The following essay analyzes the structure of A Room with a View and Lucy's journey toward enlightenment.

Forster began A Room with a View (1908) before Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905) and finished it after The Longest Journey (1907). Since it is the most halcyon and direct of his novels and since it was the work with which he started, we shall begin with it. Though it is his least complex book, it is his most Jane Austen-like and perhaps his most delightful. As in the earlier-published Angels, Italy acts as the chief source of vitality, and the two novels reflect the intense impact that the South made upon him in his early twenties. In Room, after the characters return to England in Part II,Italy retreats to the background but still acts as a formative influence.

In any case,Italy is the main force which in Part I...