short essay about maurice (film/novel) analyzing clive durham and the line “why don’t you stop being shocked and attend to your own happiness?” (imo one of the best quotes from the story and one that speaks to the audience and society as a whole as much as it does clive directly)
it’s wrong to paint clive as a cartoon villain. sometimes it can be funny to diss clive, i do it too and so do a lot of fans, but ultimately his story is extremely tragic. in the beginning we fall in love with him the way maurice does, but around the middle of the story when he starts in on the greece trip, he becomes extremely difficult and frustrating, and we initially agree with maurice when he vows to win clive back (although maurice + the audience both realize he ultimately deserves better, which is where alec comes in). clive doesn’t start out an ass, he becomes an ass throughout the story. but that’s bc he’s been chronically depressed for nearly his whole life and he’s dug himself into a pit of rumination, anxiety, and fear. i believe that’s why forster lets us into his POV only when he falls out of love w/ maurice, to give us more insight & understand that from his POV the relationship was always precarious to begin with, that maurice’s initial rejection gave him a mental breakdown over their vac, and that it wasn’t the first time he had experienced a major depressive episode. his entire arc parallels maurice’s in that maurice chose to be brave + leave safety in pursuit of love/happiness whereas clive acted out of fear/cowardice. those are at the center of their characters. i think clive deserves some sympathy and to “attend to his own happiness” and that by the end of the story he somewhat realizes he’s made a mistake. from clive’s POV it’s noted that he was tortured by his identity from a very young age and had a lot of religious/societal guilt and was even much more aware of it than maurice was growing up. both of them suffered and lived in fear for years, but maurice chose to climb out of it or die trying, and clive sort of became resigned to his fate and chose to live a lie because it was safer that way. i love both the characters, and i love maurice/alec’s story and their happy ending, but i also believe that clive has an equally interesting story and my heart breaks for him the way maurice’s did. in the line “why don’t you stop being shocked and attend to your own happiness?” i believe maurice was conveying that a part of him would always love him and wish him happiness, just like a part of forster always loved meredith (one of the real life inspirations for clive). if most people were in clive’s position and were born as the heir of a super wealthy family in edwardian england… most people never would have even admitted their love for maurice in cambridge the way clive did, let alone try to pursue the relationship before ending it out of an entire lifetime of rising fear. in the book, when clive prepares his “i’m normal now” speech, he says that he didn’t want to hurt maurice: “it was scientific and impersonal, as that would wound maurice least.” but in the movie they made clive’s mentality even clearer by showing the fact that homosexuality was still illegal then, by having a fellow upper-class gay man be persecuted, a la wilde, which scared clive and caused him to want to do what he thought was best for him and maurice. clive thought that what was best for men like them was to hide in the closet, whereas maurice (and forster) was revolutionary and knew that what’s best for men like them is to be open, be out of the closet, and have total freedom. clive isn’t some cartoon villain who intended to hurt maurice, he’s basically a victim of society/religion/his family/himself, who i believe deserves sympathy too even though he’s a morally questionable character, and in “attend to your own happiness,” maurice attempts to make him see that and give himself the permisson to accept himself—what clive chooses to do with that statement is up to him. he has something like paralysis analysis, and words come easier to him than action, so he’ll likely remain in his shell forever whether he wants to or not. but that is the tragedy of his character. as forster said, clive is extremely frustrating. but it’s also what makes him interesting and well-written, and the story wouldn’t be the same without him.
Blog post about Hugh Owen Meredith