analysis: A Room with a View

Monday, March 10, 2014

          Travel, tourist, and identity are three of the most important themes presented in the movie A Room with a View. The movie allow me to perceive and visualize clearly how is presented in each characters the idea of being tourist and a traveler. The story begins in Florence, Italy, where a young English middle-class woman, Lucy Honeychurch is vacationing with her cousin Charlotte Barlett, at an Italian pension for British guests. While mourning the poor views outside their windows, Lucy and Charlotte are interrupted by a visitor, an old man by the name of Emerson. This man suggests them a room swap. He and his son George are both in chambers that offer splendid views of Florence. Honeychurch and Barlett are presented with the chance to become tourists and view things differently in Florence, Italy. They are surrounded with a new and diverse culture and new form of life that is unlike than the one they are used to back at there homeland.The open and beauty of the Italian environment allow Lucy to commence a new life and discover her love. 

       In the movie it is shown that Lucy has a life with more liberty. This is shown throughout Lucy’s stay in Florence, Italy. She is unfamiliar with the peculiar surrounding and all of the culture that engulfs her. In one part of the movie, Italy is describe as: "Passionate, vibrant, violent place". This emphasizes that this new place is influential for the tourist, especially in Lucy, because of all the new conception surrounding her. It causes her conscious of the chance of this distinct kind of life that she can determine what she wants to execute. Another example of Italy showing Lucy a more open life is when she arrived at the hotel, she was promised a room with a view, but instead they gave to her and her cousin a room that did not have a view, and they became angry demonstrating her anxiousness for a new ambiance. For instance Charlotte says: "This is not at all what we were led to expect" and then Lucy says: "The rooms the Signora promised us in her letter would have looked over the Arno". This illustrates that this women become anguish by the fact that they did not get a room with a view and this consequently sustain the concept that they were excited to get release of her old home and experience a new life and a country. On the other hand, this movie could be clearly compare to Jamaica Kincaid's story. The point of view that Italian had toward the tourist is comparable to the perspective that Kincaid showed toward the tourists visiting Antigua. 

       The three quotes that are told by the characters in the movie A Room with a View are: 1.) "This is not at all what we were led to expect"- Charlotte Bartlett. 2.) "A young girl, transfigured by Italy! And why shouldn't she be transfigured? It happened to the Goths!" - Eleanor Lavish. 3.) " I mean, Italians are so kind, so lovable, and yet at the same time so violent".