Aspects of the Novel

Returning to the form and approach he used in the first four named chapters, Forster works on defining “Pattern and Rhythm” by borrowing from other art forms. To illuminate the concept of pattern, Forster describes Thais by Anatole France as an hourglass. The two primary characters in the novel effectively switch moral places because of their experience with one another. The aesthetic pattern of the hourglass is what, Forster argues, makes that novel so satisfying. Next, he discusses Percy Lubbock’s Roman Pictures, saying that this novel takes the pattern of a chain—all the characters lock together at the end, unifying the seemingly disconnected events. Again, the pattern itself is what is so satisfying, rather than the unification.

Pattern, then, is the visual aesthetic sense of the novel that relies largely on the shape of the plot; Forster says it is the element of beauty in the plot. To further illustrate the beauty of pattern, Forster examines Henry James’s The Ambassadors, which has an hourglass-shaped plot and is internally tight and unified. The hero of The Ambassadors goes to Paris to retrieve his paramour’s wayward son, Chad; in the process, he discovers the profundity of life, which leads him to switch places with Chad.