Difficulty of English-Indian Friendship
A Passage to India begins and ends by posing the question of whether it is
possible for an Englishman and an Indian to ever be friends, at least within
the context of British colonialism. Forster uses this question as a framework
to explore the general issue of Britain’s political control of India on a more
personal level, through the friendship between Aziz and Fielding. At the beginning
of the novel, Aziz is scornful of the English, wishing only to consider them
comically or ignore them completely. Yet the intuitive connection Aziz feels
with Mrs. Moore in the mosque opens him to the possibility of friendship with
Fielding. Through the first half of the novel, Fielding and Aziz represent a
positive model of liberal humanism: Forster suggests that British rule in India
could be successful and respectful if only English and Indians treated each
other as Fielding and Aziz treat each other—as worthy individuals who connect
through frankness, intelligence, and good will.
Yet, in the aftermath of the novel’s
climax—Adela’s accusation that Aziz attempted to assault her and her subsequent
disavowal of this accusation at the trial—Aziz and Fielding’s friendship falls
apart. The strains on their relationship are external in nature, as Aziz and
Fielding both suffer from the tendencies of their cultures. Aziz tends to let
his imagination run away with him and to let suspicion harden into a grudge. Fielding
suffers from an English literalism and rationalism that blind him to Aziz’s
true feelings and make Fielding too stilted to reach out to Aziz through
conversations or letters. Furthermore, their respective Indian and English
communities pull them apart through their mutual stereotyping. As we see at the
end of the novel, even the landscape of India seems to oppress their
friendship. Forster’s final vision of the possibility of English-Indian
friendship is a pessimistic one, yet it is qualified by the possibility of
friendship on English soil, or after the liberation of India. As the landscape
itself seems to imply at the end of the novel, such a friendship may be
possible eventually, but “not yet.”
Unity of All Living
Things
Though the main characters of A
Passage to India are generally Christian or Muslim, Hinduism also
plays a large thematic role in the novel. The aspect of Hinduism with which
Forster is particularly concerned is the religion’s ideal of all living things,
from the lowliest to the highest, united in love as one. This vision of the
universe appears to offer redemption to India through mysticism, as individual
differences disappear into a peaceful collectivity that does not recognize
hierarchies. Individual blame and intrigue is forgone in favor of attention to
higher, spiritual matters. Professor Godbole, the most visible Hindu in the
novel, is Forster’s mouthpiece for this idea of the unity of all living things.
Godbole alone remains aloof from the drama of the plot, refraining from taking
sides by recognizing that all are implicated in the evil of Marabar. Mrs.
Moore, also, shows openness to this aspect of Hinduism. Though she is a
Christian, her experience of India has made her dissatisfied with what she
perceives as the smallness of Christianity. Mrs. Moore appears to feel a great
sense of connection with all living creatures, as evidenced by her respect for
the wasp in her bedroom.
Yet, through Mrs. Moore, Forster also
shows that the vision of the oneness of all living things can be terrifying. As
we see in Mrs. Moore’s experience with the echo that negates everything into
“boum” in Marabar, such oneness provides unity but also makes all elements of
the universe one and the same—a realization that, it is implied, ultimately
kills Mrs. Moore. Godbole is not troubled by the idea that negation is an
inevitable result when all things come together as one. Mrs. Moore, however,
loses interest in the world of relationships after envisioning this lack of
distinctions as a horror. Moreover, though Forster generally endorses the Hindu
idea of the oneness of all living things, he also suggests that there may be
inherent problems with it. Even Godbole, for example, seems to recognize that
something—if only a stone—must be left out of the vision of oneness if the
vision is to cohere. This problem of exclusion is, in a sense, merely another
manifestation of the individual difference and hierarchy that Hinduism promises
to overcome.
“Muddle” of India
Forster takes great care to strike a
distinction between the ideas of “muddle” and “mystery” in A Passage to
India. “Muddle” has connotations of dangerous and disorienting
disorder, whereas “mystery” suggests a mystical, orderly plan by a spiritual
force that is greater than man. Fielding, who acts as Forster’s primary
mouthpiece in the novel, admits that India is a “muddle,” while figures such as
Mrs. Moore and Godbole view India as a mystery. The muddle that is India in the
novel appears to work from the ground up: the very landscape and architecture
of the countryside is formless, and the natural life of plants and animals
defies identification. This muddled quality to the environment is mirrored in
the makeup of India’s native population, which is mixed into a muddle of
different religious, ethnic, linguistic, and regional groups.
The muddle of India disorients Adela
the most; indeed, the events at the Marabar Caves that trouble her so much can
be seen as a manifestation of this muddle. By the end of the novel, we are
still not sure what actually has happened in the caves. Forster suggests that
Adela’s feelings about Ronny become externalized and muddled in the caves, and
that she suddenly experiences these feelings as something outside of her. The
muddle of India also affects Aziz and Fielding’s friendship, as their good
intentions are derailed by the chaos of cross-cultural signals.
Though Forster is sympathetic to
India and Indians in the novel, his overwhelming depiction of India as a muddle
matches the manner in which many Western writers of his day treated the East in
their works. As the noted critic Edward Said has pointed out, these authors’
“orientalizing” of the East made Western logic and capability appear
self-evident, and, by extension, portrayed the West’s domination of the East as
reasonable or even necessary.
Negligence of
British Colonial Government
Though A Passage to India is
in many ways a highly symbolic, or even mystical, text, it also aims to be a
realistic documentation of the attitudes of British colonial officials in
India. Forster spends large sections of the novel characterizing different
typical attitudes the English hold toward the Indians whom they control.
Forster’s satire is most harsh toward Englishwomen, whom the author depicts as
overwhelmingly racist, self-righteous, and viciously condescending to the
native population. Some of the Englishmen in the novel are as nasty as the
women, but Forster more often identifies Englishmen as men who, though
condescending and unable to relate to Indians on an individual level, are
largely well-meaning and invested in their jobs. For all Forster’s criticism of
the British manner of governing India, however, he does not appear to question
the right of the British Empire to rule India. He suggests that the British
would be well served by becoming kinder and more sympathetic to the Indians
with whom they live, but he does not suggest that the British should abandon
India outright. Even this lesser critique is never overtly stated in the novel,
but implied through biting satire.
Echo
The echo begins at the Marabar Caves:
first Mrs. Moore and then Adela hear the echo and are haunted by it in the
weeks to come. The echo’s sound is “boum”—a sound it returns regardless of what
noise or utterance is originally made. This negation of difference embodies the
frightening flip side of the seemingly positive Hindu vision of the oneness and
unity of all living things. If all people and things become the same thing,
then no distinction can be made between good and evil. No value system can
exist. The echo plagues Mrs. Moore until her death, causing her to abandon her
beliefs and cease to care about human relationships. Adela, however, ultimately
escapes the echo by using its message of impersonality to help her realize
Aziz’s innocence.
Eastern and Western
Architecture
Forster spends time detailing both
Eastern and Western architecture in A Passage to India. Three
architectural structures—though one is naturally occurring—provide the outline
for the book’s three sections, “Mosque,” “Caves,” and “Temple.” Forster
presents the aesthetics of Eastern and Western structures as indicative of the
differences of the respective cultures as a whole. In India, architecture is
confused and formless: interiors blend into exterior gardens, earth and
buildings compete with each other, and structures appear unfinished or drab. As
such, Indian architecture mirrors the muddle of India itself and what Forster
sees as the Indians’ characteristic inattention to form and logic.
Occasionally, however, Forster takes a positive view of Indian architecture.
The mosque in Part I and temple in Part III represent the promise of Indian openness,
mysticism, and friendship. Western architecture, meanwhile, is described during
Fielding’s stop in Venice on his way to England. Venice’s structures, which
Fielding sees as representative of Western architecture in general, honor form
and proportion and complement the earth on which they are built. Fielding reads
in this architecture the self-evident correctness of Western reason—an order
that, he laments, his Indian friends would not recognize or appreciate.
Godbole’s Song
At the end of Fielding’s tea party,
Godbole sings for the English visitors a Hindu song, in which a milkmaid pleads
for God to come to her or to her people. The song’s refrain of “Come! come”
recurs throughout A Passage to India, mirroring the appeal for the
entire country of salvation from something greater than itself. After the song,
Godbole admits that God never comes to the milkmaid. The song greatly
disheartens Mrs. Moore, setting the stage for her later spiritual apathy, her
simultaneous awareness of a spiritual presence and lack of confidence in
spiritualism as a redeeming force. Godbole seemingly intends his song as a
message or lesson that recognition of the potential existence of a God figure
can bring the world together and erode differences—after all, Godbole himself
sings the part of a young milkmaid. Forster uses the refrain of Godbole’s song,
“Come! come,” to suggest that India’s redemption is yet to come.
Marabar Caves
The Marabar Caves represent all that
is alien about nature. The caves are older than anything else on the earth and
embody nothingness and emptiness—a literal void in the earth. They defy both
English and Indians to act as guides to them, and their strange beauty and
menace unsettles visitors. The caves’ alien quality also has the power to make
visitors such as Mrs. Moore and Adela confront parts of themselves or the
universe that they have not previously recognized. The all-reducing echo of the
caves causes Mrs. Moore to see the darker side of her spirituality—a waning
commitment to the world of relationships and a growing ambivalence about God.
Adela confronts the shame and embarrassment of her realization that she and
Ronny are not actually attracted to each other, and that she might be attracted
to no one. In this sense, the caves both destroy meaning, in reducing all
utterances to the same sound, and expose or narrate the unspeakable, the
aspects of the universe that the caves’ visitors have not yet considered.
Green Bird
Just after Adela and Ronny agree for
the first time, in Chapter VII, to break off their engagement, they notice a
green bird sitting in the tree above them. Neither of them can positively
identify the bird. For Adela, the bird symbolizes the unidentifiable quality of
all of India: just when she thinks she can understand any aspect of India, that
aspect changes or disappears. In this sense, the green bird symbolizes the
muddle of India. In another capacity, the bird points to a different tension
between the English and Indians. The English are obsessed with knowledge,
literalness, and naming, and they use these tools as a means of gaining and
maintaining power. The Indians, in contrast, are more attentive to nuance,
undertone, and the emotions behind words. While the English insist on labeling
things, the Indians recognize that labels can blind one to important details
and differences. The unidentifiable green bird suggests the incompatibility of
the English obsession with classification and order with the shifting quality
of India itself—the land is, in fact, a “hundred Indias” that defy labeling and
understanding.
Wasp
The wasp appears several times in A Passage to India, usually
in conjunction with the Hindu vision of the oneness of all living things. The
wasp is usually depicted as the lowest creature the Hindus incorporate into
their vision of universal unity. Mrs. Moore is closely associated with the
wasp, as she finds one in her room and is gently appreciative of it. Her
peaceful regard for the wasp signifies her own openness to the Hindu idea of
collectivity, and to the mysticism and indefinable quality of India in general.
However, as the wasp is the lowest creature that the Hindus visualize, it also
represents the limits of the Hindu vision. The vision is not a panacea, but
merely a possibility for unity and understanding in India.
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