Sisters in literature

Three classic English novels, George Eliot's Middlemarch, E. M. Forster's Howards End and D. H. Lawrence's Women in Love, share a theme: they study the fortunes in love of two sisters, and all three books are descendants of Sophocles' Antigone, of which Forster said, '... of all the great tragic utterances that comes closest to my heart'.

There is no doubt that Lawrence read Forster; that he and Forster read George Eliot; and that all three read Antigone. So its basic theme, of the two sisters - two women with contrasting temperaments, who face a life-crisis, argue passionately about it, act differently but remain loyal to each other, and are deeply changed by what happens - this is common to all the books.

This has not been observed elsewhere, or treated at length, and it is an interesting and significant argument, especially for today's readers. Masako Hirai shows her theme being taken at a deep level and profoundly appropriated by the authors. She draws on biographical material to show why it mattered to each of them personally, without falling into psychological crudities.