Monday, November 9, 2009
A Room With A View
After finishing A Room With a view, I’m still deciding what I should write about in my paper. I’m considering writing about Lucy because she is the protagonist in the novel and Lucy has some interesting characteristics. For one, she is perceived as an innocent, young girl, which seems to be true. She is consistently sheltered either by her cousin Charlotte, or by the different superior class figures in society (like Mr. Beebe). It is not until the end of the book, does Lucy start making her own decisions, which result in her happiness. I think that I could compare and contrast how social status can serve as protection, and also as a barrier that separates the rich, or “educated” from the poor. I also am considering writing about how social class comes into effect in this novel. It seems that the people of the upper class are quick to judge those in the lower class. (The Miss Alans). In the early 1900s social mobility was very difficult, so most of the time you were born into a certain job. This book does a good job of displaying reoccurring themes like trust, love and social class . It will be hard for me to decide but I think I will have more to write about in regards to Lucy than I will compared to the social customs of the time.
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I think that viewing the social contrasts of the time and analyzing them to see if they served as a barrier to actual happiness as opposed to a way to protect those within the class from the unrefined masses. The view presented here that the characters are "sheltered" within their class is also something that should be further analyzed as it makes those within the upper class seem almost handicapped to the rest of society.
ReplyDeleteOne question that might be worth asking is whether or not Lucy truly is happy once she starts making her own decisions for herself rather that follow the until-now status quo of her class.
Writing about just social constraints of the times might be a little too broad unless tied into the characters own personal experiences within the novel, however. I think tying Lucy's own story with the concept of lack of social mobility during that time would result in a very interesting essay to read.