Cultural Misunderstanding in A Passage to India
One of the major themes of E. M. Forster's novel A Passage to India is cultural misunderstanding. Differing cultural ideas and expectations regarding hospitality, social proprieties, and the role of religion in daily life are responsible for misunderstandings between the English and the Muslim Indians, the English and the Hindu Indians, and between the Muslims and Hindus. Aziz tells Fielding at the end of the novel, "It is useless discussing Hindus with me. Living with them teaches me no more. When I think I annoy them, I do not. When I think I don't annoy them, I do" (319). Forster demonstrates how these repeated misunderstandings become hardened into cultural stereotypes and are often used to justify the uselessness of attempts to bridge cultural gulfs. When Aziz offers his collar stud to Fielding in an 'effusive' act of friendship, Heaslop later misinterprets Aziz's missing stud as an oversight and extends it as a general example: "...there you have the Indian all over: inattention to detail; the fundamental slackness that reveals the race" (82). Cultural misunderstanding culminates in the experience at the Marabar Caves and one thing this episode seems to reveal is how much cultural misunderstanding, especially of the Indian by the British, is deliberate, even necessary. If the British were to really try to understand the Indian, the cultural barriers might weaken and the British might begin to see their equal humanity and this of course would make the British role as conquering ruler more difficult.
This is why Mrs. Moore is so revered by Aziz and the other Indians. She is too new a visitor to have become hardened, not having been there the six months Aziz and...
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...it, the more disagreeable and frightening it became. She minded it much more now than at the time. The crush and smells she could forget, but the echo began in some indescribable way to undermine her hold on life. Coming at a moment when she chanced to be fatigued, it had managed to murmur 'Pathos, piety, courage-they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value.' If one had spoken vileness in that place, or quoted lofty poetry, the comment would have been the same-'ou-boum.' If one had spoken with the tongues of angels and pleaded for all the unhappiness and misunderstanding in the world, past, present, and to come, for all the misery men must undergo whatever their opinion and position, and however much they dodge and bluff-it would amount to the same, the serpent would descend and return to the ceiling" (149-50).
The writings of various ethnographers and anthropologists are intended to inform and educate the reader by imparting awareness and understanding of unexplored cultures. The value of such a work is directly related to the author’s familiarity with the culture. For instance, an individual intimately acquainted with a situation have different insights, but also different biases than an outsider. Elizabeth Fernea’s work "Guests of the Sheik" is a combination of the two perspectives. It documents her immersion into the society and culture of El Nahra, a village in Iraq, during the first two years of her marriage to Bob, an anthropologist. Her honest and frank narrative provides a fascinating glimpse at the lives of the men and women living in the village and the relationship Elizabeth, affectionately referred to by the people of the village as Beeja, has with them.
Deloria, with his analytical survey, Indians in Unexpected Places, recounts the synthesis of western white expectations, and American Indians. The book takes its title from the general thesis, which explores not only the relationship between Indians and their introduction into an alien culture, but also the expectations that we have of Indians and how they “should” interact with our white western culture. According to Deloria, the common notion is that, “Indian people, corralled on isolated and impoverished reservations, missed out on modernity- indeed, almost missed out of history itself.” (Deloria p. 6) This falsified expectation that we have of the Native American peoples causes us to balk at the anomalies of an Indian when combined with Western culture.
Throughout the story there is a constant comparison of White culture and Indian culture. It begins with the narrator noticing a difference in landscaping between the two cultures. ." . . there is always beauty
Mary Rowlandson’s “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” and Benjamin Franklin’s “Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America” are two different perspectives based on unique experiences the narrators had with “savages.” Benjamin Franklin’s “Remarks Concerning the Savages…” is a comparison between the ways of the Indians and the ways of the Englishmen along with Franklin’s reason why the Indians should not be defined as savages. “A Narrative of the Captivity…” is a written test of faith about a brutally traumatic experience that a woman faced alone while being held captive by Indians. Mary Rowlandson views the Indians in a negative light due to the traumatizing and inhumane experiences she went through namely, their actions and the way in which they lived went against the religious code to which she is used; contrastingly, Benjamin Franklin sees the Indians as everything but savages-- he believes that they are perfect due to their educated ways and virtuous conduct.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie is a novel about Arnold Spirit (Junior), a boy from the Spokane Indian Reservation who decides to attend high school outside the reservation in order to have a better future. During that first year at Reardan High School, Arnold has to find his place at his all-white school, cope with his best friend Rowdy and most of his tribe disowning him, and endure the deaths of his grandmother, his father’s best friend, and his sister. Alexie touches upon issues of identity, otherness, alcoholism, death, and poverty in order to stay true to his characters and the cultures within the story. Through the identification of the role of the self, identity, and social behavior within the book, the reader can understand Arnold’s story to a greater depth.
... 134). To Americans, India still continues to be an exotic land of fairytale. They also ask him questions on ‘recent rise of Hindu fundamentalism’ which Gogol, like any ordinary American kid, is oblivious to the current affairs of India. Another American lady Pamela comments that Gogol is lucky because he would not fall sick if he visits India like her friend had. Inspite of Gogol’s emphasis that his parents “devote the better part of suitcase to medicine . . .” Pamela cannot be convinced because to her Gogol’s identity is essentially to that of an Indian. It is apparent to a native American Gogol is a representative of India, a land of exotic culture, palaces, and simultaneously a land of diseases. In reality Gogol is like any other American kid of his generation but he cannot truly blend in their life as his first identity is ‘Indian’ and to that of an ‘outsider’.
In Philip J. Deloria’s Athletic chapter from his book “Indians in unexpected places” he talks about his grandfather’s connection to sports. He goes into further detail about how his grandfather’s place in sports is similar to other Native Americans. Native Americans used sports as a way to find their place in a new society. Sports was also used to strengthen the community. “Many Indian communities responded by drawing webs of kingship and unity ever tighter, trying to keep sport stars humble” (113). Athletics was now being used to bring all of the community, especially in times when it seemed divided. Sports also disproved the “Vanishing Indian” idea because society saw Native Americans playing in these sports and saw that they still existed.
Instead of passively resenting his village’s colonization, Achebe productively channels his specific anger into global compassion, showing his readers the value in considering different cultures with objective and thoughtful rationality.
In the Third and Final Continent, Jhumpa Lahiri uses her own experiences of being from an immigrant family to illustrate to her readers how heritage, cultural influences and adaptation play a major role in finding your true identity. The Third and Final Continent is the ninth narration in a collection of stories called the Interpreter of Maladies. In this story, it discusses themes such as marriage, family, society, language and identity. In this story, we focus on an East Asian man of Bengali descent who wants to have a better future for himself so he leaves India and travels to London, England to pursue a higher education. His pursuit for higher education takes place on three different continents. In India, he feels safe in his home country and welcomed, but when he travels abroad he starts to have fear and anxiety. Through his narrations, we learn how he adapts to the European and American and through these experiences he learns to assimilate and to adapt to the new culture he travels to.
Jhumpa Lahiri, the author of the story, “The Third and Final Continent,” grew up being aware of conflicting expectations from two different countries. As Jhumpa mentioned, “I was expected to be Indian by Indians and Americans by Americans (Lahiri, pg 50).” The Third and Final Continent leaves the reader with a positive notion of the immigrant experience in America. The narrator recalls his school days in London, rooming with other foreign Bengalis, and trying to settle in this new world. He talks about how when he was 36 years old when his own marriage was arranged and he first flew to Calcutta, to attend his wedding. This statement is unique because it depicts the differences between an American culture and an Indian culture. At the time of marriage he is 36 years old and he didn’t pick who he wanted to get married to. Marriage in India is something that most parents set compared to other countries where they can marry someone of choice. Indians settle down by an arranged marriage ma...
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...
Throughout the semester, one of the main topics that we focused on and that was found most interesting was gender identity and how it has grown and transferred into everyday life. Gender identity can be defined as a learned trait of how someone perceives their own gender and can be used to describe many different topics such as gender roles, homosexuality, and gender ambiguities. Each of these topics of gender identity can be found in a numerous amount of the works that we read including Cereus Blooms at Night, Anowa, and A Passage to India. The topic of gender identity is viewed as one finding themselves; however, in these texts, gender identity is being aware of how you feel about yourself and discovering when and how you want to speak up and show it.
One of the most profound differences is the way both types of music came about. Rock and roll started back in the early 60’s. It was a time when the Vietnam war had just begun. Steppenwolf, The Beetles, Jimi Hendrix, and The Doors all were sending out soulful messages through their music. They were singing about war, drugs, and love instead of war. There lyrics were from the heart. It provoked feelings of rage for the government, and love for one another. The rock and roll movement began out of pent up energy that had to be released in an positive manner. It had very pure, honest intentions. On the other hand pop, short for popular, music was contrived from the beginning. It too had it’s beginnings in the 60’s starting with the Monkeys. Four guys were brought together by some corporate bigwigs to create an American version of the Beetles. Little did the public know that they were not even singing their own songs. They were lip-singing the whole time. But, they managed to top the charts and make young girls faint. That could be considered the first pop music.
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.
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.