E. M. Forster, Howards End Key Ideas

description of Helen’s ability to see visions upon listening to the music

‘like Helen, who can see heroes and shipwrecks in the music’s flood’

Helen’s philosophical account of the goblins’ thoughts as they were dancing during Beethoven’s Fifth

‘they merely observed in passing that there was no such thing as splendour or heroism in the world’

what might the goblins symbolise/describe?

the feeling of desolation and meaninglessness that haunts the edges of the intellectual life and challenges the notion that humanity is capable of greatness 

Narrator’s interjection about their ‘concerns with the poor…’

‘they [the poor] are unthinkable and only to be approached by the statistician or the poet’

Leonard Bast’s introduction to the novel

he ‘stood at the extreme verge of gentility’

he ‘was not in the abyss, but could see it’ → the ‘abyss’ being the abyss of being poor

What does the house, Howards End, represent?

Symbolises the quest for connection and shared humanity within the turbulent period

passes from the Wilcoxes to the Shlegels → the house catalyses a blending of the three classes