What Is A Room With A View Lucy Transformation

As John o’ Hara once said “They say great themes make great novels”. In the novel A Room With A View, by E.M. Forster, this definitely proclaims true. One of the major themes in this novel is transformation. In the novel A Room With A View, by E.M. Forster, transformation is apparent through personal discovery, falling in and out of love, and the shifting of alliances. Transformation is first shown in the novel through personal discovery, and an example of this is by Lucy accepting other social classes. In the beginning of the novel Lucy respected the people in the social classes below hers, but she did not integrate with them. “This successful morning left no pleasant impressions on Lucy. She had been a little frightened, both by Miss Lavish
The only time she truly felt secure was when she plays the piano, “It just so happened that Lucy, who found daily life rather chaotic, entered a more solid world when she opened a piano. She was then no longer either a rebel or a slave. The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world; it will accept those whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected” (Forster 32). Music is really the only time Lucy can express her feelings and not feel judged about them. “She does not trust her own senses: no judge of beauty in her own estimation. Thus she explores’ disdainfully, unwilling to bend, afraid to like or enjoy movements which may not deserve her admiration” (Edwards 43). Lucy is judged on everything that she does, she does not allow herself to feel anymore due to the fear of being judged by her peers. A great time in the novel is when Lucy finally accepts and starts to stand up for herself. In an argument with Cecil, Lucy finally stood up for herself and it really changed the entire novel, “I won’t be protected. I will choose for myself what is ladylike and right. To shield me is an insult. Can’t I be trusted to face the truth but I must get it secondhand from you? A woman’s place!” (Forster 164). By her standing up for herself, she finally allows herself to be her true self, “Lucy’s true self can be found
We [the readers] often found Cecil trying to make himself love Lucy, “he considered, with truth, that it had been a failure. Passion should believe itself irresistible. It should be forget civility and consideration and all the other curses of a refined nature. Above all it should never ask for leave where there is a right of way” (Forster 105). Cecil knew that something was not right with their relationship. He fell in love with her only after he thought she was more refined, “From his intellectual throne in a corner of London, where he is surrounded by ideas in the shape of books and the Philistinism of metropolitan culture, he ventures to descend to the unsophisticated circle of windy corner, had known Lucy for years, but Italy had ‘worked some moral in her. It gave her light, and which he held more precious it gave her shadows’” (James 103). Cecil does not actually love Lucy, he loves the idea of Lucy. He loves the idea of going against his social class and marrying someone who is not quite on his level. Thankfully Lucy realized this and breaks it off with Cecil “I cannot marry you [Cecil], and you will thank me for that one day” (Forster 162). After Lucy breaks it off with Cecil, she has a flashback to a moment that she and George had that really affirms that she [Lucy] made the right decision. “In a way that the flowers beat against her dress in blue waves’ there in an