Ten of the 14 short stories in E. M. Forster's posthumously published collection, The Life to Come, deal in one way or another with love between males. They vary widely in tone and setting, from the Ruritanian farce of "What Does It Matter?" to the grim realism of "The Other Boat," from the English domesticity of "Arthur Snatchfold" to the exotic locale of "The Life to Come." What binds all these stories together is the basic myth or fable which underlies them, and which seems to have recurred often to Forster's mind throughout the five or more decades of their creation. We wish here to explore that myth and some of its implications for Forster's view of life, as he saw it in the perspective of homosexuality, and to explore his attitudes toward the possibilities and qualities of homosexual relationships.
The myth may be simply described as that of the Gay Noble Savage. In all the stories the male protagonist, usually young, English, and middle-class, is involved with another male who is as different from him as the context of the tale will permit. Sir Richard Conway, successful businessman, has a hurried liaison with the local milkman, Arthur Snatchfold, in the story of that name. In "The Other Boat," the affair is between a young English officer, Lionel March, and a native boy, Co-coanut…. In the title story of the collection the relationship is between a young English priest and a native (tribal) chieftain, Athobai. He is an excellent example of the Gay Noble Savage—a character who is completely innocent, who trusts the missionary from Western civilization, and who is destroyed by him. He offers unlimited, honest, and guiltless love which the missionary cannot resist, but cannot face or accept in Athobai or in himself either. It is typical of these stories that this love and this openness cannot flourish and indeed doom the character to ruin and catastrophe brought on by society's opposition to homosexual love.
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