The Celestial Omnibus (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: E. M. Forster
- First Published: 1911
- Type of Plot: Allegory
- Time of Work: The early twentieth century
- Setting: “Surbiton,” a suburban town outside London
- Principal Characters: The boy, His father and mother, Mr. Bons
- Genres: Short fiction, Allegory, Fantasy
- Subjects: Self-discovery, Fantasy, Boys
- Locales: London, England
The Story
E. M. Forster has filled this modern fantasy with wordplay and hidden allusions that allow it to function as an allegory on literary snobbery. The unnamed protagonist, a boy, has begun to discover the joy of literature; untutored, he plunges ahead uncritically and appreciates the popular and the classical with equal enthusiasm. He is, however, spiritually imprisoned in his parents’ suburban home in “Surbiton,” Agathox Lodge, appropriately a corruption of agathos, the Greek word for “good.”
The adults who surround the boy merely stifle his...
[The entire page is 1272 words long]
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