Howards End Men and Masculinity Quotes

How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #4

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. Catharine 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. (22.2)

Mr. Wilcox is the epitome of English stiff-upper-lippedness. He's not only closed off from his own inner life – he has fears that it's somehow wrong to have feelings and desires. Religion has done nothing but confirm this suspicion, and it's Margaret's job now to undo all of these accumulated beliefs.

Quote #5

"I am a man, and have lived a man's past." (26.63)

Whoa there, Henry. "A man's past"? Huh. This quote implies not only that all men have dark secrets (the result of, you know, sowing their wild oats, etc.), but furthermore, that it's expected of them in a way.

Quote #6

She tried to translate his temptation into her own language, and her brain reeled. Men must be different, even to want to yield to such a temptation. (28.5)

Margaret, thinking of Henry's transgression with Jacky, is horrified once again by how different men are – she's disgusted by his baser impulses.