schlegel, Henry Wilcox, Leonard Bast, Ruth Wilcox, Jacky Bast
Page Number: 221
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 42 Quotes

Margaret was silent. Something shook her life in its inmost recesses, and she shivered.

“I didn’t do wrong, did I?” [Henry] asked, bending down.

“You didn’t, darling. Nothing has been done wrong.”

From the garden came laughter. “Here they are at last!” exclaimed Henry, disengaging himself with a smile. Helen rushed into the gloom, holding Tom by one hand and carrying her baby on the other. There were shouts of infectious joy.

“The field’s cut!” Helen cried excitedly—“the big meadow! We’ve seen to the very end, and it’ll be such a crop of hay as never!”

Related Characters: Margaret Schlegel (speaker), Helen Schlegel (speaker), Henry Wilcox (speaker), Ruth Wilcox
Related Symbols: Howards End
Page Number: 246
Explanation and Analysis: