Abstract
Maurice is a novel written by the famous British writer Edward Morgan Forster. Foster was well-known in British in the 20th century, devoting most of his energy into the novel Maurice. As a classic homosexual novel, the novel explores the conflict between social values and love. Yet forced by the social environment at that time, Maurice was not published until 1971, after Forster's death. Once the novel was published, it caused heated discussion.
Related critics and researchers have interpreted this novel from different perspectives for a long time, such as culture, gender identification and power discourse. This thesis attempts to analyze the characters in the light of Freudianism.
This paper can be divided into five parts. Part one briefly introduces E.M. Forster and the novel Maurice. Part two mainly describes the two same-sex love between the protagonist Maurice and lovers Clive and Alec. Maurice and Clive are both students of Cambridge, and after a period of struggle, Maurice accepts Clive and begins the romantic relationship with Clive. They have loved under the pressure for three years, keeping a Platonic love, but the relationship is stopped because Clive decides to marry a rich girl. Maurice launches a second romance with the gamekeeper Alec. From the lower class, Alec bravely expresses his love for Maurice and has physical contact with Maurice, which makes Maurice finally choose to leave together with him. The third part mainly introduces two Freudian ideas. The first one is his explanation for dreams; Freud holds the view that dreams are forms of wish-fulfillment. The second is his triple model of the mind theory. In Freud's book The Ego and the Id (1923), he proposes that human’s psyche consists of three different structures, that is, the id, the ego and the super-ego. Part four analyzes the character Maurice using Freud's two theories. Firstly, it interprets Maurice’s two dreams in the novel, which shows his desire for homosexuality, suggesting his sexual orientation. Secondly, it gives an analysis of the inner world of Maurice in his two love relationship through the personality structure theory. It can be said that he makes a choice step by step under the constant struggle and repression between the id, the ego and the super-ego. The last part of the article is the summary and conclusion of the paper.
Keywords: Maurice; E. M. Forster; homosexuality; tripartite model of the mind
Contents
Abstract
摘 要
1. Introduction-1
1.1 Introduction to E.M. Forster-1
1.2 Introduction to the novel Maurice-1
2. Homosexual love in the Novel-2
2.1 Love between Maurice and Clive-2
2.2 Love between Maurice and Alec-4
3. Freud’s Ideas-5
3.1 The Interpretation of Dreams-5
3.2 The Personality Theory-5
3.2.1 The Id-6
3.2.2 The Ego-6
3.2.3 The Super-ego-7
4. An analysis of Maurice-7
4.1 An Interpretation of Maurice’s Dreams-8
4.2 An Analysis of Maurice in Personality Theory-9
4.2.1 Maurice in Relationship with Clive-9
4.2.2 Maurice in Relationship with Alec-10
5. Conclusion-11
Notes-13
References-14
