The novel’s climax is a masterstroke. On the verge of fleeing to Argentina to escape a blackmail misunderstanding, Alec stays behind for Maurice, hiding in the boathouse. Maurice must choose: the safety of his respectable life (and Clive’s friendship) or a leap into the unknown with a man from a different class. He chooses Alec. The final image—Maurice having abandoned his “dull middle-class world,” waiting in the “greenwood” for Alec to join him—is one of the most triumphant endings in English literature. As Forster wrote, “He was not ashamed of having loved Clive, but he was glad that it was over.”
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We meet Maurice at Cambridge, a university in 1909 that is a crucible of male intimacy and intellectual awakening. Here, he meets Clive Durham, a sophisticated, aristocratic young man who introduces Maurice to Plato’s Phaedrus and the concept of "congenial" love between men. Maurice, innocent and repressed, falls deeply in love. For a brief, idyllic period, they share a passionate but—at Clive’s insistence—platonic romance. Clive is a classical scholar who believes in the noble, spiritual love of ancient Greece, but he is terrified of the physical, "unspeakable" act of the present day. maurice by em forster
Forster later described the sensation as a “shattering” physical and emotional jolt. It was the touch of reality on a life of repressed longing. In that instant, the entire plot of Maurice sprang into his mind. He went home and began writing the novel immediately, driven by a single, unprecedented desire: to write a story about homosexual men that did not end in disgrace, suicide, or madness. The novel’s climax is a masterstroke
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He provides a physical and emotional "earthiness" Maurice lacks.