Howard's End

[Chickenhead]

I recently watched the movie “Howard’s End,” and I couldn’t quite understand Emma Thompson’s character, Margaret Schlegel. Having not read Forster’s novel, I could never tell if she was scheming to get the Wilcox home or if she really was guileless. I really was surprised that she married Mr. Wilcox; that action seemed incongruous with her character. Perhaps someone who has read the book could explain it?

[The_Devil_s_Grandmother]

I’ve read the book and seen the movie, and I think that Margaret was surprised by the generosity of the first Mrs. Wilcox. In the book it is far more obvious how much the land and house at Howard’s End were beloved by Mrs. Wilcox and how much her own children were indifferent to it. In the interactions of Mrs. Wilcox and Margaret you can see where Mrs. Wilcox might have regarded Margaret has her “spiritual daughter and heir.
I think Margaret, as well as the audience, is unprepared for the sudden love between Margaret and Mr. Wilcox. It’s one of the weaker points of the novel, IMHO.

[Miss_Mapp]

Originally posted by Chickenhead:
I recently watched the movie “Howard’s End,” and I couldn’t quite understand Emma Thompson’s character, Margaret Schlegel. Having not read Forster’s novel, I could never tell if she was scheming to get the Wilcox home or if she really was guileless.

Margaret is not scheming to get Howard’s End; that she does get the house in the end, in accordance with Mrs. Wilcox’s wishes, comes about by the bizarre chain of events following her marriage (and makes up my favorite part of the book, even if it does involve the death of poor Leonard Bast).

About her marriage to Mr. Wilcox–I think the fact that she loves him does take her by surprise. I’ll use a couple of quotes from the book. First, during the proposal scene (in Chapter 18):

“So deep already was her sympathy that when he said, ‘I am asking you to be my wife,’ she made herself give a little start… An immense joy came over her. It was indescribable. It had nothing to do with humanity, and most resembled the all-pervading happiness of fine weather. Fine weather is due to the sun, but Margaret could think of no central radiance here. She stood in his drawing room happy, and longing to give happiness. On leaving him she realized that the central radiance had been love.”

And then, a page or so later at the end of the same chapter:

“Never before had her personality been touched. She was not young or very rich, and it amazed her that a man of standing should take her seriously. As she sat trying to do accounts in her empty house, amidst beautiful pictures and noble books, waves of emotion broke, as if a tide of passion was flowing through the air. She shook her head, tried to concentrate her attention, and failed. In vain did she repeat: ‘But I’ve been through this sort of thing before.’ She had never been through it; the big machinery…had been set in motion, and the idea that Mr. Wilcox loved, obsessed her before she came to love him in return.”

Whether or not it’s plausibly in character is debatable, but it is how Forster describes Margaret’s feelings. So, we are meant to see it as a marriage made in love.

[Chickenhead]

Thanks; I didn’t get that at all from the movie. When she gets married, it seems, at most, pragmatic.