maurice & plato

At the end of Maurice I couldn’t help but feel proud of him and his courage. He finally seemed to accept his feelings for Scudder. This allowed him to relinquish those that he had for Clive which were almost suffocating him. In a “to hell with it” style he proudly announced his feelings and actions and in a way defied not only Clive but society. This particular moment really brought a section of Plato’s Symposium to mind.

As Pausanias stated on his turn, “There should have been a law as well to prohibit the loving of boys, in order that a lot of zeal would not have been wasted for an uncertain result; for it is not clear where the perfections of boys has its end with regard to the vice and virtue of both soul and body.” From reading Maurice it seemed that it was a common knowledge that boys would go through similar feelings as Maurice, but as they turned into adults and accepted the responsibilities to society that all was to end. Then, just like the characters in Plato’s story, they were obligated to marry. Poor Maurice suffered for many reasons, but mostly because his love for Clive was “wasted”.

For each of our readings so far, they all express societies need to repress and control human desire. For Maurice they restricted same sex relations and for Halperin and Plato even though their society was more open they still did set guidelines as to what was acceptable. If Aristophanes version of Eros is correct and we are all created from one being and just long to find our other half, regardless of gender, why does society try to stop this from happening? And if we do find this other half why does society tell us that we have to follow their guideline and get married, have 2.5 kids and settle down? The biggest question of them all is why have we allowed it?

We are all blessed with free thinking minds and should not let allow ones jealousy of another mans happiness to control what is socially acceptable. Maurice mentally broke free from this and appears to finally find happiness and piece. From reading these stories it has shown me that literature is a very powerful way to show the wrongs society has placed on us.