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Chapter 39
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
Maurice decides he must return to town, and those at Penge respond understandingly. It has become an open secret that a woman almost accepted Maurice’s proposal but not quite. Maurice’s actions, no matter how out of the ordinary, are then interpreted sympathetically as those of a man in love. When he arrives back home, Maurice begins to think that he has made a grave mistake, defiling those at Penge and sinning against his family. He receives a telegram from Alec that asks him to meet him at the boathouse later that night. Maurice suspects that Alec will try to blackmail him. Two days later, Alec sends another telegram, saying that he waited both nights in the boathouse. He says he longs to talk to Maurice with both his arms around him and that he is set to leave in 10 days. Maurice continues to think it’s a ploy to blackmail him.
Maurice is still operating as if he will soon be married to a woman. When he embraces the narratives and expectations of heteronormativity, he learns that his behavior is almost immediately accepted, no matter how out of the ordinary it might be. The inverse is of course also true: if people thought Maurice was gay, his behavior would always be considered suspicious, no matter how ordinary it might be. Maurice himself lapses into that way of thinking, exhibiting again the homophobia he has internalized as he reprimands himself for “defiling” Penge, a symbol of heteronormativity. While Maurice wrestles with those judgments against himself, he again shows his preconceptions about class when he assumes that Alec intends to blackmail him.
Themes
