Maurice

Description

Maurice Hall grows up in early twentieth-century England feeling estranged from the expectation that adulthood must culminate in marriage to a woman. At Cambridge, classical writing about same-sex love helps him recognize his feelings, and he begins a romantic but nonsexual relationship with fellow student Clive Durham. When Clive ends it, Maurice treats his sexuality as a condition to be cured and turns to hypnosis. Later, at the Durhams’ country estate, he becomes involved with Alec Scudder, a working-class under-gamekeeper whose social position intensifies Maurice’s fear of scandal and exposure. Set against legal persecution and rigid class boundaries, Maurice follows one man’s difficult movement from shame and conformity toward the possibility of self-acceptance and mutual love.

Themes