On the one hand, E.M. Forster's A Room With A View heavily (almost burdensomely) underscores the overwrought stereotypes of Italians as "a most unpleasant people" (19); however, Mr. Beebe (on classifying the Italian peoples) reveals a rather interesting paradox:
They pry everywhere, they see everything, and they know what we want before we
know it ourselves. We are at their mercy. They read our thoughts, they foretell our
desires. From the cab-driver down to--to Giotto, they turn us inside out, and I resent it.
Yet in their heart of hearts they are--how superficial! They have no conception of the
intellectual life. (19)
The first observation is mimetic of the conventional stereotype(s) displaced on Italians; yet the following comment seems to proffer Italians an all-inclusive, liminal "other" (as gods) and capable of communicating with realms of the supernatural. Now, suddenly, they are exotic and abstract. Additionally, Mr. Beebe's remark is suggestive of a very specific type of power only the Italians possess--as he blatantly provides definition to the Italian population, no other--and knowingly so. The passage appears to highlight a strange, uncharted appeal found in the Italian people, even for Mr. Beebe, but to openly admit and promote this would mean to frustrate class stratification and reputation between two opposing worlds. The final snub, therefore, not only serves as a way to (re)gain control of himself, but also as a way to (re)gain control of the conversation, of Lucy (as a woman), and the Italians (as it would be a scandal to compliment). Thus, Mr. Beebe now inclusively stylizes them as lowly, unfit and incapable of high intellect and such modes of life.
On the other hand, A Room With A View seems to struggle with managing Italy as a site. That is the text cannot reach the point of conquer; so, by the default, neither can the characters: Lucy, a tourist, seeks the unknown and adventure in a space commercialized as such in order to fulfill a particular longer; Miss Lavish tries to conquer the landscape by writing a novel--of which her first attempt, historical, plundered--and now she attempts the tragedy; and Miss Bartlett, accustomed to service and control mannerisms, never quite seems to restrain Lucy in this new space nor herself. Therefore, though an extensively brutalize and infertile site, Italy still governs the foreign, the lives of those attempting to pillage or impose (press).
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