A Room with a View

The more time Lucy spends in Italy, the more she is changed. After growing up in a cosseted, sheltered, middle-class community, she is beginning to learn the broad horizons of the world extend far beyond the stern boundaries of Edwardian society. In a literal sense, she has gained a new “view” of the world by coming to Italy, and now she cannot abandon her desire to reach new and radical horizons.

Not all of her experiences are pleasant, however. After watching a man stab another man to death in the previous chapter, Lucy is exposed to another sordid tale of murder. Mr. Eager implies that Mr. Emerson murdered his wife, though he can offer up no evidence other than the vague implication that Emerson's working-class roots make him untrustworthy. In this moment, Lucy begins to see the prejudice of middle-class society in action. She has already witnessed one murder; she has been shaken by the experience and exposed to the violent reality of life. To her, however, Eager's accusation is much uglier than the actual act of murder.

Eager leaves a sour impression in Lucy's mind. To her, Emerson seems like a kind and gentle figure. She pities his lack of social etiquette but dislikes the way in which the other hotel guests have turned against him. To accuse such a man of murder based on nothing other than his social class seems obscene to Lucy. By removing herself from her insular middle-class community and exposing herself to new people and new views, she has come to change her perspective on her own life and her own social class. This is the beginning of the change in Lucy's character.

The broadening of Lucy's horizons can be evidenced in the way she refrains from engaging with the other characters' treatment of Italian people. On vacation in Italy, the middle-class English people have secluded themselves away in a British enclave that separates them from the Italian people. According to Mr. Beebe, for example, the Italians are "a most unpleasant people" (38) who seem incapable of anything resembling a profound thought. Italians, according to the tourists, are sex-obsessed peasants who cannot be trusted in polite company.

Eager reacts violently to a public display of affection between an Italian coach driver and his lover, while at the same time loudly declaring his love for Italian art and literature. The English seem to be devoted to Italian culture while disgusted with Italians themselves, treating Italy more as a museum than a country and a culture. Lucy begins to notice this divergence, particularly when Emerson defends the carriage driver as simply acting as befitting his human nature. Gradually, Lucy begins to understand the vapidity of the middle-class mindset, which reveres Italian culture while rejecting the same Italians who created it.

George kisses Lucy. Charlotte witnesses the kiss, and she is scandalized. Her reaction to the kiss is telling: Her chief priority is to hush up the affair, to ensure that no one is able to reveal the breach in social etiquette. Charlotte does not care how or why the kiss happened, only the threat that the kiss should be public knowledge. This distinction is important, as it plays into the notion that middle- class identity is simply a matter of public performance. To Charlotte, Lucy is not considered to be immoral or tarnished so long as no one knows about the kiss. The kiss itself does not change or alter Lucy, only the notion that other people know about it.

Charlotte is happy to mask the truth for the sake of propriety; she bribes the driver and has a stern conversation with George, leaving Lucy alone in the bedroom. At the same time, she makes Lucy promise to tell no one. Charlotte's demand for secrecy will have an ironic twist when Lucy discovers that Charlotte actually told Miss Lavish about the kiss, breaking her own demand. Middle-class identity, like Charlotte’s promise, is brittle and hollow. All that matters is reputation and public perception, which can be manipulated by withholding the truth. As such, much of the society and culture is built on a foundation of lies, secrecy, and mistruth. George’s kiss and the ensuing events push Lucy toward a clearer understanding of this blatant hypocrisy.