Howards End
by E. M. Forster
Schlegeller are intellectuals, supporters of art and literature. Wilcox is practical and materialistic, and lives a life full of "telegraphy and anger." When the eldest Mrs. Wilcox dies and her family learns that she has left their country home — Howards, one of the Schlegel sisters — a crisis arises between the two families that will take years to resolve. Howards End is a symbolic survey of the social, economic and intellectual forces that worked in Britain in the years leading up to the First World War, when enormous social change took place. In "Schlegels" and "Wilcox," Forster perfectly embodies the competing idealism and materialism of the upper classes, while the conflict over the ownership of the Howards End is the struggle for ownership of the country's future. As critic Lionel Trilling once put it, the novel asks: "Who will inherit England?" Forster refuses to take sides in this conflict. Instead, it asks one of the book's central questions: In a changing modern society, what should be the connection between inner and outer life, the world of intelligence, and the world of work? As Forster insists, "will they just be able to connect?"
