E.M. Forster’s debut novel, Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), immediately establishes the author’s enduring fascination with the complexities of human connection across cultural and social divides. Set against the contrasting backdrops of England and Italy, the narrative delves into themes of national identity, societal expectations, and the tumultuous pursuit of personal fulfillment. Much like the opera Lucia di Lammermoor, a pivotal and ironically farcical scene within the novel, Where Angels Fear to Tread builds towards a dramatic crescendo, a “song of madness and death,” while subtly incorporating elements of dark comedy.
The story commences at a bustling train station, marking the departure of Lilia Herriton for Italy. A widow of notable frivolity, Lilia resided in the English village of Sawston with the family of her late husband, Charles Herriton. Under the watchful eyes of her mother-in-law, Mrs. Herriton, and her children, Philip and Harriet, Lilia’s behavior was meticulously monitored to prevent any familial disgrace. However, an Italian sojourn was deemed acceptable, even encouraged, with the hope that exposure to foreign culture might instill some refinement in her character. Philip, an aesthete with his own transformative Italian experiences, and Caroline Abbott, a dependable and somewhat uninspired twenty-three-year-old, were tasked with overseeing Lilia’s trip. Despite being a decade younger, Caroline was considered the more reliable chaperone for the thirty-three-year-old Lilia, a woman at life’s midpoint, echoing Dante’s journey in Inferno. Lilia’s early letters home, proclaiming that she felt “in the heart of things, and off the beaten track,” subtly foreshadow the dangers of straying too far from societal norms, mirroring Dante’s own deviation from the “diritta via”.
Lilia’s journey veers dramatically off course in the Italian town of Monteriano, where she becomes engaged to Gino Carella, a passionate twenty-one-year-old and the son of a local dentist. Alarmed by the potential scandal and damage to the family’s reputation, Mrs. Herriton dispatches Philip to Monteriano to thwart the impending marriage. Upon arrival, Philip attempts to bribe Gino into ending the engagement, emphasizing the stark cultural divide: “she is English, you are Italian; you are accustomed to one thing, you to another.” However, his intervention proves futile as Gino and Lilia are already married. In the ensuing confusion, a frustrated Gino shoves Philip, marking the beginning of a series of escalating conflicts. Philip departs Monteriano with a guilt-ridden Caroline Abbott, who now regrets her initial encouragement of Lilia’s engagement.
A poignant farewell scene at a bustling train station, reminiscent of Lilia Herriton’s departure for Italy, setting the stage for cultural clashes and personal transformations.
Left to navigate married life with Gino, Lilia finds the Italian reality—where male camaraderie thrives on female seclusion, according to the narrator—utterly oppressive. Gino is unfaithful and views Lilia primarily as a vessel for his child. He imposes strict limitations on her freedom, confining her to their home. Defying his orders, a pregnant Lilia ventures out one night and suffers a fall, ending up “lying in the road with dust in her eyes, and dust in her mouth, and dust down her ears.” This harrowing scene, echoing Dante’s own dark wood (per una selva oscura / Che la diritta via era smarrita), ominously foreshadows Lilia’s death in childbirth just days later “in a darkened room.”
News of Lilia’s death reaches Sawston, prompting the Herritons to conspire to conceal the existence of her child with Gino, shielding Irma, Lilia’s daughter from her first marriage, and the wider Sawston community from the scandalous truth. This plan unravels when Irma receives a postcard from Italy, penned by Gino and mentioning her “lital brother.” Caroline Abbott, upon hearing of the child, is once again overcome with remorse and resolves to atone by bringing the infant back to England herself. This impulsive decision forces Mrs. Herriton, ever mindful of social appearances, to launch her own rescue mission. She sends Philip back to Monteriano, this time with his morally rigid sister, Harriet, as chaperone, to ensure he fulfills his “duty.” Harriet, a caricature of English propriety and a magnet for misfortune, becomes a central figure in the novel’s farcical second half. Her journey is plagued by comical mishaps, from getting “smut in her eye” for insisting on an open train window to having her clothes stained purple by an ammonia spill, highlighting the absurdity of her inflexible Englishness in a foreign setting.
Arriving in Monteriano, Philip and Harriet discover that Caroline Abbott has already arrived, acting as a “spy,” suspecting, correctly, Mrs. Herriton’s true, self-serving motives in wanting to retrieve the child. Finding Gino absent on a day trip, Philip convinces his companions to attend an opera performance of Lucia di Lammermoor. This scene, resonant with the Beethoven concert in Howards End, where the Schlegel sisters encounter Leonard Bast, showcases the cultural contrasts and unexpected connections that define Forster’s work. Philip and Caroline are charmed by the distinctly Italian “bad taste” of the opera, while Harriet, true to form, attempts to silence the enthusiastic audience, only to be struck in the face by a bouquet thrown from the stage by Lucia. Philip retrieves the bouquet and presents it to a young Italian man, who turns out to be Gino. Gino embraces Philip as a “long-lost brother” and agrees to meet him the following day. However, Caroline secretly meets with Gino before Philip, and witnessing his tender care for the baby, she has a change of heart, deciding the child should remain with his father. Philip, who was never genuinely invested in reclaiming the child, makes a perfunctory and unsuccessful attempt to bribe Gino, bids him a courteous farewell, and prepares to return to England. Harriet, however, has other plans. She kidnaps the baby and joins Philip in his carriage, mistakenly believing she has successfully negotiated with Gino. Their escape is abruptly halted when their carriage collides with Caroline Abbott’s, throwing them into the road. Tragically, the baby dies, echoing Lilia’s earlier demise, “lying in the mud in darkness.”
A chaotic carriage accident illustrating the tragic climax of “Where Angels Fear to Tread,” where miscommunication and cultural misunderstandings lead to devastating consequences.
In the aftermath of the crash, Harriet descends into madness, mirroring the tragic bride of Lammermoor. Philip, now alone, bears the grim news of the child’s death to Gino. Overwhelmed by grief and rage, Gino resorts to violence, torturing Philip by twisting his arm, broken in the crash, until he loses consciousness. When Philip awakens, Caroline Abbott—an early embodiment of Forster’s insightful and compassionate female characters—facilitates a reconciliation between the two men. In a strangely symbolic and almost ritualistic scene, she has Gino bring Philip a bottle of milk, warmed for his deceased child, and persuades Philip to drink it, a poignant act of symbolic nurturing and forgiveness.
The latent homoerotic undertones in Philip’s relationship with Gino resurface on the train journey home. Caroline reveals her love for Gino just as Philip is on the verge of confessing his feelings for her. Remarkably unfazed, Philip responds, “Rather! I love him too!” Caroline explains she sought Philip’s help in overcoming her love for Gino (who is now engaged to a wealthy but unattractive Italian woman) precisely because of his detached and observational nature: “[Y]ou’re without passion; you look on life as a spectacle; you don’t enter it; you only find it funny or beautiful.” Philip promptly confirms her assessment, ironically overcompensating for his inherent lack of passion by melodramatically lamenting his romantic failure and cursing “the cruel antique malice of the gods.”
This exaggerated rhetoric underscores the true tragedy of Philip’s existence: the inherent triviality stemming from his emotional detachment and inability to fully commit to life. “People had been wicked or wrong in the matter; no one save himself had been trivial.” This distinctly Jamesian tragedy mirrors the plot of The Ambassadors. Like Strether, Philip journeys to the continent to extricate a compatriot (first Lilia, then her son) from a potentially scandalous situation, only to become enamored with the foreign environment, find himself unexpectedly defending it, and have supplementary “ambassadors” (Harriet and Caroline Abbott) dispatched to salvage his initial mission. Philip’s emotional distance and indecisiveness also resonate with John Marcher, the protagonist of James’s “The Beast in the Jungle” and a precursor to Strether. However, Philip’s tragedy is arguably less compelling due to his self-assured conviction—contrasting sharply with Strether’s anxieties—that nothing significant will ever happen to him:
‘Miss Abbott, don’t worry over me. Some people are born not to do things. I’m one of them … I never expect anything to happen now, and so I am never disappointed … I seem fated to pass through the world without colliding with it or moving it’ […]
She said solemnly, ‘I wish something would happen to you, my dear friend; I wish something would happen to you.’
Perhaps Philip’s defining action is his relentless self-examination. Unlike Marcher’s consuming dread, Philip engages in candid introspection throughout the novel. This self-reflection becomes literal at times. We learn of his childhood habit of retreating to his cubicle to scrutinize his features in a mirror, a practice he revisits on the train back to Sawston: “In the looking-glass at the end of the corridor he saw his face haggard, and his shoulders pulled forward by the weight of the sling.” Philip’s quest for self-identity, initially manifested in these mirror-gazing episodes, evolves into an embrace of Italian aesthetics and a dedication to refined sensibilities. Responding to Caroline Abbott’s disdain for Sawston life, Philip expounds on a concept of selfhood that resists societal pressures:
‘Society is invincible—to a certain degree. But your real life is your own, and nothing can touch it. There is no power on earth that can prevent your criticizing and despising mediocrity—nothing that can stop you retreating into splendour and beauty—into the thoughts and beliefs that make the real life—the real you.’
Forster’s subtle irony is evident in the verbs associated with Philip’s “real you”: criticizing, despising, retreating. Even if Philip’s personal philosophy is flawed, he raises a central question within the novel, illuminating its exploration of English and Italian character, its preoccupation with birth and death, and its focus on language: to what extent is societal influence inescapable, and what truly constitutes “real” identity? Where Angels Fear to Tread ultimately leaves the reader contemplating the delicate balance between embracing new experiences and navigating the inherent risks of venturing into the unknown, both geographically and emotionally.
