A Room with a View Transformation Quotes

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

Quote #1

"If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays, it will be very exciting both for us and for her" (3.5).

Indeed it would, Mr. Beebe! The clergyman, wittily observant as always, poses a certain challenge to Lucy here; we see the results emerge in the rest of the book, as Lucy struggles to bring the intensity of feeling that show up in her music to the forefront of her real life.

Quote #2

In the distance she saw creatures with black hoods, such as appear in dreams. The palace tower had lost the reflection of the declining day, and joined itself to earth. How should she talk to Mr. Emerson when he returned from the shadowy square? Again the thought occurred to her, "Oh, what have I done?" – the thought that she, as well as the dying man, had crossed some spiritual boundary (4.20).

Immediately after Lucy and George witness the murder in the Piazza Signoria, she has the feeling that she has changed in some indefinable way – the experience has changed her, and sent her into a new questioning and uncertain mode.

Quote #3

[…] the joys of life were grouping themselves anew. A drive in the hills with Mr. Eager and Miss Bartlett – even if culminating in a residential tea-party – was no longer the greatest of them (5.20).

Lucy’s transformation after the murder is evident here. Now that she has a different perspective on life and death, something as trivial as a drive in the hills suddenly doesn’t seem that important anymore – but what is?