Dr.
Aziz
Aziz seems to be a mess of extremes and
contradictions, an embodiment of Forster’s notion of the “muddle” of India.
Aziz is impetuous and flighty, changing opinions and preoccupations quickly and
without warning, from one moment to the next. His moods swing back and forth
between extremes, from childlike elation one minute to utter despair the next.
Aziz even seems capable of shifting careers and talents, serving as both
physician and poet during the course of A Passage to India. Aziz’s
somewhat youthful qualities, as evidenced by a sense of humor that leans toward
practical joking, are offset by his attitude of irony toward his English
superiors.
Forster, though not blatantly
stereotyping, encourages us to see many of Aziz’s characteristics as
characteristics of Indians in general. Aziz, like many of his friends, dislikes
blunt honesty and directness, preferring to communicate through confidences,
feelings underlying words, and indirect speech. Aziz has a sense that much of
morality is really social code. He therefore feels no moral compunction about
visiting prostitutes or reading Fielding’s private mail—both because his
intentions are good and because he knows he will not be caught. Instead of
living by merely social codes, Aziz guides his action through a code that is
nearly religious, such as we see in his extreme hospitality. Moreover, Aziz,
like many of the other Indians, struggles with the problem of the English in
India. On the one hand, he appreciates some of the modernizing influences that
the West has brought to India; on the other, he feels that the presence of the
English degrades and oppresses his people.
Despite his contradictions, Aziz is a
genuinely affectionate character, and his affection is often based on intuited
connections, as with Mrs. Moore and Fielding. Though Forster holds up Aziz’s
capacity for imaginative sympathy as a good trait, we see that this
imaginativeness can also betray Aziz. The deep offense Aziz feels toward
Fielding in the aftermath of his trial stems from fiction and misinterpreted
intuition. Aziz does not stop to evaluate facts, but rather follows his heart
to the exclusion of all other methods—an approach that is sometimes wrong.
Many critics have contended that
Forster portrays Aziz and many of the other Indian characters unflatteringly.
Indeed, though the author is certainly sympathetic to the Indians, he does
sometimes present them as incompetent, subservient, or childish. These somewhat
valid critiques call into question the realism of Forster’s novel, but they do not,
on the whole, corrupt his exploration of the possibility of friendly relations
between Indians and Englishmen—arguably the central concern of the novel.
Of all the characters in the novel,
Fielding is clearly the most associated with Forster himself. Among the
Englishmen in Chandrapore, Fielding is far and away most the successful at
developing and sustaining relationships with native Indians. Though he is an
educator, he is less comfortable in teacher-student interaction than he is in one-on-one
conversation with another individual. This latter style serves as Forster’s
model of liberal humanism—Forster and Fielding treat the world as a group of
individuals who can connect through mutual respect, courtesy, and intelligence.
Fielding, in these viewpoints, presents
the main threat to the mentality of the English in India. He educates Indians
as individuals, engendering a movement of free thought that has the potential
to destabilize English colonial power. Furthermore, Fielding has little patience
for the racial categorization that is so central to the English grip on India.
He honors his friendship with Aziz over any alliance with members of his own
race—a reshuffling of allegiances that threatens the solidarity of the English.
Finally, Fielding “travels light,” as he puts it: he does not believe in
marriage, but favors friendship instead. As such, Fielding implicitly questions
the domestic conventions upon which the Englishmen’s sense of “Englishness” is
founded. Fielding refuses to sentimentalize domestic England or to venerate the
role of the wife or mother—a far cry from the other Englishmen, who put Adela
on a pedestal after the incident at the caves.
Fielding’s character changes in the
aftermath of Aziz’s trial. He becomes jaded about the Indians as well as the
English. His English sensibilities, such as his need for proportion and reason,
become more prominent and begin to grate against Aziz’s Indian sensibilities.
By the end of A Passage to India, Forster seems to identify
with Fielding less. Whereas Aziz remains a likable, if flawed, character until
the end of the novel, Fielding becomes less likable in his increasing
identification and sameness with the English.
Adela arrives in India with Mrs. Moore,
and, fittingly, her character develops in parallel to Mrs. Moore’s. Adela, like
the elder Englishwoman, is an individualist and an educated free thinker. These
tendencies lead her, just as they lead Mrs. Moore, to question the standard
behaviors of the English toward the Indians. Adela’s tendency to question
standard practices with frankness makes her resistant to being labeled—and
therefore resistant to marrying Ronny and being labeled a typical colonial
English wife. Both Mrs. Moore and Adela hope to see the “real India” rather
than an arranged tourist version. However, whereas Mrs. Moore’s desire is
bolstered by a genuine interest in and affection for Indians, Adela appears to
want to see the “real India” simply on intellectual grounds. She puts her mind
to the task, but not her heart—and therefore never connects with Indians.
Adela’s experience at the Marabar Caves
causes her to undergo a crisis of rationalism against spiritualism. While
Adela’s character changes greatly in the several days after her alleged
assault, her testimony at the trial represents a return of the old Adela, with
the sole difference that she is plagued by doubt in a way she was not
originally. Adela begins to sense that her assault, and the echo that haunts
her afterward, are representative of something outside the scope of her normal
rational comprehension. She is pained by her inability to articulate her
experience. She finds she has no purpose in—nor love for—India, and suddenly
fears that she is unable to love anyone. Adela is filled with the realization
of the damage she has done to Aziz and others, yet she feels paralyzed, unable
to remedy the wrongs she has done. Nonetheless, Adela selflessly endures her
difficult fate after the trial—a course of action that wins her a friend in
Fielding, who sees her as a brave woman rather than a traitor to her race.
As a character, Mrs. Moore serves a
double function in A Passage to India, operating on two
different planes. She is initially a literal character, but as the novel
progresses she becomes more a symbolic presence. On the literal level, Mrs.
Moore is a good-hearted, religious, elderly woman with mystical leanings. The
initial days of her visit to India are successful, as she connects with India
and Indians on an intuitive level. Whereas Adela is overly cerebral, Mrs. Moore
relies successfully on her heart to make connections during her visit.
Furthermore, on the literal level, Mrs. Moore’s character has human
limitations: her experience at Marabar renders her apathetic and even somewhat
mean, to the degree that she simply leaves India without bothering to testify
to Aziz’s innocence or to oversee Ronny and Adela’s wedding.
After her departure, however, Mrs.
Moore exists largely on a symbolic level. Though she herself has human flaws,
she comes to symbolize an ideally spiritual and race-blind openness that
Forster sees as a solution to the problems in India. Mrs. Moore’s name becomes
closely associated with Hinduism, especially the Hindu tenet of the oneness and
unity of all living things. This symbolic side to Mrs. Moore might even make
her the heroine of the novel, the only English person able to closely connect
with the Hindu vision of unity. Nonetheless, Mrs. Moore’s literal actions—her
sudden abandonment of India—make her less than heroic.
Ronny’s character does not change much
over the course of the novel; instead, Forster’s emphasis is on the change that
happened before the novel begins, when Ronny first arrived in India. Both Mrs.
Moore and Adela note the difference between the Ronny they knew in England and
the Ronny of British India. Forster uses Ronny’s character and the changes he
has undergone as a sort of case study, an exploration of the restrictions that
the English colonials’ herd mentality imposes on individual personalities. All
of Ronny’s previously individual tastes are effectively dumbed down to meet
group standards. He devalues his intelligence and learning from England in
favor of the “wisdom” gained by years of experience in India. The open-minded
attitude with which he has been brought up has been replaced by a suspicion of
Indians. In short, Ronny’s tastes, opinions, and even his manner of speaking
are no longer his own, but those of older, ostensibly wiser British Indian
officials. This kind of group thinking is what ultimately causes Ronny to clash
with both Adela and his mother, Mrs. Moore.
Nonetheless, Ronny is not the worst of
the English in India, and Forster is somewhat sympathetic in his portrayal of
him. Ronny’s ambition to rise in the ranks of British India has not completely
destroyed his natural goodness, but merely perverted it. Ronny cares about his
job and the Indians with whom he works, if only to the extent that they, in
turn, reflect upon him. Forster presents Ronny’s failing as the fault of the
colonial system, not his own.
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