"A Call to the Blood": E.M.

Forster's A Room with a View as a

Precursor to D.H. Lawrence'sLady Chatterley's Lover
David McCracken
Coker College

There may not be any recorded evidence that D. H. Lawrence

read E. M. Forster's 1908 novel, but the similarities between A
Room with a View and Lady Chatterley's Lover suggest that
Lawrence must have been at least familiar with the works plot.
Although the two writers address sexuality differently, the awaken-
ing of Lucy Honeychurch is similar to that of Constance
Chatterley, and although Forster is not as explicit as his contempo-
rary, the theme of his novel relates closely to Lawrence's theory of
"blood consciousness."
Lawrence believed that the essence of each individual is located
in the blood. In an essay entitled "Two Principles", he asserts that
in the blood "we have our strongest self-knowledge, our most
powerful conscience" (236). In "A Propos to Lady Chatterley's
Lover," Lawrence adds that "the blood is the substance of the
soul, and of the deepest consciousness. It is by blood that we are.
[. . .J In the blood, knowing and being, or feeling, are one and
undivided" (349). According to Lawrence, men and women are
charged with opposite nerve impulses which mystically attract and
repulse. The connection between these impulses causes "blood
consciousness": "There in the sexual passion the very blood
surges into communion, in the terrible sensual oneing. There all
the darkness of the deeps, the primal flood, is perfected, as the two
great waves of separated blood surge to consummation" ("Two
Principles" 236). When two people have sexual intercourse, when
the bloods physically merge, the couple experiences overwhelming-
ly strong spiritual sensations that Lawrence called "phallic con-
sciousness." In a letter written in 1928, Lawrence describes Lady
Chatterley's Lover as a "phallic" novel:
It is strictly a novel of the phallic consciousness as against the
mental consciousness of today. For some things, you will
probably dislike it: because you are still squeamish, and
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 scared of the phallic reality. It is perfectly wholesome and
normal, and [a] man and a woman. But I protest against its
being labelled "sex." Sex is a mental reaction nowadays, and
a hopelessly cerebral affair: and what I believe in is the true
phallic consciousness. (qtd. in Huxley 721)
Of course, readers considered Lawrence's novel pornographic, but
the writer vehemently defended his work as a literary response
against his culture's repression of normal human behavior.
The rhetoric is not as obvious in A Room with a View, which
was published twenty years before Lady Chatterley's Lover, but
Forster's message clearly anticipates Lawrence's radical ideology.
Claude Summers argues that the eventual marriage of George and
Lucy rebels against the established anarchy of the English upper-
class: they create "a new chivalry, a new aristocracy of the spirit
[. . .Hthe kind] Forster hoped to find in all the nations and classes"
(90). Tony Brown believes that Lucy is the feminist representative
of this new social order:
In its published version, A Room with a View ultimately cen
ters, then, on Lucy's deciding between two versions of the
relationship which should exist between a man and a woman
in marriage, and, implicitly, between two versions of social
organization. She ultimately rejects the hierarchical struc
tures, both social and sexual, which are fundamental to the
"chivalric" code of her class, according to which the lady is
protected and treasured by the gentleman, in favour of a
Carpenterian vision of social equality and sexual comrade
ship. (292)
Significantly, both Forster and Lawrence were deeply influenced by
Edward Carpenter's treatise Love Coming of Age. Daniel
Schneider (50-54) and Emile Delavenay (78-86) argue that
Carpenter's theories provided the foundation on which Lawrence
built his concept of blood consciousness. Brown points out that
Forster and Carpenter both believed "men in their lust for material
possessions have denied their emotional sensitivity and capacity for
tenderness," the relations between the sexes cannot improve unless
physical sexuality is seen as "pure and beautiful," and society can
only heal itself when men and women can openly express their
physical sexuality (282). Carpenter believed his culture refused to
46
acknowledge sexuality as a basic need, and because of this, the
population condemned sexual desire. Unfortunately, he claimed,
this repression produced a sexual lust leading to prostitution and
other unhealthy social practices. Carpenter's stance against sexual
repression, particularly concerning women, is clearly illustrated in
Lady Chatterley's Lover and A Room with a View.
In Lawrence's novel, Clifford despises every aspect of physical
union. To him, "sex was merely an accident, or an adjunct: one
of the curious obsolete, organic processes which persisted in its
own clumsiness, but was not really necessary" (9). He is the
Victorian intellectual who "lives in his books" (17), leaving
Constance a "half-virgin" (15) because he-being physically impo-
tent--cannot satisfy her sexual needs. Cecil Vyse, Lucy's fiance, is
described as medieval, "Like a Gothic statue. Tall and refined, [. .
.] Well educated, well endowed, and not deficient physically [but]
he remained in the grip of a certain devil whom the modern world
knows as self-consciousness. [. . .] A Gothic statue implies celibacy,
just as a Greek statue implies fruition. (100). Cecil and Clifford
personify the sexual repression that Forster and Lawrence set out
to destroy. Both characters are pedantic, selfish shells of men who
are products of the aridity of their intellectual worlds.
On the other hand, George and Mellors function as catalysts to
Lucy's and Constance's spiritual transformations. When the
women first meet these men, they treat them as threats, as intrud-
ers upon the established patterns of their lives. Constance first
meets Mellors as he strolls down a lane (46) and Lucy first sees
George while they are eating supper at the Pension Bertolini (8).
However, both women sense that these men will disrupt their safe,
routine lifestyles. Constance notices that Mellors emerged from
the lane as "a swift menace" (46). Lucy does not react so intu-
itively, but her fascination with the Emersons is partially a
response to their alternative ideas. The two women do not feel the
surge of blood conscious impulses until they notice the physical
qualities of these men. Constance witnesses the gamekeeper wash-
ing himself at his hut, and she encounters "in some curious way [.
. .] a visionary experience: it had hit her in the middle of her body.
[. . .] Not the stuff of beauty, not even the body of beauty, but a
lambency, the warm, white flame of a single life, revealing itself in
47
 contours that one might tOuch: a body!" (68). Afterward,
Constance examines her own body in a mirror, renouncing the
mental life for the physical (73). Constance and Mellors's subse-
quent lovemaking illustrates graphically the phallic connection;
Lucy and George's embraces are not described as explicitly.
Instead, in A Room with a View, there is a more subtle portrayal
of sexual awakening.
Lucy's spiritual transformation occurs slowly. When the Italian
falls at her feet, she is overwhelmed by the spontaneity of the inci-
dent. When Lucy regains consciousness from fainting, she realizes
that she "as well as the dying man, had crossed some spiritual
boundary" (50). The blood on Lucy's pictures symbolize the
awakening of blood consciousness inside her: Lucy must acknowl-
edge that her image of the world based upon reason is being
undercut by spontaneous reaction and raw instinct. When asked
to throw the photos into the stream, George realizes that he will
become the agent to accelerate this process. He even states, "For
something tremendous has happened; I must face it without getting
muddled. It isn't exactly that a man has died" (51). When Lucy
returns to the Pension Bertolini, Beebe notices a change in her:
"Was there more in her frank beauty than met the eye-the power,
perhaps, to evoke passions, good and bad, and to bring them
speedily to fulfillment?" (65). Her passions are not truly evoked
until she is kissed by George. When Forster attributes the names
Phaethon to the carriage driver and Persephone to his [quote] "sis-
ter" (72), he foreshadows the symbolic action which will make
Lucy feel the "primordial tenderness" (Chatterley 187) that
Constance feels with Mellors. In fact, the entire journey of the
tourists to Fiesole is rhetorically significant. Mr. Eager and Mr.
Emerson's argument about whether or not the lovers may remain
together provides a synopsis of the Victorian and Romantic dialec-
tic to that point. Mr. Eager believes that the public display of
affection is indecent; Mr. Emerson honors it as special: "Do we
find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it
happens to sit there? To be driven by lovers-A king might envy
us [. . .]" (73).
In the middle of the novel, the "view" refers to Lucy's spiritual
clarity. Before this, not occupying a room with a view was associ-
48
ated with not having a clear vision of the landscape. But now,
when Lucy notes that "the view was forming at last" (79), view
connotates an inner seeing, a mystical balance of the cerebral with
the physical which enables her consciousness to react spontaneous-
ly with the natural setting. This is quite similar to the effect
Sherwood Forest has upon Constance: the environment around
the gamekeeper's hut allows her to feel "passionate like a
Bacchante, like a Bacchanal; fleeting through the woods" (144).
Similarly, the Fiesole contains a "mysterious stillness" (124) for
Lucy: "Light and beauty enveloped her. She had fallen on to a lit-
tle open terrace, which was covered with violets from end to end.
. . this terrace was the well-head, the primal source whence beauty
gushed out to water the earth" (79-80). There she meets George,
and "For a moment he contemplated her, as one who had fallen
out of heaven. He saw radiant joy in her face, he saw the flowers
beat against her dress in blue waves. The bushes above them
closed. He stepped quickly forward and kissed her" (80).
Appropriately, on the way back to the Pension Bertolini,
"There was a general sense of groping and bewilderment Pan had
been amongst them [. . .]" (81). Lucy Honeychurch's sexuality has
been awakened, and keeping with Victorian standards, the best
remedy for this is to pretend that it never occurred. At Windy
Corner, which has "no view" (122), Lucy's decision to marry Cecil
Vyse is obviously the backlash of her feelings for George. Lucy's
relatives support the farcical engagement and fail to recognize the
misdirection of her love. Mrs. Honeychurch even tells Cecil that
Lucy "has learnt what it is to love: the greatest lesson, some people
will tell you, that our earthly life provides" (108). However, Cecil
and Lucy treat their engagement with indifference, and at times
irritation (110-11); they have simply not felt, or will ever feel, the
mystical attractive and repulsive impulses associated with true
love.
Cecil believes that he is going to "rescue" (126) Lucy from
Windy Corner. His family is wealthier than the Honeychurches
and he believes himself superior to those around him. Fortunately,
Lucy's experience with George has given her the strength to
become more independent: "A rebel she was, but not the kind
[Cecil] understood-a rebel who desired, not a wider
49
 dwelling-room, but equality beside the man she loved. For Italy
was offering her the most priceless of all possessions-her own
soul" (128). Lucy has felt the cerebral and the physical sensations
of genuine passion, and as a result, she is now empowered to resist
Cecil's acts of male dominance. This new attitude is clearly evi-
dent when Cecil says that he believes the classes should intermarry,
that he supports democracy, and Lucy clearly recognizes his insin-
cerity (136). She is the only character who has the assertiveness to
transcend class barriers. Being moderately wealthy, she falls in
love with a clerk and sheds the constraints applied by socio-eco-
nomic mores, and her feelings for George are obvious after the
famous pond scene: "That evening and all the night the water ran
away. On the morrow the pool had shrunk to its old size and lost
its glory. It had been a call to the blood and to the relaxed will, a
passing benediction whose influence did not pass, a holiness, a
spell, a momentary chalice for youth" (153).
However, Lucy will not totally trust her instincts. When
Charlotte visits Windy Corner, she seemingly becomes both Lucy's
confidant and her betrayer. While confessing to Charlotte that
George had kissed her, Lucy attempts to rationalize why it hap-
pened: "Cecil said one day-and I thought it so profound-that
there are two types of cads-the conscious and the unconscious. [.
. .] What I mean by subconscious is that Mr. Emerson lost his
head. I fell into all those violets, and he was silly and surprised"
(170). Lucy attempts to intellectualize the physical sensations that
she and George both felt, and aggressively contends that George
was not a "cad" just as she was not a "tart." Actually, she tries to
define the experience by proper expressions of Victorian sexuality.
Lucy and George's kiss was a natural reaction that occurred as a
result of their attracting impulses. When Lucy seesGeorge again,
she remembers instinctively the feelings she had for him at the
Piazza Signoria and at Fiesole. As luck would have it, Cecil's read-
ing aloud of the "kiss" section, "the thing about the view" (185)
in Lavish's Under the Loggia, only intensifies those sensations.
During George's second kiss Lucy tries to defend herself, just as
Constance attempts to ward off Mellors's rape (141), but her
instinctive passion will not allow her to avoid the physical contact.
Both women react by questioning their feelings, wrestling with the
50
conflict between private passion and public duty. Confused,
Constance tries to persuade herself that she loves Clifford. Lucy is
thrown into a world of chaos after the second kiss with George:
The contest lay not between love and duty. Perhaps there
never is such a contest. It lay between the real and the pre
tended.[. . .] Remembering that she was engaged to Cecil,
she compelled herself to confused remembrances of George;
he was nothing to her; he never had been anything; he had
behaved abominably; she had never encouraged him. The
armour of falsehood is subtly wrought out of darkness. (189)
When Lucy remembers the kiss, she "had to subdue a rush in her
blood" (192), and in turn, George admits that he cannot ignore
the uncontrollable impulses he feels when he is near her.
Lucy rationalizes that she can control her passion, but Mr.
Emerson (who may perhaps express Forster's own ideology) recog-
nizes her self-deception. When she decides to leave Windy Corner
for the romantic world of Italy, she is attempting to run away from
her emotions. Mr. Emerson tells her that she is too "muddled"
(236) to run away, and he perceives that she is fleeing from the
intuitive "view" (227) that George has opened into her conscious-
ness. In the most philosophical part of the novel, Mr. Emerson
persuades Lucy that she is in love with his son: "When love
comes, that is reality. [. ..] Passion does not blind. [. . .] Passion is
sanity" (230). He finally exclaims, "You love George!" (236). In
words that hit Lucy "like waves from the open sea" (237), he
asserts that "love is of the body; not the body, but of the body. . . .
Ah! for a little directness to liberate your sou!!" (237). He
instructs her to trust the "holiness of direct desire" (240), or in
other words, to believe in the spontaneous instinctive impulses
associated with her blood conscious reaction to George. As Lucy
responds to his advice, "as the darkness was withdrawn, veil after
veil, [. . .] she saw to the bottom of her soul" (235).
In the last chapter of A Room with a View, Lucy's requests for
George to kiss her body illustrate that after this "unveiling," when
"all feelings grow to passions" (242), there is spiritual rebirth. In
the conclusion of Lady Chatterley's Lover, Mellors sends
Constance his famous letter advocating the "forked flame" (327)
between them. He also argues that more people should believe in
51
Pan, which compares to Forster's reference to the mythological -. Lady Chatterley'sLover. 1928. New York: Bantam, 1968.
character in his novel. More important, Constance is pregnant -. "Two Principles." Phoenix II: Uncollected,Unpublished,and
with a child created out of her and Mellors's love, out of their Other Prose Works_byD. H. Lawrence. Ed. Warren Roberts and
phallic consciousness. At the end of A Room with a View, Lucy Harry Moore. New York: Viking, 1968.227-37.
and George's sexual activity is not revealed, but the relaxed, physi- Summers,Claude. E. M. Forster.New York: Ungar, 1983.
cal description of the scene and the reference that their room at the
Pension Bertolini has a magnificent view imply that even if they
have not reached phallic consciousness, they are not far from get-
ting there. In the final paragraph of the novel, Forster tries to
define this natural, but definitely mystical love: "Youth
enwrapped them; the on~ of Phaethon announced passion requit-
ed, love attained. But they were conscious of a love more mysteri-
ous than this. The song died away; they heard the river, bearing
down the snows of winter into the Mediterranean" (246).
In 1896, Edward Carpenter argued that the mystical sensations
felt during sexual intercourse enable men and women to achieve
cosmic harmony. In 1908, through George and Lucy, Forster
described how two lovers break through social and cultural barri-
ers to reach the threshold of this experience. Twenty years later,
through Mellors and Constance, Lawrence not only illustrated the
actual experience of phallic consciousness, but he demonstrated
how, in his own words, "Sex is the balance of male and female in
the universe" ("A Propos" 332).

Works Cited

Brown, Tony. "Edward Carpenter, Forster, and the Evolution of A

Room with a View." English Literature in Transition (1880-
1920) 30.2 (1987): 279-300.
Carpenter, Edward. Love's Coming of Age. 1896. London: Swan
Sonnenschein, 1909.
Delavenay, Emile. D. H. Lawrence: The Man and His Work: The
Formative Years (1885-1919). Trans. Katherine Delavenay.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1972.
Forster, E. M. A Room with a View. 1908. New York: Vintage,
1986.
Lawrence, D. H. "A Propos to Lady Chatterley's Lover." Lady
Chatterley's Lover New York: Bantam, 1968. 329-60.
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