A Room With A View ch.. 14-15

1. Miss Lavish has written a novel set in Florence, and the scene Cecil reads aloud is a description of the scene in which George kissed Lucy (407-408). How do you suppose did Miss Lavish know about this?


2.  Earlier, it brought Lucy inward joy to know that George did not tell her father what happened on that hillside near Florence.  (She can tell because of the way Mr. Emerson senior treats Charlotte Lucas after her col hello, I think--I'm not sure.)  Why is the ability not to tell a secret such a good quality? (402)


3.  George thinks a person should "Choose a place where you won't do harm--yes choose a place where you won't do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine." (401) Comment.


4.  Probably Forster is making fun of Miss Lavish's prose style: is there anything Cecil reads from her novel that strikes you as laughable, as writing? (408)


5.  George kisses Lucy again (408). Is this wrong of him? Right of him?

A Room With A View chapters 12-13

1.  What might account for Freddy’s inviting George to go bathing after just meeting him? (380)

2.  George votes for fate, Mr. Beebe for our having choices (i.e. having free will).  Where do you think the book, as a whole, comes out as to which rules, fate or our making choices? (381-382)

3.  Any thoughts as to why the twelfth chapter is called “Twelfth Chapter,” when most of the other titles have more elaborate titles?

4.  Why might Lucy have brought up Charlotte’s letter to her mother (387)? True, she’s changing the subject, but she could have changed it some other way.

5. Can you see a connection between Mrs. Honeychurch’s speech, “You are young, dears , and . . . young people will never guess what it feels likes to grow old” (391) and the speech earlier passage about “the thousand little civilities that create a tenderness in time” (368)?

6. What’s wrong with talking about eggs, boilers, hydrangeas, and maids? Why doesn’t Cecil like it? (392)

A Room With A View chapters 10 and 11

1.  Attempt to describe/summarize what is happening with the rental of Cissie Villa, and how it ends up that the Emersons are now renting it. Note Cecil's role.  If a previous classmate has written something you consider an error, respectfully suggest a correction.

2.  What was Cecil's motivation in suggesting the Emersons as tenants to Sir Harry Otway?

3.  "He did not realize that Lucy had consecrated her environment by the thousand little civilities that create a tenderness in time . . ." (368): paraphrase, i.e., put this into your own words. If someone else takes this question and you don't disagree but still want to paraphrase it in your own way, please do.

4.  Try to explain how Lucy's naming the Emerson's the Harris's continues to matter, if only in s small way.

5.  Cecil says, "Anything is fair that punishes a snob" (373) Yet there is evidence to suggest that Cecil himself is a snob.  Comment.

6. What what Lucy have been dreaming about on p. 378, and what makes you say so?

7.  If none of the above works for you, comment however you like, or ask a question!

A Room With A View, Chapter 9

Change of plan: no blog comment due tonight. Thank you anyway!

A Room With A View Chapter 8

1.  Would you say that the Honeychurch family is a happy one, given what we learn in this chapter?

2.  Lucy agrees to marry Cecil Vyse. What do you think of him?

3.  In working out the meanings of this particular text--this novel--why might it be imporetant to decide how we like a given character, such as Cecil Vyse?

4.  Has Lucy's kite string broken (cf. Mr. Beebe's description of Lucy as the kite, Charlotte Barlett as the person holding the kite). Mr. Beebe says that the string had not broken while Lucy was in Florence. Has it now?

5.  Knowing Lucy as we do, why would she accept Cecil as a suitor?

A Room With A View chapter 7

1.  George decides to walk all the way home from the outing on the Fiesole. How might we interpret his doing so? What might it say about George, or tell us about him?

2.  On p. 339, Miss Bartlett asks what Lucy would have done (after George kisses her) if Miss Bartlett hadn't appeared on the scene.  Lucy answers "I can't think" twice, and then, further pressed by Miss Bartlett, decides "not to think what she would have done." Comment.

3.  Does Miss Bartlett become a more sympathetic character at the bottom of p. 340 ("Dearest Lucy, how will you ever forgive me?")

4.  P. 342: "Lucy was suffering from the most grievous wrong which this world has yet discovered: diplomatic advantage had been taken of her sincerity, of her craving for sympathy and love."  Can you explain what the narrator is saying here?

5.  What happens at the end of chapter seven, from the time George shows up at the pension?

6.  If none of the above works for you, make your own comment, or ask a question.

A Room with a View chapter 5

Change of plan: no blog comment required tonight. Just do the reading, please.