Difficulties of Homoerotic relationships in twentieth century society
reflected in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse & E. M. Forster’s Maurice
The first part of twentieth century’s culture was more or less dominated by attempts to keep homosexuality hidden. However, it could be seen that many literary works, whose representations of homosexuality are either open or covert, evoked suspicion, public interest and also dominant controversy in society, for example Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and E. M. Forster’s Maurice. Such relationships though exist in human history all along, society and social standard in some countries cannot accept it. They create rules and make homo relationship ‘taboo’ in people’s eyes. That is why people who are or are not yet in such relationship find it very hard to be ‘gay’, either female or male. Some cannot tolerate such difficulties society make for them and at last give it up to social standard, trying to cloak their true sexual orientation with proper marriage. Some still fight till the end continuing their relationship but with such high price they have to pay: position in society, jobs or at worst their family’s acceptation. This essay will explore the difficulties of same-sex relationships in twentieth century as we can see in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and E. M. Forster’s Maurice.
Superficially Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse might not be seen to have the theme of homo relationship. However, a number of interpretations see this work of Woolf’s to possess lesbian elements: namely, the eroticism between Lily Briscoe and Mrs Ramsay. Some critics said that:
Dear Mrs. Woolf…You assume that your readers are as intelligent as you and as accustomed to seeing into the obscurity and resolving mysteries…Lily Briscoe is undoubtedly Virginia Woolf herself (Blanche).
It makes one think at first of Classical music, with its perfect balance of emotion and of form, its subtle but perfectly clear interweaving of themes, and its motifs which return, sometimes at very long intervals, but which one recognizes with a delicate pleasure . . . She is Lily Briscoe making a work of art with the substance of Mrs. Ramsay (Mayoux).
It is clear that the book was written to express her admiration and release her obsession to her mother as when she was 45 the time when she began writing To the Lighthouse in 1925 she writes:
Until I was in the forties—I could settle the date by seeing when I wrote To the Lighthouse, but am too casual here to bother to do it—the presence of my mother obsessed me. I could hear her voice, see her, imagine what she would do or say as I went about my day’s doings. She was one of the invisible presences who after all play so important a part in every life. . . . Then one day walking round Tavistock Square I made up, as I sometimes make up my books, To the Lighthouse, in a great, apparently involuntary, rush. One thing burst into another. . . . I wrote the book very quickly; and when it was written, I ceased to be obsessed by my mother. I no longer hear her voice; I do not see her. I suppose that I did for myself what psycho-analysts do for their patients. I expressed some very long felt and deeply felt emotion. And in expressing it I explained it and then laid it to rest (80-81).
As we know that Woolf had tendency to have passionate relationships with women. Often these women were older; often they offered Woolf some form of maternal protection as she struggled with another incident of physical or mental illness. This can explain to us in a way why she expresses such deep feeling in To the Lighthouse.
Anyhow, none of Woolf’s characters in any of her works is explicit lesbian characters. However, it does not mean that they are not. It might need particular interpretations in order to ‘feel’ the eroticism between the same-sex characters in the story as many interpretations see Lily Briscoe, a guest at the Ramsay’s summer house, and Mrs Ramsay as a homoerotic relationship in the story. In To the Lighthouse, Lily Briscoe is portrayed poor and unmarried, yet nevertheless an artist. Like Elizabeth Dalloway, Lily has "little Chinese eyes," connoting an exoticism associated with a younger generation of independent women.
The homoerotic content takes the form of the relationship between Lily and Mrs. Ramsay, who is and is not a figure for the mother. Mrs. Ramsay represents the hostess who views Lily in terms of an inferior version of femininity: not beautiful, not marriageable, whose paintings hold no interest for her, or potentially anyone else. Lily needs Mrs. Ramsay as the lost maternal figure and who is essential to the production of her art. The language in the story is highly eroticized:
Sitting on the floor with her arms around Mrs. Ramsay’s knees, close as she could get, smiling to think that Mrs. Ramsay would never know the reason of that pressure…Could loving, as people called it, make her and Mrs. Ramsay one? for it was not knowledge but unity she desired, not inscriptions on tablets, nothing that could be written in any language known to men, but intimacy itself, which is knowledge, she had thought, leaning her head on Mrs. Ramsay's knee (51).
Anyway, my objective is not to make you see this relationship as homoeroticism unquestionably but to make you understand the point and see this work based on this interpretation in order to understand the whole essay which I want to discuss about: the difficulties of the relationship if it exists, that is.
Like To the Lighthouse in E. M. Forster’s Maurice, the novel portrays sexual relationships between gay male, though more directly and explicitly than Woolf’s that it was unpublishable due to the illegal status of the homosexual at that time. I want to discuss more that the two works though different in degree of openness both suggest how difficult it is for same-sex relationships to happen and continue in twentieth century society.
The aspect of difficulty I would like to focus on is social one. Twentieth century English society at that time was the straight product of Victorian upbringing. Undoubtedly, people in the era were trapped in the rules and standards they themselves created. The norms and standards also inevitably included gender roles and sexuality. People were blocked in the general understanding that women should be married, have children and be supportive to her husband like Mrs Ramsay. They had never been explored to the out-of-frame idea that people can love each other without the barrier of gender.
In To the Lighthouse, if we interpret Lily and Mrs Ramsay’s case in such a way, homoeroticism between the two people, if exists, is almost impossible. The first hardship is the sexual realization. How Mrs Ramsay can be awakened sexually if she is also part of society that was trapped in that ‘general understanding’. Day by day though she really feels attracted to Lily, she might not know what kind of the feeling it is. It is just like someone who does not know what is computer and when the computer is in front of him, he will ignore it and continue his life as it always is. Likewise, Mrs Ramsay who is never explored to the idea of homo relationship would never know that it exists. And when it occurs to her self, to her feeling, she just cannot realize it and let it go, living her life as usual. The same case happens as we can see in Maurice. When Clive says ‘I love you’ to him, the first thing that came to him is:
Durham could not wait. People were all around them, but with eyes that had gone intensely blue he whispered, ‘I love you’.
Maurice was scandalized, horrified. He was shocked to the bottom of his suburban soul, and exclaimed, ‘Oh, rot!’ The words, the manner, were out of him before he could recall them. ‘Durham, you’re an Englishman. I’m another. Don’t talk nonsense. I’m not offended, because I know you don’t mean it, but it’s the only subject absolutely beyond the limit as you know, it’s the worst crime in the calendar, and you must never mention it again. Durham
But his friend was gone, gone without a word, flying across the court, the bang of his door heard through the sounds of spring.
Maurice meets Clive at Cambridge, where people attend to meet social standard and to be ‘respectable’. Maurice calls ‘love’ that Clive offers to him ‘a rotten notion’ because all along his life he has been taught to believe so. This can portray how sexual awakening is hard for people in this society; because they are trapped in the tradition and convention of the society where they live in and must belong to.
Apart from the sexual realization, the next obstacle for gay people in twentieth century is how to express it to the other person. As in the passage quoted above, Clive declares his love and immediately be brutally rejected. Generally, to declare love is something hard and embarrassing enough to do: if we will be rejected and what kind of reaction we will receive, let alone in gay case because that ‘love’ contradicts social rule and people in general do not accept it. Indeed, homosexuality is considered a kind of illness. As we can see in Maurice, the brokenhearted Maurice tries to seek a ‘cure’ for his ‘tendency’ from his family doctor and then from a hypnotist. It is clearly seen that though one can realize their true sexual orientation, the next step of expressing it is not hard to do and hard to achieve in such society with convention and strict code of conduct.
The next step, if people really become falling in love with each other. Congratulations that you find your love partner. However, how to continue such relationships is far more difficult. In To the Lighthouse, if Mrs Ramsay does become realized of her sexual preference, how she can achieve choosing her own choice with six children and a husband on her shoulder? As we see, each of her family members has comfort in life day by day now due to Mrs Ramsay’s existence. If she does decide to give it all over Lily, one can imagine how disastrous the family will become. Mrs Ramsay is undoubtedly trapped in the life circle of supporting others and never has her own way of choice. Compared to couples in our age who can just go out and live with anyone one desires, people at that time do not have that choice in life partly due to the strict social standard partly due to law. Not only that two unmarried female living in the same house intimately was something unacceptable for society, but also people in that time still believe that female must be married out when the time came or she will become ‘spinster’ or an ‘old maid’ or rather called disgrace of the family.
In Maurice, the two students become eventually fall in love. Lucky for them. However, the struggle begins. They must try to hide their true self when exposed to society or even in their own family and eventually they must face the fact that they cannot stay in Cambridge forever. They work and become part of society in the real world and at last Clive is the one who gives it up first. Clive fears exposure and eventually breaks off the relationship in order to marry and to assume his family responsibilities. Eventually he cannot stand social force of expectation from a ‘respectable gentleman’ like him. As for Maurice, he tries to be like Clive, too. He tries to forget it and just go on with his life. As we can see, such relationship though can survive its starting point; it is very struggling to continue it and achieve the final goal of living together.
The next and final step, if any homo relationship in such society can really survive through to this point, they have a high price to pay if they want to achieve the ultimate goal of relationship. In Maurice, despite his efforts to delete his ‘abnormal’ tendency, Maurice eventually falls for Scudder, the gamekeeper on Clive’s estate. In a love conquers-all-moment, they decide to risk all and live together as lovers. These brave souls not only defy the sexual mores and conventions of their times but also the social barriers of class and social status. Maurice gives his status, his possessions, his position, his job, and his family for his love for Scudder, someone from a lower class. And for the rest of their life, they must stand rumors and rejects from people in society. Even the novelist Forster himself had kept Maurice hidden for almost sixty years. This fact can in a way tell us how harsh the comments of society would be, especially for someone in middle or upper class. He only allowed it to be published after his death, confirming belief in the secret and disgraceful nature of homosexuality at that time. Lytton Strachey wrote to Forster in 1915 after reading the novel: "...a very wobbly affair; I should have prophecied a rupture after six months.” A question which we should ask ourselves too if the relationship is strong enough to insist such force like society?
To conclude, as the same-sex eroticism was something ‘taboo’ in the twentieth century period, the people somehow must accept the way it was and went on their life the way it was available for them. Not only that to realize the sexual orientation was difficult enough due to the blocked general understanding of society, but also to express it out loud to the target of your love. Moreover, to continue it was almost out of question because people, including their family, their friend and their job’s supervisor deemed it as a disgrace. People like Maurice, Clive, Lily and Mrs Ramsay are left in the dilemma to choose between society and their own feelings. Maybe the answer might come from what E.M. Forster had said in his works, ‘If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.’
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Works Cited
Blanche, J. E. ‘An Interview with Virginia Woolf’, Les Nouvelles Litteraires—13 August 1927. (212-214).
Mayoux, Jean-Jacques. review, Revue Anglo-Americaine (Paris)—June 1928. (214-221).
Risolo, Donna. Outing Mrs. Ramsay: Reading the Lesbian Subtext in Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse; Sel. Papers from 2nd Annual Conf. on Virginia Woolf, Southern Connecticut State Univ., New Haven, June 11 14, 1992.
Woolf, Virginia. Moments of Being, "Sketch," 80-81.