“Where is Your Home”? Spaces of Homoerotic Desire in E. M. Forster’s Fiction
“Where is Your Home”? Spaces of Homoerotic Desire in E. M. Forster’s Fiction

Summary/Abstract: The text analyses the spaces of homosexual desire described in E. M. Forster’s novel Maurice as well as in two of his short stories, “The Other Boat” and “Dr Woolacott.” In Maurice the title character constantly experiences the dual, or rather changeable, nature of places witnessing (and dis- or encouraging) his pursuits of desire. In “The Other Boat” the relationship between Lionel and Cocoanut unfolds within the heterotopic space of a ship, while “Dr Woolacott” is an example of a story set in a space which is very peculiar, liminal, as only somewhere between daydreams and nightmares is the protagonist able to meet his phantom lover. It is noticeable that the protagonists of the mentioned narratives exist simultaneously in the official, codified social spaces and in “the secret places.” The disruptive, forbidden type of desire portrayed in the discussed texts can exist only in the “othered” spaces, spaces which often determine the character’s identities and fates, influence their perception profoundly but, at the same time, rarely seem permanent or certain.

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