62 pages • 2 hours read
E. M. ForsterA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
At the end of term, the boys and teachers at Mr. Abrahams’s preparatory school go for a walk along the coast. One teacher, Mr. Ducie, takes Maurice Hall aside during the outing; Maurice is leaving for public school, and Ducie asks what he knows about growing up. Maurice says Abrahams encouraged him to follow in his father’s footsteps, but otherwise knows little; he lives with his sisters and widowed mother, and sees few men of his own social class. Ducie says that, in that case, he will explain sex to him: “All this is rather a bother […] but one must get it over, one musn’t make a mystery of it” (14). To illustrate his points, Ducie sketches diagrams in the sand. He also praises women and the institution of marriage; Maurice says he doesn’t think he’ll marry, but Ducie laughs and says he’ll change his mind.
The pair have continued walking when Ducie suddenly stops and turns around; a group of people is approaching the place he’d drawn his sketches, and he experiences a moment’s panic before realizing that the tide has now covered them. Ducie’s fear angers Maurice, who realizes Ducie hasn’t explained sex as fully as he claimed.
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