Howards End Themes

Howards End, set in England in the early 1900s, follows three seemingly incompatible families, the Schlegels, the Basts, and the Wilcoxes, as they pursue intellectual and material advancement in a nation that is theoretically becoming more democratic. Author E. M. Forster illustrates the stark contrasts between the lives of those born into wealth, like the Schlegels, and those born into poverty, like the Basts. In revealing England’s impoverished underbelly—a tragic, unsavory reality that most…

As a novel set in turn-of-the-century England, a time of ongoing industrialization and urbanization, Howards End criticizes the capitalist forces behind England’s prosperity. A society solely driven by the free market, purely intent on maximizing profit and opposed to any kind of intervention, promotes cold self-interest and the consolidation of power while producing extreme suffering in the masses. Through the unfortunate fates of Leonard and Jacky Bast, Forster demonstrates how difficult it is for…

Forster’s wide-reaching social commentary in Howards End includes a sharp critique of sexism as artificial and groundless, but powerfully persistent nonetheless. He shows his female characters to be more than equal to many men in intelligence, bravery, and conviction, contrary to popular belief in women’s inferiority to men. Treating them differently is thus absurd and wrong. Nevertheless, society’s irrational sexism can be extremely difficult to effectively recognize, resist, or reason with. Margaret loves her husband…