Women and nature: The foundations of connection in E.M. Forster's Howards End and A Passage to India

Throughout E. M. Forster's novels A Passage to India and Howards End, the different aspects of nature brought out meaning and intensified the themes within the books. Nature, in the form of the house at Howards End, and the Marabar Caves in India, had an especially intense effect on the lives and reactions of two women in the novels - Mrs Moore in A Passage to India, and Mrs. Wilcox in Howards End. Through their reaction to nature and the inner strength each woman mustered to face the challenges and invitations nature presented, both women arrived at deeper understandings and connections--connections both within themselves and with the other characters in the novels.