摘要

E.M.福斯特的个人经历和他对他所处时代的观察激发了他的联结思想。联结是他毕生的追求和梦想。他的多部小说反映了这一思想，而《霍华德庄园》更是其中的典型。在小说的扉页上，有著名的警句：只有联结。小说描写了处于不同社会地位的三家人的纠葛:斯莱格尔、威尔考克斯和巴斯特。斯莱格尔姐妹代表了中产阶级知识分子，当面对隔阂和鸿沟时，他们选择了联结。他们试图通过友谊，爱和婚姻来进行联结。姐姐玛格丽特与威尔考克斯夫人联结，她是传统文明的拥护者。玛格丽特还与威尔考克斯先生联结，他是工业文明的受益者和推进者。妹妹海伦则与下层职员的代表，巴斯特联结。所有的联结都似乎成功了。然而，福斯特却用很多细节暗示这些成功并不具有说服力，乌托邦式的结尾也似是而非。读者常为福斯特的矛盾而感到困惑。
在这篇论文中，笔者试图研究人物之间的联结和福斯特的矛盾以找出小说的主题意义所在。经过认真阅读小说和研究其他关于霍华德庄园的研究著作，笔者得出结论，那就是：虽然所有的联结事实上都失败了， “只有联结”的呼吁也没有实现，福斯特的意图还是暗示只有通过联结，所有的鸿沟才能愈合，对移动的狂热才能停止，传统文明的薪火才能永传不灭，而他的似是而非只是告诉读者，联结的实现过程是艰难的。

关键词：联结，工业文明，传统文明，矛盾

ABSTRACT

Forster’s personal experience and his observation of his times inspired his ideal of connection. It is his lifelong pursuit and dream. Forster wrote several novels to promote his ideal. Howards End is an epitome with the famous epigraph “only connect” on its head page. The story wrote the entanglement of three families, the Schlegels, Wilcoxes and Basts. The Schlegel sisters stand for the middle-class intellectuals. Facing the gaps, they choose to connect with others by friendship, love or marriage. Margret connects with Mrs. Wilcox, the advocator of traditional civilization, and Mr. Wilcox, the beneficiary and promoter of industrial civilization. Helen connects with Bast, the representative of lower-class. All the connections seem successful. However, Forster makes many hints that the success is not convincing, thus the utopian ending a paradox. The readers are often confused by Forster’s ambivalence.
In the thesis, the author tries to research the connections between the characters and Forster’s ambivalence in order to explore the theme of the novel. The author tries to find answers by reading the works concerning Forster and Howards End. The author comes to a conclusion that although the connections are in fact failed and the famous epigraph is not realized, Forster intends to imply that only by connections the gaps can be bridged, the craze for motion stopped, and the traditional civilization survived. However, it is hard to connect.

Key words: connect, industrial civilization, traditional civilization, ambivalence