The theme of Maurice relates directly to the tided character's homosexuality, in that it becomes the metaphor for both the pain and the joy of growth in a repressive society. It also takes the form of freedom from that society. Maurice Hall's "surroundings exasperate him by their very normality," wrote Forster in his September 1960 "Terminal Note": "mother, two sisters a comfortable home, a respectable job gradually turn out to be Hell; he must either smash them or be smashed, there is no third course." Thus, rather than essentially repeat the same story told in at least three of H. G. Wells's novels, Forster endowed Maurice Hall with his homosexuality: "I dropped an ingredient that puzzles him, wakes him up, torments him and finally saves him."

If Maurice saves himself and becomes a truly liberated Edwardian, so, too, does Alec Scudder. He directs his homosexuality toward bettering...