E.M. Forster, born into a middle-class family in London, was a humanist and an English writer famous for his literary works which called attention to the hypocrisy (present in the time in which he lived). In his novel A Passage To India, Forster explores the relationship between and within the Anglo-Indian and Native-Indian communities under British Imperialism and expounds on the sins which its members commit against the humanistic values of sympathy and understanding. Additionally, in A Passage to India Forster reflects the relationship phases which occur between his characters through the use of the three main divisions -- Mosque, Caves, and Temple.
The First division Mosque, a Muslim place of worship, is set in the fictional city of Chandrapore and brings about the first stage of human confrontation --Introduction. One of the first introductions Forster makes to the reader is the division of the Indian and British cultures. He does this by describing Indian Chandrapore to be a place where the “streets are mean, the temples ineffective, and though a few fine houses exist they are hidden away in gardens or down alleys whose filth deters all but the invited guest.” (Forster 3) while describing British Chandrapore “to be a totally different place. It is a city of gardens. It is no city, but a forest sparsely scattered with huts. It is a tropical pleasaunce washed by a noble river” (Forster 4). The idea of ‘introductions’ is further explored in Dr. Aziz’s visit to the mosque which lets “loose his imagination..where his body and thoughts have found their home” (Forster 16), where the “many small sounds [of the] English...amateur orchestra...Hindus drumming...owls” (Forster 17), all diverse in nature, echoed through a similar space...
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...d apart; the earth didn’t want it, sending up rocks through which riders must pass single file; the temples, the tanks the jail, the place, the birds, the carrion, the Guest House...didn’t want it, they said...’no, not yet,’ and the sky said, ‘No, not there’”(Forster 362).
Works Cited
Forster, E. M. A Passage To India. New York: Harcourt, Brace and, 1924. Print.
"Mosque, Cave, Temple, and a Few Comments on the Weather." Shmoop. Web. 11 Apr. 2012. .
"The Structure of E. M. Forster's "A Passage to India"" Your Knowledge Has Value. Web. 11 Apr. 2012. .
"A Passage to India." SparkNotes. SparkNotes. Web. 11 Apr. 2012.
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Several different literary elements work in tandem to produce the magic seen in E. M. Forster's A Passage to India. Because this novel was presented to the world less than a decade after World War I, the fantastic and exotic stories of India seized the attention of the relatively provincial society of the day, and the novel's detailed presentation of Hinduism certainly excited the imaginations of thousands of readers. Benita Parry supports this assertion when saying, "Hinduism takes its place at the core of the novel just as it lies at the heart of India" (164).
Impact of British Colonization Exposed in A Small Place, A Passage to India, and Robinson Crusoe
...al features of “Orientalism” such as the spirituality and mysticism of India have been embraced by natives of the “Orient” as positive and aided the construction of an indigenous national identity. The singular, unitary modern world religion known as “Hinduism”, while originally constructed in the most part by Western scholars, is arguably not merely an “Orientalist concept”. This view, advocated by von Stietencron is flawed in that it fails to recognise the development of the “religion” and its associated culture since the nineteenth century. While it is doubtful that an “essence” of “Hinduism” exists, to reduce the religion to a being a “Western construct” in the twenty-first century is to deny the Indian people who label themselves as being “Hindu’s” the opportunity to value and develop their own national culture, albeit still influenced by their colonial past.
[1] Stephen Land. Challenge and Conventionality in the Fiction of E.M. Forster. New York: AMS Press, 1990 (165). Hereafter cited parenthetically.
Nicholas B. Dirks. (2011). Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India. Princeton University Press
The short story "Lispeth" is a particularly rich field from which to examine notions of alterity. Kipling’s narrator points out that "It takes a great deal of Christianity to wipe out uncivilized Eastern instincts"(4). It would be tempting, given the author’s reputation as a right-wing apologist for empire, to take this comment at face value. However, I believe that "Lispeth", as a text, is centrally critical of the British in India. The missionaries and the young Briton that Lispeth idolises are repeatedly shown as being racially arrogant and duplicitous. Witness the Chaplain’s wife’s description of Lispeth’s love as a "barbarous and indelicate folly", while maintaining that the deceitful "Englishman,… was of a superior clay". Similarly, after the Chaplain’s wife says that "There is no law w...
E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India and Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse are concerned with the lack of intimacy in relationships. Forster’s novel is set in English-run India, the difference between race and culture being the center of disharmony. Woolf’s novel is set in a family’s summer house, the difference between genders being the center of disharmony. Despite this difference of scale, the disharmonies are much the same. Unity and intimacy are intertwined in both novels. Whereas the definitions of intimacy vary with each person, all of the characters strive for unity through their relations with others. The difference in ideas of intimacy are what prevent unity from being achieved. For the Indians, intimacy is a sharing of possessions and personal information that acknowledges equality. For the English, intimacy is similarity of background and allegiance. Thus, Heaslop tells his mother that he made a mistake by asking one of the Pleaders to smoke with him because the Pleader then told all the litigants that he was in with the City Magistrate (Forster, 20). To the Pleader, this sharing of cigarettes and leisure time is an act of intimacy because it seems an acknowledgement of equality. To Heaslop, this is only a friendly act of social convention because equality is based on race and class, is something inherent, not given.
Nayar says, “Amitav Ghosh is indisputably one of the most important novelists and essayists today. A novelist with an extraordinary sense of history and place, Ghosh locates an individual’s dream in the general, often uncontrollable, sweep of humanity’s destiny and actions. From the partition to colonial science to colonialism, Ghosh is interested in the ways in which the violence of history, geography and political alters lives. An extraordinary fine stylist and narrator, Ghosh is also, quite often, a dense read.
Forster perceived the public-school system to be at the centre of the English middle-classes, defining their set of core values and moulding their behaviour. He was particularly intrigued by the notion of emotional repression being indoctrinated into public-school pupils, and the effects of this 'stiff upper lip' mentality is keenly considered in both Howards End and A Passage to India. While several of his male protagonists unquestionably display solidity and efficiency, their lack of imagination and inclination towards hypocrisy inevitably undermine any potentially positive characteristics. Their personal relationships with others are consequently affected, and in A Passage to India the failure of Anglo-Saxon relations is significantly contributed to by the small-minded selfishness of the English. Forster's skilful use of contrast means that those removed from the public-school mentality, such as the colourful characters of Leonard Bast and Aziz, can serve to expose its flaws.
There are people bustling, merchants selling, Anglo-Indians watching, and birds flying overhead. How many perspectives are there in this one snippet of life? They are uncountable, and that is the reality. Modernist writers strive to emulate this type of reality into their own work as well. In such novels, there is a tendency to lack a chronological or even logical narrative and there are also frequent breaks in narratives where the perspectives jump from one to another without warning. Because there are many points of view and not all of them are explained, therefore, modernist novels often tend to have narrative perspectives that suddenly shift or cause confusion. This is because modernism has always been an experimental form of literature that lacks a traditional narrative or a set, rigid structure. Therefore, E. M. Forster, author of A Passage to India, uses such techniques to portray the true nature of reality. The conflict between Adela, a young British girl, and Aziz, an Indian doctor, at the Marabar Caves is one that implements multiple modernist ideals and is placed in British-India. In this novel, Forster shows the relations and tension between the British and the Indians through a series of events that were all caused by the confusing effects of modernism. E.M. Forster implements such literary techniques to express the importance or insignificance of a situation and to emphasize an impression of realism and enigma in Chandrapore, India, in which Forster’s novel, A Passage to India, takes place.
A fascination exerted by characters who grip our minds; a wit and beauty present in an always limped style; a passionate involvement with life in all its variety; a view of existence alive to its comic incongruities and to it's tragic implications; and a steady adherence to human values which compel administration... such are leading aspects of Forster's work that continually line up.
When in 1978 Edward W. Said published his book Orientalism, it presented a turning point in post-colonial criticism. He introduced the term Orientalism, and talked about 2 of its aspects: the way the West sees the Orient and the way the West controls the Orient. Said gave three definitions of Orientalism, and it is through these definitions that I will try to demonstrate how A Passage to India by E. M. Forster is an Orientalist text. First, Said defined Orientalism as an academic discipline, which flourished in 18th and 19th century.
E.M. Forster's A Passage to India concerns the relations between the English and the native population of India during the colonial period in which Britain ruled India. The novel takes place primarily in Chandrapore, a city along the Ganges River notable only for the nearby Marabar caves. The main character of the novel is Dr. Aziz, a Moslem doctor in Chandrapore and widower. After he is summoned to the Civil Surgeon's home only to be promptly ignored, Aziz visits a local Islamic temple where he meets Mrs. Moore, an elderly British woman visiting her son, Mr. Heaslop, who is the City Magistrate. Although Aziz reprimands her for not taking her shoes off in the temple before realizing she has in fact observed this rule, the two soon find that they have much in common and he escorts her back to the club.
...shown through Lenny’s point of view. Prior the partition, Lahore was a place of tolerance that enjoyed a secular state. Tension before the partition suggested the division of India was imminent, and that this would result in a religious. 1947 is a year marked by human convulsion, as 1 million people are reported dead because of the partition. Moreover, the children of Lahore elucidate the silences Butalia seeks in her novel. The silence of survivors is rooted to the nature of the partition itself; there is no clear distinction as to who were the antagonists. The distinction is ambiguous, the victims were Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims, and moreover these groups were the aggressors, the violent. The minority in this communal violence amongst these groups was the one out-numbered. This epiphany of blame is embarked in silence, and roots from the embodiment of violence.
The measured dialogue between Reader and Editor serves as the framework through which Gandhi seeks to discredit accepted terms of civilization and denounce the English. These principle characters amply assist in the development o...