Within chapter three the theme of modernisation and tradition is really highlighted when Aunt Juley is on her way to Howards End and the reader is made aware of the Schlegel heritage and values and how they value art, idealism, and human relationships above all things. We are told of how they are the children of her sister Emily and a German professor who moved to England, Margaret and Helen have lived alone since their parents died, but their house is constantly filled with writers, artists, thinkers/philosophers, and friends. The Schlegel girls are interested in forward-looking causes such as women's suffrage and socialism. Despite their connection to Germany and the increasing tension between English Imperial powers and German Imperial powers (pre-war period), Aunt Juley still thinks of the Schlegels as "English through and through" and its is these points that show the contrast between the modernisation and tradition within the Schlegels lives, E.g. both of the girls have remained at home parlty to care for their younger brother this reflecting how tradition is important to them and how they have done the proper thing in keeping the family home even after their parents have died and keep Wickam Place a Schlegel asset. However this is contrasted to some of the modern ways and values they possess too, for example their belief in equality for women and distriution of wealth and when their belief is compared with that of a traditional Edwardian woman such as Ruth Wilcox at the luncheon meeting it becomes apparent that if the Schlegels were to live their lives in a traditional way then they would agree with Ruth who says that she does not wish for the vote and lives all the important aspects of life to her husband.
Helen is the character who outright shows the difference between the Schlegels and the Wilcoxes ideas on life and its contents. Similarly to how Forster uses property as a metaphor he also uses motorcars. This not only showing the ever growing modernisation within the world but also the materialistic lifestyle of the Wilcoxes. Early on in Howards End Helen comments on how the Wilcoxes' materialism is what makes them what they are and if you took away their "golf clubs, newspapers and motorcars" all one would find is "panic and emptiness" this being later echoed within chapter 5 when Helen imagines the Goblins within Beethoven’s Fifth,
"A goblin, with increased malignity, walked quietly over the universe from end to end. Panic and emptiness! Panic and emptiness! Even the flaming ramparts of the world might fall."
As stated within the novel the goblins appear to represent a lack or heroism in the world, however they could also represent the change that is happening in England especially through technology developments and general modernisation.
Possibly the largest representation of tradition within the novel is in fact Howards End, the house which was brought into the Wilcox family by Ruth who swiftly dies is the symbol for nature and tradition within the whole novel. She was the last of the Howards; "things went on until there were no men." Ruth is the last survivor of a family that has lived on the land in one house for centuries which makes clear the pity and anger she feels when Margaret tells her that they are to loose Wickham place, the home that both Tibby and Helen were born in.
“Not the house you were born in. You'll never find that again. Poor, poor girls. Howards end was almost pulled down once. It would've killed me.”
Mrs. Wilcox lives with and loves the Wilcoxes, yet she retains her connection to the past and to the earth, a connection that is essential to the inner life and outer life. Ruth is the only member of the Wilcox family who is traditional in her ways and sees a home as more than a property or financial gain. Mrs. Wilcox's marriage to Henry is an emblem of the traditional co-existence of the two kinds of life, a co-existence which seems to be coming to an end. The death of Mrs. Wilcox brings a literal end to the Howard Family; the question is whether the disposition of her house will bring the end of what she stands for. Even before she dies, a garage has replaced the paddock for the pony. It does actually seem to be the Howards' end. Before she dies, however, Mrs. Wilcox finds a spiritual heir in Margaret Schlegel, and she leaves a note asking her husband to give the house to Margaret. However the Wilcoxes see Howards End as a purely financial asset and destroy the letter left by their wife and mother.
The reoccurring imagery of motorcars is present within chapter 13, when Forster descries the effect they have on and in London,
"And month by month the roads smelt more strongly of petrol, and were more difficult to cross, and human beings heard each other speak with greater difficulty, breathed less of the air, and saw less of the sky. Nature withdrew: the leaves were falling by midsummer; the sun shone through dirt with an admired obscurity."
It is the Wilcoxes and their class that have produced the modern civilization of which London is a product and a symbol; and it is the Wilcoxes' cars that have filled the air with fumes. The Wilcoxes have the "colonial spirit" and in a way motorcars are actually a metaphor for people like the wilcoxes, the people associated with the outer life are part of the cause for the "withdrawel of nature", the hatred of tradition and the love of modernisation,
"Outer life . . . in which telegrams and anger count."
"a wretched horse and cart".
Their main concern is making money rather than living a harmonious life, unlike the Schlegels and why the character seen as Ruth’s spiritual heir is the only person that appears to understand that you do in fact need a balance of both "outer and inner life" in order to get by, Margaret.
The world of Howards End is one of "everyone moving," of "continual flux." As Margaret says, "London was but a foretaste of this nomadic civilization which is altering human nature so profoundly, and throws upon personal relations a stress greater than they have ever born before." The novel itself, which is full of letters and telegrams that shouldn't have been sent, or which are not received in time, or which are misinterpreted, reflects the growing difficulty of human communication due to the traditional Edwardian methods which Forster predicts are becoming less effective as they work much slower than the people that "shall inherit England".
Forster chooses to use both the Schlegels and the Basts to show the effect that people like the Wilcoxes have on others by encouraging and causing a removal of tradition and the introduction of modernisation. Such events then forces the Schlegels to move out of their family home of thirty years, which is set to be built into flats to supply the expanding population of London. Leonard Bast is also an unfortunate victim of the peril caused by the “outer life” people. He is at the lower end of the middle class and is a clerk, living in a "makeshift" home whose heater throws out "metallic fumes" not unlike the petrol fumes in the London Streets that Forster highlights. He eats "dusty crumbs", dusted no doubt by the filth constantly thrown up by cars of the Wilcox's and their kind. Because of the advice Mr. Wilcox gave, Leonard was financially ruined, as in the longer run his life had been ruined by the social forces represented by the Wilcoxes. Leonard’s suffering was probably inevitable from the onset of the novel, as Leonard constantly attempted to better himself by simply reading books, but in the times of the novel it was unlikely and unheard of that an individual was able to escape from the abyss of desolation also known as lower class.
As Margaret falls in love with Henry Wilcox, Margaret moves towards an understanding and sympathy for the Wilcox way of life:
“If Wilcoxes hadn't worked and died in England for thousands of years, you (Helen) and I couldn't sit here without having our throats cut. There would be no trains, no ships to carry us literary people about in, no fields even. Just savagery. No, perhaps not even that. Without their spirit, life might never have moved out of protoplasm. More and more do I refuse to draw my income and sneer at those who guarantee it.”
Margaret realises that the "outer life" of the Wilcoxes "was to remain a real force." of the outer life and the inner, she writes in a letter to Helen, "Our business is not to contrast the two, but to reconcile them." In her love for Henry Margaret is moving towards the vision of Mrs. Wilcox following both her traditions and her role as spiritual heir. But Margaret seems to realize that the outer life of the Wilcoxes has become so powerful and expansive that it cannot exist peacefully beside the life of personal relations and personal emotional truth which the Schlegels girls hold so dear. She knows Wilcoxes are changing the world but wants Mr. Wilcox to see that he has an inner life. This is what Margaret tries to do in accepting Henrys proposal; she tries to merge the inner and outer lives.
In conclusion, modernisation and tradition are two of the most important themes within the novel, it seems that they were apparent in the mind of Forster when he wrote the novel and he used motorcars, families and property in order to show London, and England in general and the change that it has and will endure. The novel does seem to be slightly prophetic similarly to George Orwell’s 1984 in predicting the future in a very precise manor. Forster appears to have seen the eventual dominance of the commercial and financial classes, and he saw with disturbing accuracy what this dominance would do not only to England but also to the world and how it would in fact be the Wilcoxes of the world that “shall inherit the England”.
