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One may as well begin with Helen's letters to her sister.
Howards End,
Tuesday.
Dearest Meg,
It isn't going to be what we expected. It is old and little, and altogether delightful - red brick. We can scarcely pack in as it is, and the dear knows what will happen when Paul (younger son) arrives tomorrow. From hall you go right or left into dining-room or drawing-room. Hall itself is practically a room. You open another door in it, and there are the stairs going up in a sort of tunnel to the first-floor. Three bed-rooms in a row there, and three attics in a row above. That isn't all the house really, but it's all that one notices - nine windows as you look up from the front garden.
Then there's a very big wych-elm - to the left as you look up - leaning a little over the house, and standing on the boundary between the garden and meadow. I quite love that tree already. Also ordinary elms, oaks - no nastier than ordinary oaks - pear-trees, apple-trees, and a vine. No silver birches, though. However, I must get on to my host and hostess. I only wanted to show that it isn't the least what we expected. Why did we settle that their house would be all gables and wiggles, and their garden all gamboges-coloured paths?
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Like Jane Austen's [b:Mansfield Park|45032|Mansfield Park|Jane Austen|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1397063295l/45032._SY75_.jpg|2722329] and Charles Dickens' [b:Bleak House|31242|Bleak House|Charles Dickens|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1280113147l/31242._SY75_.jpg|2960365], Howards End can be read as a novel about the condition of England. Its context is England during the uneasy pre-World War 1 years and the growing antagonism between England and Germany, which was a critical period of tensions and dislocations in society marked by the collapse of traditional values and the rise of modernity. The topography and landscape, architecture and making of gardens and houses, as well as family relationships mirror the state of the nation at a time of crisis and change.Modernity, as depicted in the novel, is characterized by the dangerous alienation of the urban working-classes from those privileged with economic prosperity, a chasm between those who own and control business like the Wilcoxes and those who feel for their fellow human beings like the Schlegels, an erosion of humane values in favor of brash and brittle manners, the rise of socialist ideas, and a gender crisis caused by the Woman question. The concept of the New Woman is present in the novel through the Schlegel sisters, who are characterized by independence and progressive ideas.Tibby Schlegel, on the other hand, represents an erosion of the robust and manly Englishman. The British Empire was built upon the efforts of patriarchal men like the Wilcoxes. The novel communicates the idea that this ideal of manly vigor was threatened by aesthetes and what [a:Rudyard Kipling|6989|Rudyard Kipling|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1550677494p2/6989.jpg] had described as degenerates who were physically weak and at best half-educated. Tibby stands, thus, as the result of the increasing feminization of culture, and a loss of discipline and masculinity in the nation. The romantic dreams of Leonard Bast endear him to the Schlegel sisters. To the Wilcoxes, however, he is nothing but an insult of their manly patriarchal ideal. Margaret's marriage to Henry Wilcox can be read as an attempt to bridge the gap between a male-dominated family, concerned entirely with the material world of money, and a feminine household that cherishes personal relationships, progressive ideas, and art. This is the moral of the novel, for neither family could stand by itself in its radical ideals. In the novel, hay is used as a symbol of the Wilcoxes inability to live in harmony with nature. The Wilcoxes mirror a whole class of people whose sole interest was modernization and the acquisition of money. At the beginning of the story, the hay fever attaining all the Wilcox family at the exception of Ruth, signifies their incapacity to understand and live in harmony with nature. It was only when he agreed to live with Margaret, Helen and her child that the fever seemed to leave Henry. In other words, he had at last reached that state of balance between his patriarchal ideals and the feminine components so necessary to a healthy life. The novel communicates the ideas of gender inequality and the patriarchal hypocrisy. Henry, by means of illustration, condemned Helen for having a pre-marital sexual intercourse while he himself had had extramarital experiences with Jacky Bast.