A passage to India

            

              " 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 1920_s. 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.