I don't quite get why is it that Margaret stays with Henry at the end, especially considering how resolute she is about leaving him in their conversation on the grass proceeding Leonard's murder. Did his crying give her a change of heart? In the end scene Henry still calls her his wife and they are together at Howard's End. Why do you think she stays with him?
shareassumptions :
- I think she forgave him but there's something else. Henry seems very much beaten by the end. I saw Margaret as the one in charge. This would give a safe heaven for Helen and her child.
I think she stays because Charles is convicted of murder / manslaughter, and she pities Henry. After the speech he makes to his children that Howard's end is to be Margaret's after his death, Henry seems *quite* frail, as they leave the house to wave good-bye to his children. I believe she stays to take care of him, as he is so changed after Charles goes to prison. I think the events have aged him considerably, and Margaret's heart softens a little as a result... Just my opinion!
shareI think that Margaret realises that she loves her husband and that the murder of Leonard was beyond hid control because he didn't directly affect his son's jealousy of Leonard. She also realises that he's been broken through the events that have happened to his family at Howard's End and therefore convinces him to give Howard's End over to Margaret because then in the future it is in some way recompense for the way in which Leonard died and therefore his lack of provision for Helen and his child.
shareShe is so determined not to be an old maid, that her momentary resolution disolves in the face of losing the security which Wilcox, as monstrous as he is, brings. Remember, she was facing the prospect of spinsterhood until he popped the question. Look at her dismay bordering on panic when confronted, at the wedding party, with the inconvenient Leonard and Jacky. Helen, whose conscience we optimistically identify with, is horrified and disgusted. As today's generation would say, Meg has joined the Borg.
Read my review: http://imdb.com/title/tt0104454/usercomments-46
If you speak of the past. Yes, but she's not as helpless as she seems to be. Even Helen remarks their family sword is not out of place at Howard's end.
Eventually Margaret does break up with him over his sister (which she must feel is more important than herself) and when they speak for the last time before Charles' trial, she makes it clear it's over. When Henry fails to answer to this properly (the 'yes' is muffled) and breaks down she knows he's asking her back. Henry is not the kind of person that will ever say it, but to Margaret it's enough he wants it, even if he can't say it.
jacksflicks wrote: <<She is so determined not to be an old maid,>>
Where on earth do you get that from? She had other proposals (they are mentioned in the book. If all she cared about were being married, she would have married one of those fellows. Anyway, she is already married when all this happens -- there is no chance, no propect of her being an old maid.
jacksflicks wrote: <<that her momentary resolution disolves in the face of losing the security which Wilcox, as monstrous as he is, brings.>>
Again, she doesn't care about that. Margaret has her own money, 600 pounds a year. She is quite well-to-do by today's standards. She doesn't need his money for security. In fact, she refuses it. As the end of the book, she makes sure that Henry leaves all his money, every last cent, to his children and none to her. Not one dime. All he leaves her is Howards End. That's it. She could get her own home; she has money enough, but Howards End is special. Helen loves it. Ruth Wilcox wanted Margaret to have it, although Margaret doesn't know that until the very end, but some magic is afoot here. Anyway, my point is, Margaret doesn't stay with Henry for money. He is a broken man who needs her. She loves him, cares for him, cannot leave him in his broken condition. And Howards End is a home again, the way Miss Avery and Ruth Wilcox wanted it to be, headed by Margaret, the woman Ruth tried to leave Howards End to.
jacksflicks wrote: <<Remember, she was facing the prospect of spinsterhood until he popped the question.>>
In the book Forrester mentions that she had had several marriage proposals and turned them down. She is independently wealthy.
jacksflicks wrote: <<Look at her dismay bordering on panic when confronted, at the wedding party, with the inconvenient Leonard and Jacky.>>
Who wouldn't feel dismay with such a situation thrust upon them? That proves nothing. It was a horrible situation and she had no time to prepare for the revelations or the shock -- and still handled it like a lady.
jacksflicks wrote: <<Helen, whose conscience we optimistically identify with, is horrified and disgusted. As today's generation would say, Meg has joined the Borg.>>
No, she loves her fiance and forgives him. Helen was wrong to bring the Basts to the party -- wrong to the Wilcoxes, to Evie, to the Basts, to her sister, to everyone. Henry was wrong in what he did, too. However, I do not think that Meg marries Henry so she can have his money (she completely rejects it, every penny) or so that she can avoid being a spinster -- if avoiding spinsterhood is so important to her, she would have accepted one of the proposals she receives before Henry. Actually, she DOES leave Henry to be with her sister and take care of her. She doesn't fear spinsterhood at all. However, when Charles is sent to jail, a broken, devastated Henry asks for her to take him back. She does from love and compassion. She did love this man and care for him and he desperately needs her. THAT is why she stays with him, not because she fears spinsterhood (and, again, since she's married, there's no need to fear it). And then she makes sure he gives ALL his money to his children, so that shows that she isn't with him for his money
No, it is important to the book that Margaret wind up with Howards End. That is what Mrs. Wilcox wanted and that is exactly what happened.
I think coolbluegreen hits the nail right on the head - excellent analysis. I would add one more aspect that I noticed. It is clear that the Schlegel sisters are do-gooders to a fault. Neither of the two can help but meddle in other peoples' affairs to help them (and by doing so they helped bring about Leonard Bast's ruin). I think that is part of Margaret's attraction to Mr. Wilcox - that he is an object of her do-gooding. Because otherwise, frankly, I just don't see his appeal to her. Compared to Leonard Bast, who is actually quite an admirable character because, in spite of his material condition, he is seeking spiritual growth, Mr. Wilcox is all material, all pragmatic. Perhaps the main passage of the book brings this out, and reveals Margaret's desire to help Henry Wilcox: "Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height." Interestingly, although Mr. Wilcox is truly a Master of the Universe for that day and age, he is spiritual impoverished and at the end of the story he is a broken man. I think that is why Margaret in the end stays with him (although it appears to be a relatively pro forma marriage at that point).
shareI just found the novel on line, so I have a more complete version of the passage I quoted. It is the opening of Chapter 22:
"Chapter XXII
Margaret greeted her lord with peculiar tenderness on the morrow. Mature as he was, she might yet be able to help him to the building of the rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion. Without it we are meaningless fragments, half monks, half beasts, unconnected arches that have never joined into a man. With it love is born, and alights on the highest curve, glowing against the grey, sober against the fire. Happy the man who sees from either aspect the glory of these outspread wings. The roads of his soul lie clear, and he and his friends shall find easy-going.
It was hard-going in the roads of Mr. Wilcox's soul. From boyhood he had neglected them. "I am not a fellow who bothers about my own inside." Outwardly he was cheerful, reliable, and brave; but within, all had reverted to chaos, ruled, so far as it was ruled at all, by an incomplete asceticism. Whether as boy, husband, or widower, he had always the sneaking belief that bodily passion is bad, a belief that is desirable only when held passionately. Religion had confirmed him. The words that were read aloud on Sunday to him and to other respectable men were the words that had once kindled the souls of St. Catherine and St. Francis into a white-hot hatred of the carnal. He could not be as the saints and love the Infinite with a seraphic ardour, but he could be a little ashamed of loving a wife. Amabat, amare timebat. And it was here that Margaret hoped to help him.
It did not seem so difficult. She need trouble him with no gift of her own. She would only point out the salvation that was latent in his own soul, and in the soul of every man. Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die.
Nor was the message difficult to give. It need not take the form of a good "talking." By quiet indications the bridge would be built and span their lives with beauty."
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I got the sense, from both the book and the film, he had a very large pr!@k?
Because I can't see much more of a reason to stay with him.
I just think it is the mores of the time. You had to have a REALLY big reason for a divorce or separation. The duplicity of keeping Howards End should have been the breaking point for me. But then these things are still going on, my mother in law died a few years ago and her husband tore up her will instead of honoring it. He did not even mention what was in it. Apparently he thought her property was really his and she had no right to leave something to anyone. Sound like Henry might have had the same idea. Howards End was his by marriage, and he would decide to whom it went.
shareShe stays with him because she's more of a ho than Mrs. Bast ever was. She was a soulless, loathsome hypocrite, and clearly more mentally defective than her sister.
"Love isn't what you say or how you feel, it's what you DO". (The Last Kiss)
Where the *BLEEP* did you get THIS idea from???! If Margaret was a man, finding out his new wife had had an affair 10 yrs. before, would that make HIM a "ho"? No but in Edwardian times, the odds are, she would NOT have been forgiven, but cast aside!
By the way use of that slur ("ho") is very uncool! I'm SOOOOO sick of women being branded with that (and other worse terms) simply because they have the same sexual desires as a MAN! GROW UP, for chrissakes!
She deserves her revenge, and we deserve to die.
Margaret loves Henry. She is also much like her old friend Ruth (Henry's first wife). She, like Ruth, feels a need to protect the Wilcoxes. Despite Margaret's supposed flightiness she has more of a grip on reality then Henry or the rest of his family.
Why does Margaret love Henry? I believe she admired his masculinity, so very different from the artistic men she befriended.
At the end, he was a broken man and she could not leave him to fend for himself.
The one problem I have with the film is that it didn't indicate what joy Henry found in helping to raise Helen's child. It is a large indication of how much Henry has changed in outlook and personality. But the film completely ignores it. Why I don't know.
After having read the book and seen the film, and loving both, I came to the conclusion that Margaret was a sort of "continuity" of Ruth. Despite Henry's flaws and hipocrisy, both of them loved him and loved the house. They had to live with Henry and live in Howards End.
Plus, taking over Howards End - and, perheaps, supporting her family - was Ruth's legacy to Margaret.
She doesn't fear spinsterhood at all.