The Ghost of Mrs. Wilcox and the Haunting of Margaret Schlegel

Because I read Delmar's paper before I read the novel, his perspective on Margaret has colored the text for me. Delmar notes that Margaret serves as a kind of replacement for Mrs. Wilcox, the new Ruth if you will. Henry's children worry about Margaret's potential desire to take Howards End, which is the Wilcox family's last connection to Ruth. Even though Mrs. Wilcox does not survive the novel, it is her symbolic nature of an agrarian England gone by due to the rise of industrial capitalism that seems to be the ideal to which Henry and Margaret return to at Howards End with London in the distance. Because Mrs. Wilcox bequeathed Howards End to Margaret, the reader is meant to recognize their similarity in character. Despite the fact that Margaret does attempt to distance herself from Mrs. Wilcox's burden (i.e. Henry's affair with the vulgar Jacky), the affair is one that affects her and Henry's relationship even though the affair began during his marriage to Ruth. Margaret is much more active than Ruth as she leaps in and out of cars and goes against the wishes of those who wish to control her; however, Howards End keeps calling to her and through it, Ruth's ghost. If Ruth is the agrarian idyllic past that Margaret is becoming the caretaker of, then Henry is capitalism confronting its own failings in its treatment of humanity. Henry must deal with his many indiscretions, the loss of his wife, and Margaret’s new role in his life. The novel ends with the capitalist’s mind changed, the new life of Helen’s baby, and the promise of a new fertile crop. In order for there to be a return to and a renewal of life, the capitalist must leave his ways behind. Life is nurtured in the realm of the Ruth, acting as a modern goddess of the fields and fertility and the project of capitalism has been passed onto the younger generation. More than ever, the novel seems to close in a past that never existed, one bought by capitalism, but protected from its evils..