Am I the only one who felt this way?
So many people sympathize with Maurice. I get it...he's not the first guy to have gay feelings and feel trapped and he's going to counselling and therapy and journaling over it.
But what I think a lot of people seem to forget is Maurice had a great life. He had a mother and sisters who loved and cared about him, who reached out to him when he was in college. He had enough money to pursue a degree in Oxford, a beautiful country home, a well-paid job as a stockbroker and boxing teacher and plenty of friends to keep him company.
Why would you toss all this away, thinking your happiness depends entirely on one person?
Even after Clive fell out with Maurice, Clive still reached out to him, invited him to his wedding and had him be an honored guest at his house. Clive never really burned his bridges with anyone, Maurice on the other hand sacrificed everyone and everything for that gamekeeper at the end whom he barely knew, over a brief tryst.
In a way, I see a comparison to Anna Karenina who tossed all her blessings and relationships away for Vronsky because "the heart wants what the heart wants"...and we all know what happened to her.
My take on this story is don't ever let that one person be so important that you completely disregard all the other things in your life from which you might derive good.
Clive understood and trusted the bigger picture, Maurice didn't. Don't be like Maurice.