Maurice

Clive Durham is an upper-class man Maurice meets and befriends at Cambridge. The two men are in many ways foils. Clive is “small,” “fair” (36), and plain whereas Maurice is dark, handsome, and athletic; Clive is a gifted classical scholar whereas Maurice is a mediocre student; and Clive goes on to pass the bar exam, take ownership of his family’s estate, and pursue a political career while Maurice becomes a stockbroker. Most importantly, Clive understands his sexual orientation from a young age, whereas Maurice only realizes he’s gay after Clive reveals his feelings for him.

Superficially, Clive therefore seems more accepting of himself and less deferential to social norms. He’s especially contemptuous of those who simply accept the “second-hand” beliefs of others (47), and this disdain for hypocrisy powerfully impresses Maurice. However, Clive’s willingness to flout society is hard won and ultimately fragile; introspective and cerebral by nature, he grows up torn between his orientation and his religiosity. He eventually abandons the latter, but not his belief that expressing his feelings sexually would be immoral. He therefore insists that his and Maurice’s relationship remain physically platonic.

Clive ultimately disavows even this chaste relationship in order to marry Lady Anne Woods. His actual sexual orientation is ambiguous (not least because it seems to shift halfway through the novel), so his feelings for Anne may not be entirely feigned. Nevertheless, part of the allure Anne holds is the chance to uphold society’s “[b]eautiful conventions” (165), and it’s this cowardly impulse that the novel condemns. Clive’s personal weakness is also symbolically significant; as a gay or bisexual man, he represents an intellectualized vision of being gay that isn’t “big enough to hang a life on” (245), and as gentry, he represents an outmoded class system that nevertheless remains an oppressive social force.   

Alec Scudder is a young gamekeeper at Penge. He is good-looking, with “fresh colouring” (234), dark hair and eyes, and a charming, flirtatious, and occasionally “reckless” demeanor (204). This association of the working classes with greater sexual openness—Alec climbs into a social superior’s bedroom and is nonchalant about his desire for both women and men—is common in Victorian and Edwardian literature, and Alec’s position at Penge underscores it. He comes from a family of “respectable tradesm[e]n” (216)—his father is a butcher—but he himself works outdoors in the “woods and the fresh air and water” that Forster juxtaposes with the oppressive norms and confines of middle- and upper-class society (219).

However, Alec isn’t simply “an untamed son of the woods” (219)—that is, a one-dimensional symbol of freedom, physicality, and authenticity. He has insecurities of his own, particularly surrounding his class status; knowing that the middle and upper classes often view the working classes as less than fully human, Alec rebukes Maurice for, as he sees it, using him for sex. Similarly, Alec is suspicious when Maurice asks him to abandon his plans to emigrate, saying, “Yours is the talk of someone who’s never had to earn his living […] You sort of trap me with I love you or whatever it is and then offer to spoil my career” (232). Although Alec ultimately does remain in England, his willingness to draw attention to Maurice’s classism is significant for both characters, demonstrating Alec’s self-respect and forcing Maurice to approach him as an equal rather than an inferior. 

Maurice’s mother is a middle-class widow who lives comfortably in the London suburbs. She is a kind woman who wants the best for her children, but her attitude towards life is highly traditionalist; her views on gender roles, sexuality, social class, etc. are conventional and conservative, not for any principled reason—Forster depicts Mrs. Hall as somewhat dull and unimaginative—but simply out of a sense of propriety. Although this generally leads her to defer to Maurice’s authority as the male head of household, it also aligns her with the bourgeois morality that Maurice finds stifling. To fully realize himself, Maurice must therefore leave his mother’s home, which he does at the end of the novel.  

Dr. Barry is a retired medical doctor and a neighbor of the Hall family. He often dispenses fatherly advice to Maurice, sometimes at the request of Maurice’s mother. His tone on sexual matters is generally worldly and lighthearted; Barry was “a lady killer in his time” (27) and tries to live vicariously through younger men like Maurice. Nevertheless, Barry refuses to listen to Maurice’s assertion about his own sexual orientation, which he dismisses as an “evil hallucination” (159). This combination of close-mindedness toward being gay alongside tolerance of heterosexual promiscuity disgusts Maurice and illustrates the broader hypocrisy of English society.

Mr. Ducie is an “able […] orthodox” teacher at Maurice’s elementary school (9). Because Maurice is fatherless, Ducie decides to explain the basics of sex to Maurice before he leaves for public school. This talk provides Maurice with an early clue to his sexual orientation, and a preview of the societal hypocrisy surrounding sex; Ducie feigns matter-of-factness throughout the talk, but then panics at the thought of passersby seeing the sketches he’d drawn in the sand. Since the conversation sets Maurice’s sexual awakening in motion, it’s fitting that he encounters Ducie again towards the novel’s conclusion; bolstered by the confidence his encounter with Alec has given him, Maurice surreptitiously mocks Ducie by giving his lover’s name as his own.

Mr. Lasker-Jones is a hypnotist Maurice learns of from Risley. According to Risley, Lasker-Jones cured Dean Cornwallis’s impotence; Maurice therefore hopes Lasker-Jones might be able to “cure” his own being gay, and when he consults him, Lasker-Jones confirms that this is what the majority of his patients are seeking. Disreputable as this practice is by modern standards, Lasker-Jones actually does seem to have his patients’ best interests at heart; he is honest about his “cure” rate (50%), and when it becomes clear that Maurice can’t be changed, he advises him to move somewhere where being gay isn’t illegal. This relative open-mindedness may reflect the time Lasker-Jones has spent outside of England; he speaks with a “slightly American” accent (180), and remarks that “England has always been disinclined to accept human nature” (211).

Mr. Borenius is the rector Anne installs in the village near Penge. Unlike most of the characters who profess religious belief, Borenius actually is a devout Christian with strong theological and moral opinions he can intelligently defend. These traits vaguely unnerve Maurice, and cause Borenius to emerge as a final obstacle Maurice must face before beginning life with Alec; Borenius is also at the pier when Maurice arrives to intercept Alec and seems to realize what Maurice’s interest in Alec is. However, Alec’s failure to appear confuses Borenius and reveals the limits of his worldview and imagination: “Mr Borenius assumed that love between two men must be ignoble, and so could not interpret what had happened” (239).

Kitty and Ada are Maurice’s sisters. Kitty, the younger, is “perky” (52), level-headed, and outspoken, and frequently challenges her brother’s authority. Ada is prettier and more conventionally feminine; polite and demure, she’s deeply hurt when Maurice accuses her of wanting to “go wrong with” (i.e. have sex with) Clive. She eventually marries a man named Chapman—a Cambridge friend of Maurice’s.

Mr. Grace is Maurice’s grandfather. Once a “hard and touchy” businessman (137), he develops intellectual interests after retiring, and eventually devises his own cosmology: He believes God and all saved souls live inside the sun. Forster describes this eccentric idea as the “absurd and materialistic” views “of the practical man who tries to think spiritually” (137). Nevertheless, the novel depicts Mr. Grace and his ideas sympathetically, largely because he developed his belief “first hand” (137); in his own way, Mr. Grace is an example of someone who overcame societal convention and tradition to fully realize his personhood.

Lady Anne Woods is Clive’s fiancée and later wife. Like Clive, she comes from an upper-class (though increasingly impoverished) family; she therefore shares her husband’s cultural and intellectual “refinement” (165), as well as the scruples that accompany such elitism. This becomes clear on the couple’s wedding night: “Despite an elaborate education, no one had told her about sex. Clive was as considerate as possible, but he scared her terribly, and left feeling she hated him. She did not. She welcomed him on future nights. But it was always without a word” (164). Consequently, while the pair seem happy in one another’s company, it’s questionable how deep their connection truly is; both Clive’s repressed being gay and Anne’s own sexual repression create a “secrecy [that] drew after it much else of their lives” (164). 

Mrs. Durham is Clive’s widowed mother. Strong-willed and intelligent, she functions as Penge’s matriarch while Clive is at Cambridge. The fact that she doesn’t own the estate partially explains her interest in Clive’s marriage; she hopes to retain her household position by marrying Clive to someone naïve or pliable enough to manipulate. Her concerns also reflect a preoccupation with respectability and tradition that strikes Clive as “withered, unsympathetic, [and] empty” (71). This description proves ironic, since Clive eventually adopts his mother’s concern for class propriety.