Gender Theme Analysis

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, for instance, but she is unable to change his sexist worldview, and she ultimately accommodates herself to his expectations rather than risk losing him.

Once Margaret becomes engaged to Henry Wilcox, she feels pressured to conform with her fiancé’s ideals of femininity. The occasion of Evie Wilcox’s grand wedding exemplifies this traditionally gendered paradigm that the Wilcoxes and their type live by: “Male and female created He them.” Forster first explains how the Wilcoxes claim this biblical justification for their belief in fundamental differences between men and women, then abruptly pivots to illustrate how secular human society enforces an artificial gender-based differentiation: “[T]he journey to Shrewsbury confirmed this questionable statement, and the long glass saloon, that moved so easily and felt so comfortable, became a forcing-house for the idea of sex.” A popular religious claim becomes “a questionable statement,” one that is manufactured in contemporary social settings like the first-class train car the wedding party travels in. Forster likens this car to “a forcing-house,” or a type of greenhouse where plants are forced to grow unnaturally, for gendered ideology.

The men of the wedding party behave in a paternalistic and patronizing manner to Margaret and the rest of the women throughout the journey: “They raised windows for some ladies, and lowered them for others, they rang the bell for the servant, they identified the colleges as the train slipped past Oxford […] Margaret bowed to a charm of which she did not wholly approve, and said nothing when the Oxford colleges were identified wrongly.” The men’s paternalism initially manifests itself as excessive gallantry, annoying but harmless. Later, however, their patronizing view of women as helpless, foolish, and hysterical creatures causes great insult and injury to Margaret: “‘I want to go back, though, I say!’ repeated Margaret, getting angry. Charles took no notice […] ‘The men are there,’ chorused the others. ‘They will see to it.’ […] ‘Stopping’s no good,’ drawled Charles. ‘Isn’t it?’ said Margaret, and jumped straight out of the car.” When Charles flatly refuses to take Margaret seriously, she tries to go back herself.

Despite the powerfully rebellious spirit Margaret displays, her extended exposure to the Wilcoxes’ sexist ideology begins to wear down her resistance, as Forster suggests how difficult it can be to stand one’s ground against a powerfully dominant culture. When Margaret must negotiate with Henry on Leonard’s behalf, she finds herself conforming to his ideals of demure womanhood: “She was ashamed of her own diplomacy. In dealing with a Wilcox, how tempting it was to lapse from comradeship, and to give him the kind of woman that he desired!” When the revelation that Henry had an affair while married to Ruth Wilcox jeopardizes Margaret and Henry’s upcoming marriage, Margaret resorts to adopting an attitude of meekness and subservience to soothe Henry’s humiliation. She censors herself: “Henry would resent so strong a grasp of the situation. She must not comment; comment is unfeminine.” By indulging Henry’s preference for a deferential wife, Margaret succeeds in preserving their marriage.

Yet she sacrifices her former principles and values when she gradually converts to this wifely identity. As soon as the Basts place her marriage at risk, she abandons them to the desperate situation she is directly responsible for: “Her conscience pricked her a little about the Basts; she was not sorry to have lost sight of them. No doubt Leonard was worth helping, but being Henry’s wife, she preferred to help some one else.” Forster illustrates how the fallout from Margaret’s self-serving dismissal of the Basts leads to their impoverishment and deaths.

Margaret finally becomes infuriated enough to confront Henry about his harmful double standards for men and women when he crosses a critical line: he begins to insult and injure her sister. She exclaims, “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!” Henry stubbornly denies that his transgression is anything like Helen’s, and he refuses to forgive Helen or allow her to stay in Howards End, implying that her affair and pregnancy have left her tarnished and unworthy.

Margaret fiercely objects to her husband’s misogyny and plans to leave him. However, after Charles is sentenced to prison for manslaughter, thoroughly devastating Henry, she relents, giving in to her innate sympathy for Henry and to his desperate need of her. In the end, Margaret does not go off to help raise her nephew in an autonomous female household, but brings Helen and the baby back under Henry’s domain in Howards End, where she forgives him everything. She even forgives Henry’s paternalistic disregard of Ruth’s final wish to leave Howards End to her, assuring him, “Nothing has been done wrong.” She doesn’t sympathize as much with Leonard, the actual dead man, telling Helen to “Forget him.” Readers who are rightfully upset about these wrongs that Margaret easily pardons will object to her apparent readiness to conform to Henry’s chauvinistic ideal of how a woman should disagree with him: “They would argue so jollily, and once or twice she had him in quite a tight corner, but as soon as he grew really serious, she gave in.”

Forster illustrates how Margaret settles for an unenlightened marriage that stifles and trivializes her on the empty grounds of gender. Henry’s preconceived notions of female inferiority may simply blind him to Margaret’s truly exceptional nature, but he likely also finds it to his advantage to treat Margaret as inferior, because he need never feel insecure or weak in front of her. Forster may show his readership all the exceptional women in the world, but he’s also evidently aware of the fact that men frequently fall back on self-serving denial, hampering social progress.