" A PASSAGE TO INDIA"
A
Passage to India appeared in 1924, in was praised by reviewers in a number of
important British and American literary journals. Despite some criticism that
Forster had depicted the British unfairly, the book was popular with readers in
both Britain and the united states: and it was votes as one of the "100
Greatest books of the century", notably it is a novel by E. M.
Forster set against the backdrop of the
British Raj and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s. In a
word, it is a novel of cultural, social, psychological and religious conflict
arising mainly from clashes between India's native population and British
imperialist occupiers on the surface, it is about India which at the time was a
colonial possession of Britain and about the relation between British and
Indian people in that country. it is also about the necessity of friendship,
and about the difficulty of establishing friendship across cultural boundaries.
On a
symbolic level the novel also addresses questions of faith. Forster's narrative
centers on Dr. Aziz, a young Indian physician whose attempt to establish
friendship with several British characters has disastrous consequences. In the
course of the novel. Dr. Aziz is accused of attempting to rape a young English
woman. Aziz's friend Mr. Fielding, a British teacher helps to defend Aziz.
Although the charges against Aziz are dropped during his trial, the gulf between the British and
native Indians grows wider than ever, and the novel ends on an ambiguous note.
The
Marabar Caves:
The
imaginary caves in A Passage To India are modelled by E. M. Forster on actual
caves about twelve miles from the city of Gaya in the state of Bihar.
nevertheless the actual caves are known as the Barabar caves, not the Marabar caves. There are four
Barabar caves. Their even inner walls maintain expanded echoes.
The
Marabar caves stand for all that is unfamiliar about natural world. The caves
are older than anything else on the earth and represent emptiness and meaninglessness.
Adela
enters one of the upper caves alone and scratches a wall and hears the echo.
She later says that Aziz assaults her it is at this point. She struggles back
with her field glasses, escapes the cave races through a field of cactuses that tear her skin and insert needles in it,
and returns to Chandrapore with Miss Derek. She is confused, in a state of
fright. she frequently hears the echo after her
recovery, but, she has no hint regarding its meaning unlike Mrs. Moore,
when she asks the old woman what it means, Mrs. Moore replies.
"If
you don't know, you don't know:
I can't tell you."
She
fails to understand the sound and become like the other English men and woman
who cannot understand Indians. She ye t starts to question her own insightfulness
and starts to recognize that she has wrongly blamed Aziz. But , Ronny and the
others, who are using her as a tool to penalize the Indians, influence her that
she was correct about Aziz. However, she gather the bravery at the trial to
confess that she was wrong and drops the charges. Then she leaves India too.
The leaving of miss Quested and Mrs. Moore predicts the historical British
departure from India in 1947.
The
Image of The Green Bird:
Both
Adela and Ronny agree for the first time to end their engagement; suddenly,
they see a green bird sitting in the tree above them. However, they are totally
unable to identify the bird, Adela thinks that the bird represents the
unidentifiable feature of all of India; just when she thinks she can realize any feature of India, that
characteristic alters or vanishes. In this sense, the green bird represents the
muddle of India. The bird, in another capacity, indicates an unusual anxiety
between the English and Indian. The English are preoccupied with knowledge,
literalness, and naming, and they use these devices as a means of gaining and
maintaining supremacy. In contrast, the Indians are more thoughtful about
nuance, undertone and the feeling behind words.
The Wasp Symbol:
The Wasp become visible a number
of times in 'A Passage To India' generally along with the Hindu idea of the
oneness of all living things. The wasp is generally represented as the lowest
creature the Hindus integrate into their idea of widespread unity. Mrs. Moore
is intimately associated with the wasp, as she finds one in her room and
becomes thankful of it. Her quite regard for the wasp shows her own candidness
to the Hindu idea of collectively, and to the mysticism and indescribable
excellence of India overall. Nevertheless, the wasp also symbolizes the limits
of the Hindu vision as the wasp is the lowest creature that the Hindus think
about. The vision is not a cure-cal, but only a prospect for harmony and
understanding in India.
Mosque,Cave,Temple and Weather:
E. M. Forster
divided the novel not simply into
chapter, but it is also separated into three parts entitled
"Mosque", "Cave", and "Temple". The parts are
also ordered by the three seasons in India,
A)"Mosque" takes place
during the cool weather.
B)"Cave"
during the hot weather.
C)"Temple" during the
rainy season.
These part
divisions situate the tone for the events described in each part. The first
part of the novel, in "Mosque" Aziz's indication to the architecture
of the mosque as that of "call and
response" synchronizes with the common mood of this part of the novel,
where people are meeting each other at different societal function. People are
normally peaceful and open like the cold weather.
On the contrary, the climax of the novel is
found in the hot weather, feelings are
irritated and nobody seems to be able to think quietly and logically. the whole
population of Chandrapore is turned wrong way up as riots and disorder encircle
the trial just as Mrs. Moore's grip on life was in danger by her knowledge of
emptiness inside the cave.
Lastly, the "Temple" part tries to
sweep always the confusion of the "cave" section with its torrential
rains. The chapter rejoices the Hindu belief of the oneness of all things with
God bole at the Gokul Ashtami celebration in relation to the Hindu motif of the
temple just as the mosque was depicted as a place where cross- cultural
friendship might be established, so too is the Hindu temple. The festival that
proceeds from the temple produces a wave of good feeling that embraces even
Aziz the Muslim. It is also while the festival is going on that Aziz and
Fielding are reconciled.
