Tuesday, April 29, 2014
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..
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