Inheritance - Howards End Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Inheritance - Howards End - Essay Example Margaret, Helen and Tibby the half-German Schlegel children represents the French bourgeoisie intellectuals who have so much in common with the real life group from Bloomsbury and the Basts who are couples belonging to lower-class. As the novel moves to later chapters, Schlegel sisters attempt to assist the poor Basts and try to stop Wilcoxes from being prejudiced. The novel begins with three letters written by Helen to her older sister Margaret whom she occasionally calls Meg. Helen is intending to visit the family of Wilcox whom they had met while on a journey in Germany at Howard End. The novel reveals how Helen and her sister are dismayed by the place, as what they saw was quite different with what they expected. The motto of the book is just inheritance and connection. For instance at one time through the novel, Forster asks, â€Å"Who will inherit England?† The purpose of this paper is to discuss how Forster has developed the theme of inheritance in the novel (Doll 1). T he marriage of Henry and Margaret who comes from different families in the novel portray how different world can be connected. For instance, Margaret unlike her sister Helen gets to know better of the Wilcox family through marriage. However, Margaret’s initial encounter with this new family happens to be dismaying and disastrous, though she begins to understand that most of the things that she like, such as culture and art would not exist not unless there is economic and social stability established by the Wilcoxes family. At some point through the novel, Forster reveals how marriage between Margaret and Henry almost ended when Henry Wilcox is not able to make valuable connection between his transgression sexuality with Jacky and Helen’s relationship with Leonard. This implies social challenges that England had to undergo during the early twentieth century (Bradshaw 248). In Howards End, inheritance of property is symbolically disheveled with family issues, social clas s, modernity and national identity. Family is at straggle over inheritance. The novel focuses on three families: the Wilcoxes, Schlegels and Basts. The Schlegels family is a mixture of German and English people. In this family there exists empathetic, rational and pragmatic Margaret (Emma Thompson), Helen (Helena Bonham Catter) who is so impulsive and straggles in the name of socialism, social responsibility and economic injustice, their younger brother, Tabby (Adrian Ross Magenty) and Aunt Juley (Prunella Scales). Helen proves are the pivot of the novel’s melodrama and the politics of gender associated with her, though Margaret proves to be the weightier character (Bradshaw 248). In the novel Forster notes that the Wilcoxes family are presented by people like Mrs. Wilcox, Ruth, a past specter and patriarchal Henry whom Helen describes as a man who cannot reconcile science with religion. He is too mean to an extent that he considers cutting down clerks salaries in order to ha ve comfort and become rich. Furthermore, the entire Wilcox’s family comprising Evie, Paul, Charles and Dolly who is Charles’s wife are portrayed as snobbish, unimaginative and obsessed with class propriety and property. In this case, the Wilcox is the representation of past England through Ruth. The lives of the two families Schlegels and Wilcoxes become entangled through Ruth Wilcox, a friend to Margaret, leaving Howard