Maurice

Although primarily concerned with heteronormativity, Maurice also critiques other forms of societal pressure and control. The culture Maurice depicts is both highly conformist and stratified along various lines—most obviously, class and gender. Consequently, the general shape of an individual’s life is determined from the moment they’re born. This is true even of the relatively privileged, because that privilege consists of preordained power and success; when Maurice enters an investment firm and begins exercising his authority at home, he is simply “stepping into the niche that England had prepared for him” (55).

A society that assigns people to particular “niches” poses clear problems for those whose niche is subordinate; Kitty, for example, clearly resents her financial dependence on her brother. However, there’s an even more fundamental problem: This kind of society stifles individual development and thus prevents people from realizing their full humanity. Because there’s little incentive to question societal norms and assumptions (in fact, there’s enormous pressure not to), most people never develop beliefs and passions that are uniquely their own, or even accept traditional beliefs in anything but the most passive ways.

The novel’s treatment of religion is a good example. What Clive (and later Maurice) object to isn’t Christianity per se, but rather the unreflective way most of society practices it:

It didn’t exist till opposition touched it, when it ached like a useless nerve. They all had these nerves at home, and regarded them as divine, though neither the Bible nor the Prayer Book nor the Sacraments nor Christian ethics nor anything spiritual were alive to them (46).

Unlike genuine belief, which provides a “wider outlook” and thus encourages personal growth (46), this profession of Christian feeling is simply a way of signaling group membership; in other words, it actively hampers individual development.

Ironically, in this atmosphere, it’s precisely the fact that being gay isn’t tolerated that, in Forster’s words, “saves” Maurice (251). Maurice is average in every respect but his sexual orientation. What’s more, those around him reward his mediocrity, because it presents no challenge to the status quo: “The school clapped not because Maurice was eminent but because he was average. It could celebrate itself in his image” (25-26). Maurice would therefore likely never have challenged any of his preconceptions if his sexuality hadn’t directly clashed with them; the fact that it does forces him to think for himself, and ultimately to develop qualities that truly are exceptional. This becomes particularly clear in his interactions with Alec. Not only does Maurice see past Alec’s class, but he demonstrates real empathy and courage, first in noticing the fear motivating Alec’s actions, and then in choosing to leave his comfortable middle-class life for Alec. These are character traits Maurice has only gained through years of conflict with society. 

Class is a longstanding fault-line in English society. In pre-industrial times, the major division lay between the landed gentry or aristocracy and the lower-class peasantry, many of whom were tenant farmers. Over time, a professional and commercial middle class also emerged, along with the urban lower class of the 18th and 19th-century Industrial Revolution. By the time Maurice takes place, class was therefore both an entrenched feature of English society, and an increasingly complex system that overlapped with other divisions (urban versus rural, modern capitalism versus the vestiges of feudalism, etc.).

Maurice’s three main male characters embody the three major social classes—upper, middle, and working. Clive is gentry and the heir to a country estate; he also follows a conventionally upper-class career path, studying law before entering politics. Alec is a gamekeeper, although his family are independent tradespeople, and he shares that group's general disdain for the service sector of the working class. Lastly, Maurice himself is quintessentially middle-class, both in profession and disposition; he works as a stockbroker, lives in the suburbs, and is generally conformist.

In this sense, Maurice’s relationships with Clive and Alec dramatize early 20th-century English class dynamics. Maurice belongs to a class that is upwardly mobile but conscious that it lacks a pedigree; he’s therefore easily impressed by Clive, next to whom he initially feels like “a yokel in Athens” (57). However, it soon becomes clear that the class Clive represents is increasingly irrelevant to English society; though it still considers itself responsible for “set[ting] standards [and] control[ing] the future” (239), it no longer has the money to back these aspirations. Penge is in disrepair when Maurice first visits, and it only deteriorates further by the time he returns: “Through pouring rain he had noticed gate posts crooked, trees stifling, and indoors some bright wedding presents showed as patches on a threadbare garment” (166-67). Clive’s chastity is equally symbolic, evoking the “impotence” and “sterility” of his class.

By contrast, Alec initially seems to embody the bluntness and earthy sexuality the middle classes ascribed to the lower classes. Maurice’s first impressions certainly reflect his class’s disregard for the working classes’ humanity; believing that the poor “haven’t [the middle and upper class’s] feelings” (168), he assumes Alec has only written in order to blackmail him. Maurice’s prejudices prove unfounded, however. Though Alec does threaten blackmail, he does this because he anticipates Maurice’s classism, and recognizes his own vulnerability; despite Maurice’s fears, it’s actually Alec who’s most at risk of prosecution. This is why Maurice must ultimately leave his middle-class life to embark on a relationship with Alec. Like the upper classes in particular, the class system in general “belong[s] to the past” (245). Since the same past condemns being gay, Maurice suggests that love between men will only truly flourish when class ceases to matter.