“Life is nothing until it is lived; but it is up to you to give it a meaning, and its value is nothing other than the meaning you choose”, Jean-Paul Sartre, 1946. In these books, religion is used as a tool to express this feeling; even though A Room with a View was written before existentialism and humanism, Sartre's idea is very clear in Forster's work. The authors examine ways of life; impassively, as it is imposed on us by a society with such concrete values, or actively, through the rejection of the innate morality of this society. The Church and the Zodiac, the two “religions,” are used to represent the constraining nature of society in their influence on the thoughts and decisions of the main characters. The second issue addressed is that of authority. The authors analyze the idea behind Sartre's idea that only “you” can give meaning and value to your life. By creating misconceptions of religious and respectable authority figures (the priests and manifestations of the zodiac-character) the characters have the power to judge who is truly in control of life and who should be. After discovering that despotic idols cannot chase away Lucy's ideas, Forster delves deeper into wondering what should replace this lost guide to life; the answer she explores is love, perhaps this is the device that can free her and inevitably, as Sartre would say, hand over control of her life to herself. Hartley also explores the idea that a replacement of religious authority is necessary by not providing one for Leo and, as a result, his "discovery" is life-denying rather than liberating. The first idea explored in The Go-Between is the distinction between the life that religion forces one to live, and the life they could live if they freed themselves... middle of paper... the inquiry is whether the morals of society allows people to thrive, or hinders their growth. development. The other examines whether figures given authority by society act as moral guides and enable freedom or whether they cause irreparable harm. Both use religion to offer a critique of the society of the time for which they were writing. Forster criticizes the “religion” of the early 20th century, which judges people, art and society on appearance rather than morality, while Hartley attacks a 1950s audience on the way “religion ” has become to glorify people who abstain from life. Ultimately, both suggest that self-empowerment is the true human condition. Bibliography Forster, EM (1907) A Room with a View, Penguin Classics Hartley, LP (1953) The Go-Between, Penguin Modern Classics Sartre, JP (1946) Existentialism and Humanism, Methuen