Where Angels Fear to Tread

Description

Encouraged by her own brother-in-law to tour Italy and find its “enchanting” views, Lilia Herriton, a young English widow in search of a new life, does the unthinkable. Not only does she meets an Italian who is much younger than her, but she marries him on impulse and even becomes pregnant. When she dies in childbirth, her fate comes as no surprise to her pretentious upper middle-class English family. But when a well-meaning family friend makes a casual remark about the matter, they soon realize they have to gain custody of the child, if only to prevent the baby from growing up in such a “savage” society.

E.M. Forster uses his characters to show the distinct and clear to see contrast between upper class Edwardian society and the much more natural, yet highly stereotyped Italians. Although his views of Italy at the beginning of the 20th century are deliberately exaggerated, it manages to help the author make a clear point about England’s sterile and ego-driven upper class families – a theme also found in Forster’s later works, including A Room with a View and A Passage to India.

It is important to note that Where Angels Fear to Tread is not a love story. Although it does feature a plot development that, under other circumstances, could have been turned into a beautiful story of unconventional love, Forster’s distinctive and somewhat macabre humor, as well as his deeper, underlying desire to paint the truth about British society, leads this satire on an unknown path toward a far more tragic and serious outcome.

The novel itself is actually considered a satire, as Forster’s exceptional style and witty, carefully embedded descriptions and indirect depictions of his characters’ main traits dominate most of the plot. However, you’ll find much of the story is quite serious in its ultimate goal, and will undoubtedly make even modern readers think about the many intricate and often unrevealed considerations of the human condition.
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