Maurice Hall is the novel’s protagonist, and the character whose perspective dominates the narrative. As Forster himself notes, Maurice largely represents the average or even ideal turn-of-the-century Englishman; he is “handsome, healthy, bodily attractive, mentally torpid, not a bad business man and rather a snob” (250). His background is likewise unremarkable; his family is suburban and comfortably middle-class, and though they can afford to provide a “gentleman’s” education for Maurice, they don’t expect him to aspire to anything above his father’s job as a stockbroker (an upper-class man would traditionally enter a more pedigreed field like the law, the Church, or the military).

The only thing that distinguishes Maurice from any other Englishman is his sexual orientation; Maurice is gay at a time when being gay wasn’t simply taboo but actually illegal (at least in England). Maurice is characteristically slow to realize his feelings, only becoming fully aware of them after a Cambridge classmate—Clive Durham—admits his own love for him. The rest of the novel details Maurice’s efforts to accept his orientation, and to build a meaningful life for himself. Unlike the more intellectual Clive, Maurice approaches these problems from a practical rather than philosophical angle, and is therefore less inclined to question his feelings provided he can avoid both isolation and imprisonment.