Howards End - Is it a polemic?

Uncle Arthur is home for the weekend, getting some R and R and managed to see a copy of E.M Forster's 'Howards End' in the MMTM Library. Flicking through the pages reminded me of the time I went to see the film with my then girlfriend. Her take, on the end scene, when the 'John Majoresque' Leonard Bast is killed by the falling bookcase was rather novel and at the time infuriating. Her view was that he basically deserved it as he was 'vulgar'. I found this a little snobbish as my understanding was that Forster's literary agenda was to belittle the aspirational working-class and nascent socialism that dared to liberate the proletariat through the power of education. It is amazing how this literary vignettes can spark off such disagreements is it not?