I'm mildly confused. At the end, there is the shot of Charlotte reading a letter and getting into bed, etc, looking all pensive and whatnot, as you do in films. I haven't read the book, but I plan to, but I was wondering what to make of that. Is she going to go off with Mr Emerson, Sr? I definitely got that vibe.
shareHaving read the book and seen the film several times, I do not believe that Charlotte "went off" with Old Mr Emerson. Perhaps the pensive look was anticipation as to what was in Lucy's letter, afterall, hers and George's union was quite a surprise Lucy's social circle.
shareI think Charlotte at one time might have been very much like Lucy. Mrs. Honeychurch comments on it after Lucy says she might go live in London and rent a flat with another girl. I think Charlotte is pensive because she's thinking 'What if', meaning what if she had met someone and gotten married. Her life would have been quite different instead of lying in bed alone. Maybe she had met someone in her youth who was from a different class and she chose to do the 'right' thing and not marry him. I'm probably using my imagination a bit too much, but I do think the contrast of her lying in bed alone to Lucy being amorously kissed in Italy was pretty strong.
sharegeekchica, I think you are right.
"great minds think differently"
You're right Geekchica, I subscribe to the interpretation that the entire story is more Charlotte's than Lucy's. That's a very good point about the contrast. I can't remember how it was expressed in the book, but in the movie it was mentioned about her "adventure in Shropshire" and that she knows the world in her own way, and how "men can be".
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To be driven by lovers- A king might envy us...
I think geekchica got it.
My Wins: Williams/Firth/Dickey/Garfield
I have not read the book, but from the movie I got the distinct feeling that Charlotte had missed an opportunity to marry someone she loved. When she says sorry to Lucy for the second time (after Lucy asks George to leave her house), I think she is sorry that she interrupted the first passionate meeting (in Italy) between the two. Now she wishes that she could unite these two so that Lucy will not experience what Charlotte experienced.
Lucy's mother hints that Lucy is like what Charlotte used to be. At one point, when Charlotte was talking to Mr.Emerson Sr, I thought the two were going to get married. I was disappointed that she remained a spinster (a bad thing in those times). I loved the way Maggie Smith portrayed Charlotte.
Everyone has the right idea about Charlotte wondering "what if?". In the book, there is more dialogue in the last scene between George and Lucy. George hypothesizes that Charlotte told Miss Lavish about their first kiss in the field because she was "haunted" by the image. He says that Charlotte kept bringing up George and peppering Lucy with questions about him all summer, reopening the wound at every chance. He thinks that she pulled them apart due to the constraints of society, but in the end, led Lucy to Mr. Emerson so that he could convince her to follow her heart.
It makes me think that Charlotte's "Shropshire Adventure" was something quite similar to Lucy's situation, in which she was in love with someone and her relative tore them apart. (However, I think Charlotte's beau must have been a bit of a cad from the way she talks about men and their "exploits".) If this was the case, then she probably also tore them apart because of her jealousy. If she couldn't be with her guy, then Lucy shouldn't be with George. It isn't until the "Lying to George" scene that Charlotte turns all of this around. You can see the pain in Maggie Smith's face as Lucy tells George to leave; she's sorry that Lucy is throwing away the chance to keep the love Charlotte never got to have and that she is powerless to stop her. It's really a great scene.
In the film they try to allude to Charlotte's history through dialogue with Miss Lavish, as in the novel it is largely in unspoken text, and even that is scant. I think Charlotte is also made a bit more sympathetic in the film than in the novel. The main reason Charlotte is shown at the end is probably to show that she is the only one Lucy can write to in all safety and expect a response from. Lucy is completely alienated from Windy Corner at the end of the novel, a pessimistic note that is quite absent from the last scene with the exception of Freddy's letter. But it's more romantic without all of that to-doing xD
I think you are right also about it being more of Charlotte's story than people realize. I wouldn't go as far as to say that she is the heroine, but she is a bit like the frame of the picture.
" Poor Charlotte"....
When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property - Thomas Jefferson
It' s probably film sacrilege to admit this but Charlotte was always my favorite character in A Room with a View.
Didn't you go to school stupid?
-Yep, but I came out the same way.
My favorites were George, Lucy, and then Freddy.
Fiction is a lie, and good fiction is the truth inside the lie.--Stephen King