Book Discussion: Chapters 1-4

[queen_ypolita]

Chapters 1-4

The first four chapters cover about four years of Maurice's life, from his last days at prep school to the end of his years at Sunnington, his public school; from the age of "fourteen and three quarters" to "nearly nineteen". Both schools are his father's old schools, and the point of Maurice following his path in life in the footsteps of his father is made several times in these four short chapters. These chapters establish Maurice as an average person who isn't particularly intelligent or perceptive, one who would go through his life doing all the conventional things and feel perfectly content about his lot if he ever thought about it. It's this ordinariness that makes him reasonably successful at Sunnington: he's tolerably well liked, becomes a prefect and member of the first fifteen and get the prize for a Greek oration that it's not particularly good but thought worth rewarding nonetheless.

But underneath all the ordinariness is something waiting to be awakened, most clearly manifest in the dream he has in Chapter 3, a dream about a friend that he'll one day have. The dream isn't clear and he doesn't quite understand it but the feeling of longing is strong enough to make the dream feel very real. The other significant dream he has is about George the garden boy who left, and whose leaving made Maurice sadder than he could understand.

But to go back to Chapter 1 for a moment, and Mr Ducie's goodbye talk. Maurice's incomprehension at nearly fifteen over Mr Ducie's talk about sex may feel a bit old-fashioned to modern readers but it seems to me it's more a question of disconnect between his own experiences and what Mr Ducie is trying to say, particularly if Maurice is a late developer which is possible in the light of a line in Chapter 3 "As soon as his body developed he became obscene" which, in its context, is clearly not happening until he's at Sunnington. In some ways, it seems he does understand what Mr Ducie is explaining, it just doesn't mean anything to him at that age. Or what do you think?

Chapter 4 offers a small clue for fixing the novel to a particular historical timeline with the mention of Hague Conference, the second international peace conference held in The Hague from mid-June until mid-October 1907.

Over to you now! Here's a couple of questions if you're stuck for ideas what to say:

• Does Maurice's ordinariness make him likeable in these early chapters, or does he come across to you, as he does to Dr Barry in Ch2, that he's asleep all his life and hence useless?


• What do you think about the dreams?


• Why had the Halls considered moving when the church was built? (Ch2)

* * *
into_the_greenwood will open the discussion for Chapters 5-8 on Sunday 31 May. For the full schedule, see this post.

Comments

[queen_ypolita]

I don't find Maurice likeable until much further on in the book.
I tend to agree, to be honest. He's not really become his own person at this stage, although for me, his confusion and the dreams hold a promise that he might come into his own later on (but we'll have to wait until future chapters for it).

[into_the_greenwood]

Thinking of chapters one and two when Maurice is what I consider to be a boy still (as against youth or man), I certainly don't dislike him. To me, he comes across as being terribly confused and needing to hid that confusion in convention. Hence he follows his peers in such things as dropping a coat for servants to pick up and by telling the Howells that the woodstack was his mother, not theirs. Children like that really annoy me when i come across them, but at that age (which would linger on for longer back then) it is learned behaviour. I'd be concerned if he were still doing things like that at thirty because, by then, you've learned a good bit of your own rather than just what has been taught in your family. So I don't dislike him, I feel altogether rather sorry for him. He doesn't really have any kind of compass to guide himself by, and at least Mr Ducie recognises that and tries his best to do something to rectify that, but alas throws Maurice into an even more confused state, especially with his two-faced explanation of the glory of the human body...then worrying about other people seeing it.

So, I see the first two chapters at least as showing Maurice to be on his own from an early age, and not having the self awareness to make sense of either himself or his actions. We all know why he is upset because George has gone...because George was the personification then of the unacknowledged 'friend' that he so wanted, but that Maurice is very unaware of desiring at that point.

So it's one huge muddle for him, but I don't dislike him as a boy at prep school, by any means.

[queen_ypolita]

He doesn't really have any kind of compass to guide himself by,
Actually, that's a very good point that I've not really considered before. (I've tended to see Mr Ducie's actions as meddling but there does seem to be a genuine kindness behind it--too bad it's not really worth it, because, like you say, of the hypocricy he displays.) The prep school headmaster clearly isn't capable of acting as any kind of compass and Maurice's father appears to have been a creature of convention and rather distant and dead just at a point where Maurice might have been able to start forging some kind of more grown-up relationship with him.