‘A Room with a View’- How does Forster depict the link between sex and nature?

E.M Forster published one of his more successful novels, ‘A Room with a View’ in 1908, after having written ‘Where Angels Fear to tread’ and ‘The Longest Journey’. One of the key themes within his novel is the relationship between sex and nature; a vital component in understanding the truth in human nature.           The nature of man can therefore be understood through sexuality and spiritualism, versus societal propriety. Feminist critics would argue that Forster explores the position of women and men in a transitionary stage from the Victorian to Edwardian era in chapter four, “It is sweet to protect her in the intervals of business…but the creature grows degenerate. In her heart also there are springing up strange desires”. In the Victorian era, the socially acceptable woman was chaste, disciplined and ‘protected’ by the man; this self-discipline grew into a suppression of sexual urges, which caused her to ‘degenerate’. Lucy Honeychurch is torn between the Victorian ideals of strict propriety, and the new Edwardian, more liberal way of being. This concept extends to men as they should be ‘happy not because they are masculine, but because they are alive’; Forster uses this more spiritual philosophy in chapter 4, to show Lucy and George as crossing a ‘spiritual boundary’, after witnessing the murder- introducing death and desire into the novel’s sheltered and refined world. However societal propriety sneaks back into Lucy as she asks George, ‘would you not mention it to anyone, my foolish behaviour?’- The adjective ‘foolish’ suggesting a wrong on her part for submitting herself to the strength of George when he carried her. Psychoanalytic readings might imply that here we see conflict between Lucy’s ‘subconscious’ want of physical contact with George, and her need to retain a polished, Victorian reputation.