Although there was enormous societal pressure on the character of Clive, his coldness and callous attitude towards Maurice left me with little sympathy towards him. A superb performance by Hugh Grant, butI've always found Clive a very chilly character indeed. Yes, he was a victim of the extreme prejudices of the time, but he came across as an anti-hero all the same. It was almost gratifying when he was slapped down by Maurice at the end of the film.
shareI must be alone in feeling a bit sorry for Clive! I think what is perceived as his coldness was really just a coping mechanism around Maurice. He didn't want to allude to their relationship because he went into deep denial about what had happenned between them, and his way of dealing with it was to pretend it never happenned or that it was just a stupid crush. Also, I think despite everything he still wanted to remain friendly with Maurice. But I think it must have been awkward for Clive to be around Maurice after they split and he married Anne, and to be fair, even Forster himself admitted that he might have been a bit harsh on Clive by the end:
"Consequently the relationship lasts for three years-precarious, idealistic and peculiarly English...still it lasts until Clive ends it by turning to women and sending Maurice back to prison. Henceforward Clive deteriorates, and so perhaps does my treatment of him. He has annoyed me. I may nag at him over much, stress his aridity and political pretensions and the thinning of his hair, nothing he or his wife or his mother ever does is right. This works well enough for Maurice, for it accelerates his descent into Hell and toughens him there for the final reckless climb. But it may be unfair on Clive who intends no evil and who feels the last flick of my whip in the final chapter, when he discovers that his old Cambridge friend has relapsed inside Penge, and with a gamekeeper."
you're not alone keyser! I felt so sorry for Clive, I saw him as a victim of his education and "rank" and of the society he lives in. when I first saw the film (I was curious and wanted to see beautiful boys in the edwardian times...) I was mad at Clive during the "can the leopard change his spots" scene, but hen I felt compassion.
As I've already wrote here.to me Clive represents the end of a century; XIXth century and Maurice is the beginning of a new era, a new world: the XXth century.
I cried at the end of the film, and it wasn't for Maurice, who actually manages to find himself a little piece of happiness. It was for Clive, having heard that what he couldn't bring himself to risk anything for was finally obtained by the man he did, in fact, love, and then you see this fleeting vision of Maurice calling to him and you know he knows just how lost his love is now. I felt so very sorry for him and for many who were like him during most of human century.
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I cried at the end of the book for the same reason, but I still think he deserved what happened to him. But you never know, he might have found another beau in years to come and lived out his days with a gamekeeper of his very own, blissfully happy, without stupid little Anne finding out.
shareNah, he lost his boat on Maurice. And even him found Clive hard to like at the end, let alone a new guy who would only know his later snotty personality.
sharebut I still think he deserved what happened to him
I find it hard to judge him, as I didn't walk a mile in his shoes. I didn't have to be a gay man in that era, thank God, and I will never know all the difficulties to such an existence. My heart goes out to him because I think he wanted love and because whichever choice he would have made, he would have lost a part of himself, unlike Maurice, who was, at the end of the day, far more interested in being loved than in any other aspect of his life to that point, which gave him the possibility to choose Alec, and to pay the price, had it come to that.
I used to have a , but damnit do I want a !share
You're definitely not alone. Frankly, I found Clive a much more interesting character than Maurice; he's a much more dynamic character. What irks me about Maurice (the character, not the movie) is that he never CHOOSES to do anything. He falls into one situation after another and it's the characters AROUND him who drive the story. It was Clive who told him he loved him first, Clive who decided what they would be, Clive who ended things; Scudder who crawled up his window, Scudder who came to London, Scudder who missed his boat so that they could be together.
The only time Maurice ever DID anything was when he crawled into Clive's room at Cambridge. Which was enough to win Clive, for a time, but I don't think it should have been. And while I think it's unfortunate that Clive decided he'd changed and got married to a woman, I think that if he hadn't, he and Maurice wouldn't have lasted for long in an environment outside of Cambridge. Maurice's mental torpor wasn't a match for Clive, who could never make himself stop thinking; they were from different social spheres (which was obviously harder for Clive to deal with than it was for Maurice); and I think eventually Maurice would've bumbled into an affair with someone LIKE Scudder, someone who liked sex and moreover liked sex with HIM.
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With the creaky-chair scene, isn't it Clive that turns round to hug Maurice? Apparently, it was common for university boys in that time to sit like Maurice and Clive did and caress each other's hair (don't quote me on this, but I'm sure I read that), but it was Clive that obviously wanted to turn it into something more: the implication is that they might have kissed if Chapman and the others hadn't burst into the room.
Maurice still hadn't fully realised that he had feelings for Clive at that point, it didn't really hit home how he felt about him until after Clive told Maurice he loved him - to which he reacted by saying it was "rubbish" before it sank in that he felt the same way.
I feel really sorry for Clive at two points in the film: when he tells Maurice he loves him and Maurice says "don't talk rubbish", and the very last scene. He drives me insane at points, simply because Maurice is so in love with him and Clive is so...witholding of affection. Even when they're alone he doesn't really want to spend that much time even kissing him. The part where Clive is ill and Maurice is trying to be a good boyfriend and take care of him just about breaks my heart.
But I do feel sorry for Clive, because while Maurice gets to go off with his enormously sexy and sweet gamekeeper, Clive is going to be stuck with his wife and his mother and that house and restricting social conventions for the rest of his life.
Holding out hope for The Front Runner.
Also in Clive's defense: Forster makes it clear in the book that Clive's 'turning to women' is all but involuntary on his part. He simply wakes up one day and no longer feels the attraction to his own sex that he once felt. Whether or not this is due to his fear of societal judgement is unclear. It is also hinted that his newfound attraction to women will never be as passionate as his same-sex desires. However, it would have been nice had Clive been a little more understanding of his friend and a little less priggish and judgmental. His snobbish reaction when he discovers Maurice has 'shared' with a servant is despicable, though I suppose understandable given the milieu.
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