QUEEN′S UNIVERSITY BELFAST

SCHOOL OF ENGLISH

Social Fragmentation in

Modernist English Literature

E.M. FORSTER, Howards End ­ Virginia WOOLF, Between the Acts

Jan H. Hauptmann

This essay will focus on two modernist works by Virginia WOOLF and E. M.

FORSTER, which might in fact be regarded as very different concerning their

subject matter and style. When FORSTER completed his fourth published novel

Howards End

in 1910, Europe was on the edge of the First World War, while

WOOLF′s novel

Between the Acts

­ finished in November 1942 ­ was created

under the impacts of fascism, the frightening force of the Second World War,

and the Blitz in Great Britain. Despite a relatively long time span between these

works, the novels are dealing with similar modernist aspects insofar as they are

both considering the changes of a society under the influence of modern life,

resulting in a social fragmentation caused by political developments within

Europe.

This paper will at first reveal the indications of social fragmentations

worked into the novels and, secondly, find out if FORSTER and WOOLF are

actually providing a solution to the upcoming problems within their artwork.

The political tensions in FORSTER′s

Howards End

predominantly arise

between the characters of the Schlegels and the Wilcoxes, two middle class

families with completely different social backgrounds. As the director of a rubber

company with African holdings, Henry Wilcox is the epitome of British

industrialism and imperialism, while the Schlegel sisters (Margaret and Helen)

are representing quite the opposite. Being daughters of a liberal German

refugee, the Schlegels are not English "to the backbone"1, though they are not

supposed to be of a certain German type, either. Her father ­ Ernst Schlegel ­

emigrated because

[h]e was not the aggressive German so dear to the English journalist, nor the domestic

German, so dear to the English wit. If one classed him at all it would be as the

countryman of Hegel and Kant, as the idealist, inclined to be dreamy, whose

Imperialism was the Imperialism of the air. [...] [H]e knew that some quality had

vanished for which not all Alsace-Lorraine could compensate him. Germany a

commercial power, Germany a naval power, Germany with colonies here and a Forward

Policy there, and legitimate aspirations in the other place, might appeal to others, an be

fitly served by them; for his own part, he abstained from the fruits of victory, and

naturalized himself in England.

(FORSTER, 2000: 24)

1 FORSTER, Eward Morgan.

Howards End

. New York: Penguin, 2000: 24.

2

Throughout the plot of the novel, the two different middle class families are

constantly getting in touch with each other, which causes many problems

because of the different attitudes of the characters. The Wilcoxes are a

particularly selfish and greedy. Like the German imperialists the deceased

father Ernst Schlegel must once have turned away from, they are described as

being very efficient, but also heartless exploiters with a significant lack of

spirituality and humanity. The alienation from humanity goes so far that, even

within the Wilcox family, people are not able to get along with each other any

more. However, they keep paying attention to their outer appearance, which

does not seem to represent more than an empty shell.

Though presenting a firm front to outsiders, no Wilcox could live near, or near the

possessions of, any other Wilcox. They had the colonial spirit, and were always making

for some spot where the white man might carry his burden unobserved.

(FORSTER, 2000: 174)

The narrator′s comment on the white man′s burden which has to be carried out

"unobserved" as well as on the "colonial spirit" obviously does not lack of irony.

Bearing in mind the African rubber company, one might assume that the burden

rather consist in personal enrichment than in any kind of enlightenment brought

to native people in the colonies. One may also ask how enlightenment could

possibly be provided by people who are uncivilised themselves and only

interested in money and motorcars, like the Wilcoxes are characterised in

Howards End

.

Furthermore, the Wilcoxes′ lack of idealism does not only affect their

supposed exploitative behaviour in the colonies, but also their own life within

England. The "Imperialist′s principle of `Everyone for himself′"2 is evidently seen

as a powerful influence on the English society as a whole. Additionally, in a

capitalist and imperialist society, the outer life of business is seen as being

divided from the inner life of personal relations represented by the Schlegel

sisters, and in particular by the character of Helen, that is entirely devoted to the

inner life. Although Helen is not designed to be a very bright and intelligent

2 GREEN, Robert

. Messrs Wilcox and Kurtz, Hollow Men

. in: Twentieth Century Literature, Vol.

14. No. 4 (Jan., 1969): 235.

3