Compare the Presentation of Foreigners Abroad in Indian Ink and Room with a View

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Indian Ink and A Room with a View are both set in different eras. A Room with a View is set in the Edwardian era when, like the central character in the book, people were beginning to challenge Victorian attitudes about emotion and sexuality and old ideas about class and religion. It was published in 1908 and was Forster's third novel. Forster's characters, like Forster himself lived in the time of the British Empires pinnacle. The novel is about a young woman, Lucy Honeychurch, whose love for a British socialist and experiences in Florence cause her to question the values that society has imposed on her. It is particularly interesting that the novel is set in Florence, which was the centre of the Renaissance. The word renaissance means rebirth and this could be symbolic of the rebirth of Lucy's ideas and values. Indian Ink is written as a play and is set in the 1930s and 1980s. In the 1930s the scene is set in India which belongs to the British Empire. At this time a young poet named Flora Crewe who is visiting finds herself poised between two very different societies. The 1980s section of the play is set in England where sixty years after the poet has died, her sister and the son of the artist that Flora associated with come together. Although it is written as a play it reads as though it has been written as a novel as it is very descriptive describing even the colour of Flora's `cornflower blue dress'.

Lucy, the central character in A Room with a View is the child of the noveau rich. Like Flora she is young charming and likeable. At the beginning of the novel Lucy is relatively uninformed and gradually throughout the book learns more about not only Italy but herself. By the end of the novel like Flora, Lucy is a strong and...

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...than in A Room with a View, perhaps this is also to show the difference and similarities in the two cultures. Both writers use humour differently. Forster gently mocks his characters, he is not harsh and this allows the reader to develop affection for them. Stoppard's characters however are humorous themselves in the things that they say, this also allows for a deeper understanding of the characters but in a different way to Forster. The central characters in Indian Ink and A Room with a View are presenting Stoppard `s and Forster's ideas through their growing experiences and changing ideas in the foreign countries they are visiting.

Bibliography

Books

Indian Ink - Tom Stoppard

A Room with a View - E.M Forster

The Oxford Encyclopedic English Dictionary

Video

Hat and Dust

A Room with a View

Internet

www.amazon.com

www.tstoppardbib.com

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