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Chapter 31
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Maurice, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love and Sacrifice
Sexual Orientation, Homophobia, and Self-Acceptance
Masculinity and Patriarchy
Religion
Class
Summary
Analysis
Dr. Barry has read no scientific work on Maurice’s subject, and happily endorses society’s verdict, a theological judgment, which holds (at the time) that only the most depraved would “glance at Sodom.” Maurice himself wonders if Dr. Barry might be right, and if he, like Clive, might “turn towards women” soon after reaching 24 years old. He thinks it would be nice to be married and be “at one” with society and the law. He goes to see a Tchaikovsky symphony, where he runs into Risley, who tells him that Tchaikovsky fell in love with his own nephew. Later, Maurice will avidly read a biography of Tchaikovsky and, because it shows him a person he can identify with, will consider it the only book that truly helped him. Risley also mentions hypnosis, and Maurice, skeptical but interested, asks for the hypnotist’s address.
This passage explicitly spells out how Christianity influences Dr. Barry’s homophobia, as well as the homophobia common in England at the time. Maurice himself wonders if Dr. Barry might be right until he reads a biography of Tchaikovsky, which, by showing him a model, helps bolster Maurice’s conviction that he is gay and shouldn’t try to convince himself that he isn’t or that there is something wrong with him. Maurice has trouble maintaining this conviction, though, and turns to hypnotism to try and find a way out of being gay.
Themes
