E.M. Forster Biography

Author Biography

• E.M. Forster, born Edward Morgan Forster (January 1, 1879 – June 7, 1970), was a British novelist, essayist, and social and literary critic.
• He disliked Tonbridge School, which he attended, and satirized "public school behavior" in his novels.
• Forster found a more enjoyable atmosphere at King's College, Cambridge.
• He began writing short stories after graduating and resided in Italy, which served as the setting for his early novels Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905) and A Room with a View (1908).
• The Longest Journey (1907) is set in Cambridge.
• He lectured at Working Men's College in the year he returned to England.
• Howards End, his most mature work at the time, was published in 1910.
• In 1911, he traveled to India with G. Lowes Dickinson, his mentor at King's College.
• During World War I, Forster spent three years in Alexandria doing civilian war work, and after the war, he returned to London as a journalist.
• In 1921, he returned to India as secretary to the Maharajah of Dewas State Senior.
• He had begun work on A Passage to India earlier, but set it aside due to discouragement. It was published in 1924 after his return to England. It won the Femina Vie Heureuse and James Tait Black Memorial prizes in 1925 and is considered his magnum opus.
• In 1946, Forster became an honorary fellow at King's College, Cambridge.
• His essays and lectures on political topics established his reputation as a liberal thinker and advocate for democracy.
• Forster was awarded membership in the Order of Companions of Honor in 1953 and received the Order of Merit from Queen Elizabeth in 1969.
• He died in June 1970 after a series of strokes.

Background to the Essay: "On the Air"

• The essay was broadcast over the radio during and after World War II (1939–1945) and later appeared in Two Cheers for Democracy (1951).
• The means by which citizens of democracies can counter the spread of thinking that leads to brutal dictatorships is explored.
• Nazi Germany exemplified intolerance through its claims of racial superiority and mass murder of ethnic groups.

Tolerance E. M. Forster: "How ACCEPTING are you?"

• Forster reacts to the deadly ideological divisions by advocating for tolerance in this World War II-era essay.
• He suggests that brotherly love in worldly affairs is unrealistic, and tolerance is the "proper spirit" for avoiding brutality and rebuilding the war-torn world of the 1940s, because tolerance "is a very dull virtue".

Reconstruction

• Rebuilding the world after the war requires the right attitude.
• Civilization cannot be rebuilt by architects, contractors, or corporations alone, but requires inspiration

Love

• Forster argues that "love" is not the most important virtue needed in a post-war world.
• He believes love is a great force in private life but does not work in public affairs.
• He argues that nations and people should not love one another, as it's an absurd and dangerous idea.

Tolerance

• Tolerance is the virtue needed today for tolerance is the right attitude needed to rebuild the post-war world.
• The world must learn to put up with differences and tolerate each other.

Two solutions

• The author gives two solutions for the over crowded world:
  • Nazi solution: "If you don't like people, kill them, banish them, segregate them…”
  • The better solution: putting up with people.

Need of tolerance

• "Tolerance is wanted in the queue... it is wanted at the telephone, it is wanted in the street, in the office, at the factory, and it is wanted above all between classes, races, and nations..."

Conclusion

• Tolerance is not the same as weakness, "Putting up with people does not mean giving in to them".

Theme

• Tolerance means accepting others' views without malice and respecting diverse opinions.
• Tolerance allows for balance between different ways of life and promotes living harmoniously.
• The world has become a global village due to trade and transportation.
• Tolerance is essential to coexist in modern societies with diverse nations, races, and classes.
• Prejudice and bias should be avoided, people should be broad-minded and accept others' rights.
• Dogmatism and fundamentalism are destructive.
• Tolerance is the solution for peaceful coexistence.
• Tolerance has been historically lacking, leading to intrigues, conspiracies, murders, and wars.
• Flourishing the spirit of tolerance in people is the way to purge the human condition.
• Tolerance aligns with democracy and is advocated by almost all religions.
• The only way of creating a society or a civilized culture is tolerance.
• Forster cites a verse form the Bible to support his view! "In my father's house are many mansions.".
• People should put oneself in the place of others and analyze the situation.
• Understanding helps judge judiciously and tolerate conflicting opinions.
• Tolerance is more effective than love in public life.
• Forster urges to be open-minded.

Text Analysis: Why was the reconstruction needed?

• E.M. Forster wrote the essay after World War II, and depicted how the event destroyed society.
• Wars destroy not only lives and property but also ideals and ideological foundations.
• The Second World War destroyed everything and left behind chaos so the situation demanded that all people rebuild the civilization.

What was needed to rebuild the civilization?

• Civilization is complex and has its roots in different values and ideals.
• Second World War shook the moral, social and human bases of the world civilization too.
• A sound state of mind was needed.
• The tendency to tolerate others was the only solution in the post war world.

How should people live in post-war situation?

• People had to live with a different attitude.
• New parties, groups, and sentiments emerged after the war.
• It was important to tolerate each other in order for society to function.
• Cooperation will allow for people to live in peace

Literary Analysis: Persuasive Essay

• A persuasive essay is nonfiction that aims to persuade readers to adopt the writer's message, or central idea.
• Forster states his thesis as, "In public affairs, in the rebuilding of civilisation, something much less dramatic and emotional [than love] is needed, namely, tolerance".
• Rebuilding civilization requires "A sound state of mind".

Thesis Statement

• Thesis: a sound state of mind and proper spirit are needed for rebuilding civilization

Repetition

• "Yet this is the quality which will be most needed after the war. This is the sound state of mind which we are looking for. This is the only force which will enable different races and classes and interests to settle down together to the work of reconstruction.”
• Forster's repetition emphatically drives home his point that tolerance is a necessary state of mind for rebuilding after the war.

Using logic and language devices to persuade

• Love "gives out,” or stops working, love generally gives out as soon as we move away from our home.
• --What situation does Forster imagine in order to show when tolerance is needed?
• Tolerance is wanted in the queue, or "Why will people be so slow?", The tube "Why will people be so fat?” or the Street, the office, at the factory.

Literary Analysis: Alliteration

• It is the conspicuous repetition of identical initial consonant sounds in successive and closely associated syllables within a group of words such as “sound,” “state,” “spirit” “Portugal,” “Peru”. 

Asyndeton

• Literary scheme in which one or several conjunctions are deliberately omitted from a series of related clauses: “kill them, banish them, segregate them"

Parallelism

• Grammar: a balance within one or more sentences of similar phrases or clause: “The idea that nations should love one another, or that business concerns or marketing boards should love one another or that a man in Portugal should love a man in Peru of whom he has never heard– it is absurd, unreal, dangerous."

Allusion

• “In my Father's house are many mansions" Heaven is a place of diversity. The quotation is from the New Testament of the Bible (John 14:2).
• “... and then strut up and down proclaiming that you are the salt of the earth.” The finest or noblest people. The expression derives from a statement in the New Testament of the Bible (Matthew 5:13).