A Room With A View?

A room with a view refers to the beginning of the novel when the main two characters Lucy and her Cousin are compelled to change rooms with two strangers who are staying at the same hotel that they are. Lucy is over heard to remark how terrible her rooms are because they smell and over look a blocked off courtyard that is really nothing to look at at all. She was very upset that she was promised a room with a view of Florence and instead she was given nothing at all in the back of the hotel. The Emerson’s hear her and offer to switch rooms with them because they have a great view and it is wasted on them because they are men, and women greatly enjoy views more than the men do. The women then rebuke this offer because it is un-lady like to accept it and the men offered their rooms in un-gentlemen like ways. This episode sets the background for the moral character of the “lady,” or at least what is thought by these two women a true “lady” would do. This decision and reasoning behind this decision shows these women to be superficial and concerned with irrelevant aspects in life. They reject people solely on the class of the person and how educated they seem to be when they themselves are completely uneducated in the true ways of the world. They busy themselves with trivial aspects of life such as being without a guide book, playing the piano for other people, arranging seating for groups on a trip to insure the best “day” for every one. They seem to have not grown up in any way and are completely self-centered.