Where Angels Fear to Tread Analysis

Music and laughter. Good food and good company. Romance, art, and imagination. These are all hallmarks of Forster's Italy. At their best, Forster's Italians know how to enjoy life to its fullest (a...

The third-person omniscient narrator of Where Angels Fear to Tread can see into the thoughts and feelings of all the characters (some more than others), while remaining objective and staying out of...

The genre of Where Angels Fear to Tread falls squarely under the category of family drama, since the novel deals with the familial tensions within the Herriton household: Lilia is the black sheep o...

Forster has a gift for being playfully witty. His sense of humor is never super exaggerated: it's completely deadpan, which is what makes us laugh even harder. Early in the novel, Mrs. Herriton say...

The style Forster employs in Where Angels Fear to Tread is witty, conversational, and full of humor—we often find ourselves laughing at the way Forster portrays the silliness of his characters. T...

Forster originally intended to title this novel Monteriano, after the small Italian village where Lilia falls in love with Gino. But his editor thought this title was too boring (we totally agree),...

"Thank you," was all that he permitted himself. "Thank you for everything."She looked at him with great friendliness, for he had made her life endurable. At that moment the train entered the San Go...

This novel is over a hundred years old now, so there are occasional references that we've never heard of (like the Baedeker travel guides, which are no longer in print). But Forster's plot is easy...

Bon Voyage!Lilia Herriton is headed on a sweet trip to Italy with her travel companion, Miss Abbott. Lilia is a widow, lives with her in-laws, and has never been able to really adapt to her duties...

Lilia is sick and tired of her dull life in Sawston and is more than ready to travel through Italy and experience new things. Her in-laws, the Herritons, are also more than happy to have her out of...

Lilia's bags are all packed up and she's ready to explore Italy. While visiting the small town of Monteriano, Lilia falls head over heels for a dashing young Italian and marries him. Her in-laws ba...

Forster was a member of a secret society at Cambridge called The Apostles, who championed openness and tolerance. They would meet to discuss intellectual topics and sometimes even taboo (at the tim...

Well, sex definitely happens in Where Angels Fear to Tread, but we don't get to read about it first-hand. At the beginning of the novel, we are told that the reason Lilia is going off to Italy is b...

Byron, English poet (1.79) Mark Twain, American author (1.79)Garibaldi, Italian general and politician (2.83)Dante, Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso (2.83)Donizetti, Lucia di Lammermoor, Italian opera...