61 pages • 2-hour read
Howards End
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Symbols & Motifs
Howards End
Howards End is the ancestral home of Mrs. Wilcox. In the novel it symbolizes the virtuous simplicity of the countryside and permanence in contrast to London, which is always changing and expanding, both upward and outward.
Howards End is where the novel opens when Helen writes to Margaret about her stay there and her love for Paul Wilcox, and it is also where the novel closes; Margaret lives there with Mr. Wilcox, Helen, and Helen’s baby. Mrs. Wilcox, who has a very strong attachment to Howards End, leaves it to Margaret in her will, and Margaret does not find this out until the end of the novel, after Mr. Wilcox has left it to her in his will. After Margaret’s death, it is to pass to Helen’s son with the dead Leonard Bast. The fact that it frames the novel and is passed between characters emphasizes its permanence.
Miss Avery, in a remark that Margaret takes for a kind of prophetic statement, says that she is going to live at Howards End, after Miss Avery has unpacked her furniture and set it up there. In this way, Howards End becomes the Schlegels’ new home before they move in. The common memories the furniture holds reconcile the sisters to one another after their falling out, and Margaret attributes to Howards End “wonderful powers.” Through its association with Mrs. Wilcox and with the presence of Miss Avery, Howards End also adopts mystical connotations as it stands (for the time being) outside the bounds of time and the changes of modernity.
“The Goblins”
The idea of “the goblins” as a vague sense of evil or of nihilism is first brought up in relation to a musical motif in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Helen understands the music as a narrative depicting a battle between “panic” and “emptiness” on the one hand and the forces of “splendor” and “heroism” on the other. Later, throughout the novel, the goblins become a motif that represents Margaret’s sense of foreboding in relation to the presence of Leonard and Jacky in the lives of the Schlegels. Margaret has the feeling that she and those close to her are coming into contact with forces that portend a troubled future.
The inclusion of the motif of the goblins also brings attention to the way the novel itself mirrors the form of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. While “the goblins”—those forces presaging the triumph of tragedy—appear to have the upper hand at certain points, the novel ends on a positive note, with the forces of “heroism” coming out on top.
Margaret’s association of the Basts with goblins also demonstrates the manner in which she is taking on the role of the new Mrs. Wilcox. Mrs. Wilcox is said to know things without being told them and is later said to be omniscient and omnipresent. Margaret, who is described by Helen at the end of the novel as “heroic,” having warded off the threat posed by the conflicts and catastrophes, exhibits a similar intuitive understanding of people and events. She learns to conduct events in the way that Mrs. Wilcox conducts them.
Literature and Art
Works of art appear sporadically throughout the novel, especially around Leonard Bast. Leonard meets the Schlegels at a concert, reads a volume of John Ruskin alone at night, and attempts to talk to the sisters about various books he has read. Finally, after he is attacked by Charles at the end of the novel, a bookcase falls on top of Leonard. This motif highlights The Difficulty of Overcoming Class Divisions.
Although a love of art is ostensibly something that Leonard shares with the Schlegels, their relationship to art is something that separates them. While the Schlegel family is able to speak of art fluently after having been surrounded by it for their entire lives, Leonard appears to be primarily concerned with deriving some utility from art. He wants to appear cultured so that he can better fit in with the Schlegels and elevate his social position. The Schlegels recognize this when he tries to talk about books with them, viewing him as a pretentious and uninteresting dilettante. It is only when he shares his authentic excitement in retelling the story of his adventure that they take an interest in him. The bookcase falling on Leonard as he is dying symbolizes his futile efforts to use art and literature to elevate himself socially.
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