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A Passage to India

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For the 1984 film based on this novel, see A Passage to India (film). For the 1960 play based on this novel, see A Passage to India (play).

A Passage to India
First edition (UK)
AuthorE. M. Forster
LanguageEnglish
Genrenovel
Set inBritish India, c. 1910s
PublisherEdward Arnold, (UK)
Harcourt Brace (US)
Publication date
4 June 1924[1]
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)
OCLC59352597
823.912
LC ClassPR6011.O58 P3
TextA Passage to India at Wikisource

A Passage to India is a 1924 novel by English author E. M. Forster set against the backdrop of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s. It was selected as one of the 100 great works of 20th-century English literature by the Modern Library[2] and won the 1924 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction.[3] Time magazine included the novel in its "All Time 100 Novels" list.[4] The novel is based on Forster's experiences in India, deriving the title from Walt Whitman's 1870 poem "Passage to India" in Leaves of Grass.[5][6]

The story revolves around four characters: Dr. Aziz, his British friend Mr. Cyril Fielding, Mrs. Moore, and Miss Adela Quested. During a trip to the fictitious Marabar Caves (modeled on the Barabar Caves of Bihar),[7] Adela thinks she finds herself alone with Dr. Aziz in one of the caves (when in fact he is in an entirely different cave; whether the attacker is real or a reaction to the cave is ambiguous), and subsequently panics and flees; it is assumed that Dr. Aziz has attempted to assault her. Aziz's trial, and its run-up and aftermath, bring to a boil the common racial tensions and prejudices between Indians and the British during the colonial era.

Background

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View of the Rajgir Hills, an inspiration for the fictional Marabar Hills.

A Passage to India is a reflection of Forster's visit to India in 1912–13 and his duration as private secretary to Tukojirao III, the Maharajah of Dewas Senior in 1921–22.[8] He dedicated the book to his friend Ross Masood.[9]

Plot summary

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British schoolmistress Adela Quested and her elderly friend Mrs. Moore visit the fictional Indian city of Chandrapore. Adela is to decide if she wants to marry Mrs. Moore's son, Ronny Heaslop, the city magistrate. Mrs. Moore has a daughter back in England from her second marriage, Stella.

Meanwhile, Dr. Aziz, a young Indian Muslim physician, is called from dining with friends by Major Callendar, Aziz's superior at the hospital, but is delayed and arrives to find Callendar gone. Disconsolate at this, Aziz walks back and enters a favourite spot, a ruined mosque, on impulse. An eerie atmosphere builds in the darkness of the silent, empty mosque, and Aziz initially takes Mrs. Moore for a ghost. Upon realizing she is a living woman, his fright becomes anger when he assumes she has not bothered to remove her shoes, thereby profaning this sacred place. Aziz notes that so few ladies take the trouble to remove their shoes thinking no one is around to see. Mrs. Moore's response that "God is here" connects with Aziz, and they become friendly. When Mrs. Moore relates her experience later, Adela sees it as an adventure, while Ronny becomes indignant at the native's presumption.

Because the newcomers had expressed a desire to meet Indians, Mr. Turton, the city tax collector, invites them to an official reception. The event turns out awkwardly, due to the Indians' timidity and the Britons' bigotry. Mrs. Moore is repulsed by the event, noting that instead of fostering understanding, it is more about the exercise of power and personal superiority. Also there is Cyril Fielding, principal of Chandrapore's government-run college for Indians, who invites Adela and Mrs. Moore to a tea party with him and a Hindu-Brahmin professor named Narayan Godbole. At Adela's request, he extends his invitation to Dr. Aziz.

At the party, Fielding and Aziz become friends and Aziz, carried away, says he will have the ladies to tea at his house - something he is embarrassed to actually do. Adela immediately accepts the offer. Fielding and Mrs. Moore go off to look at the college grounds. Professor Godbole is impressed with Mrs. Moore - calling her a "very old soul". Ronny arrives and, finding Adela "unaccompanied" with Dr. Aziz and Professor Godbole, rudely breaks up the party.

Aziz mistakenly believes that the women are offended that he has not followed through on his promise, and to avoid receiving them at his home arranges an outing to the caves at great expense to himself. Fielding and Godbole are supposed to accompany the expedition, but they miss the train. In the first cave they visit, Mrs. Moore is overcome with claustrophobia and disturbed by the echo and crowd of attendants. When she declines to continue, Adela and Aziz climb the hill to the upper caves, accompanied by a guide.

Asked by Adela whether he has more than one wife, Aziz is disconcerted by her bluntness and ducks into a cave to compose himself. When he comes out, he is told by the guide that Adela has gone into a cave by herself. After quarreling with the guide, Aziz discovers Adela's field glasses broken on the ground and puts them in his pocket. He then looks down the hill and sees Adela speaking to Miss Derek, who has arrived with Fielding in a car. Aziz runs down and greets Fielding, but Miss Derek and Adela drive off, leaving Fielding, Mrs. Moore and Aziz to return to Chandrapore by train.

Aziz is arrested on arrival and charged with sexually assaulting Adela. The run-up to his trial increases racial tensions. Adela alleges that Aziz followed her into the cave and that she fended him off by swinging her field glasses at him. The only evidence is the field glasses in the possession of Aziz. When Fielding proclaims his belief in Aziz's innocence, he is ostracised and condemned as a blood-traitor. Like Fielding, Mrs. Moore believes in Aziz's innocence.

While awaiting the trial, Mrs Moore becomes concerned at her failing health, exacerbated by her irritation at the prosecution of Aziz. Ronny, clearly unhappy with his mother's attitude towards Aziz, encourages her to depart for England to prevent her being called as a witness for the defense. Seated in the train leaving the station, she feels compelled to look out the window, where she sees Professor Godbole. He steps out of shadow in to the light, his arms raised in salute. While on ship she dies of heart failure. During the trial, Adela admits that she had been similarly disoriented by the cave's echo. She was no longer sure who or what had attacked her and, despite great pressure to persist in her accusation, withdraws the charge. When the case is dismissed, Heaslop breaks off his engagement to Adela and she stays at Fielding's house until a return to England is arranged.

Although he is vindicated, Aziz is angry that Fielding befriended Adela after she nearly ruined his life. Believing it to be the gentlemanly thing to do, Fielding convinces Aziz not to seek monetary redress, but the men's friendship suffers and Fielding departs for England. Bitter at his friend's perceived betrayal, Aziz vows never again to befriend a white person.

Two years later, Aziz has moved to the Hindu-ruled state of Mau and is now the Raja's chief physician. Fielding has written Aziz several times, informing him that he has married "someone you know". Aziz, anticipating this to be Adela, is infuriated and tears the letters up. Fielding seeks him out, and asks why Aziz never wrote back. Aziz vents his anger, saying that Fielding has married his enemy and stolen his money. Fielding explains he has married Stella, Mrs. Moore's daughter, which makes Aziz realize his mistake. He is reminded of his friend Mrs. Moore, sheds his anger with Fielding and responds with joy. The story ends with the understanding that although the Indians and English may one day be able to become friends, that can only happen when they are truly equal.

Character list

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Dr. Aziz
A young Muslim Indian physician who works at the British hospital in Chandrapore.
Cyril Fielding
The 45-year-old, unmarried British headmaster of the small government-run college for Indians.
Adela Quested
A young British schoolmistress who is visiting India with the vague intention of marrying Ronny Heaslop.
Mrs. Moore
The mother of Ronny Heaslop.
Ronny Heaslop
The British city magistrate of Chandrapore.
Professor Narayan Godbole
(pronounced god-boh-lay)[10]
Mr. Turton
The British city collector of Chandrapore.
Mrs. Turton
Mr. Turton's openly racist wife.
Maj. Callendar
The British head doctor and Aziz's superior at the hospital.
Mr. McBryde
The British superintendent of police in Chandrapore.
Miss Derek
An Englishwoman employed by a Hindu royal family who frequently borrows their car.
Nawab Bahadur
The chief Indian citizen in Chandrapore.
Hamidullah
Aziz's uncle.
Amritrao
A prominent Indian lawyer called in to defend Aziz.
Mahmoud Ali
A Muslim Indian barrister who openly hates the British.
Dr. Panna Lal
A low-born Hindu doctor and Aziz's rival at the hospital.
Ralph Moore
The second son of Mrs. Moore.
Stella Moore (later Fielding)
Mrs. Moore's daughter.

Literary criticism

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The nature of critiques of A Passage to India is largely based upon the era of writing and the nature of the critical work. While many earlier critiques found that Forster's book showed an inappropriate friendship between colonizers and the colonized, new critiques on the work draw attention to the depictions of sexism, racism and imperialism in the novel.

Reviews of A Passage to India when it was first published challenged specific details and attitudes included in the book that Forster drew from his own time in India.[11] Early critics also expressed concern at the interracial camaraderie between Aziz and Fielding in the book.[12] Others saw the book as a vilification of humanist perspectives on the importance of interpersonal relationships, and effects of colonialism on Indian society.[13] More recent critiques by postcolonial theorists and literary critics have reinvestigated the text as a work of Orientalist fiction contributing to a discourse on colonial relationships by a European. Today it is one of the seminal texts in the postcolonial Orientalist discourse, among other books like Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, and Kim, by Rudyard Kipling.[11]

Plan of the Barabar Caves
Entrance to the Barabar Caves

A Passage to India emerged at a time where portrayals of India as a savage, disorganized land in need of domination were more popular in mainstream European literature than romanticized depictions. Forster's novel departed from typical narratives about colonizer-colonized relationships and emphasized a more "unknowable" Orient, rather than characterizing it with exoticism, ancient wisdom and mystery. Postcolonial theorists like Maryam Wasif Khan have termed this novel a Modern Orientalist text, meaning that it portrays the Orient in an optimistic, positive light while simultaneously challenging and critiquing European culture and society.[14] However, Benita Parry suggests that it also mystifies India by creating an "obfuscated realm where the secular is scanted, and in which India's long traditions of mathematics, science and technology, history, linguistics and jurisprudence have no place."[13]

One of the most notable critiques comes from literary professor Edward Said, who referenced A Passage to India in both Culture and Imperialism and Orientalism. In his discussion about allusions to the British Empire in early 20th-century novels, Said suggests that though the work subverted typical views on colonialism and colonial rule in India, it also fell short of outright condemning either nationalist movements in India or colonialism itself. Of Forster's attitude toward colonizer-colonized relationships, Said says Forster:

. . . found a way to use the mechanism of the novel to elaborate on the already existing structure of attitude and reference without changing it. This structure permitted one to feel affection for and even intimacy with some Indians and India generally, but made one see Indian politics as the charge of the British, and culturally refused a privilege to India nationalism.[15]

Stereotyping and Orientalist thought is also explored in postcolonial critiques. Said suggests that Forster deals with the question of British-Indian relationships by separating Muslims and Hindus in the narrative. He says Forster connects Islam to Western values and attitudes while suggesting that Hinduism is chaotic and orderless, and subsequently uses Hindu characters as the background to the main narrative.[15] Said also identifies the failed attempt at friendship between Aziz and Fielding as a reinforcement of the perceived cultural distance between the Orient and the West. The inability of the two men to begin a meaningful friendship is indicative of what Said suggests is the irreconcilable otherness of the Orient, something that has originated from the West and also limits Western readers in how they understand the Orient.[16]

Other scholars have examined the book with a critical postcolonial and feminist lens. Maryam Wasif Khan's reading of the book suggests A Passage to India is also a commentary on gender, and a British woman's place within the empire. Khan argued that the female characters coming to "the Orient" to break free of their social roles in Britain represent the discord between Englishwomen and their social roles at home, and tells the narrative of "pioneering Englishwomen whose emergent feminism found form and voice in the colony".[17]

Sara Suleri has also critiqued the book's orientalist depiction of India and its use of racialized bodies, especially in the case of Aziz, as sexual objects rather than individuals.[18]

Awards

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Adaptations

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See also: A Passage to India (film)

Manuscript

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In 1960, the manuscript of A Passage to India was donated to Rupert Hart-Davis by Forster and sold to raise money for the London Library, fetching the then record sum of £6,500 for a modern English manuscript.[26]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "The 100 best novels: No 47 – A Passage to India by EM Forster (1924)". The Guardian. 18 August 2014. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
  2. ^ Lewis, Paul (20 July 1998). "'Ulysses' at Top As Panel Picks 100 Best Novels". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 8 January 2015. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  3. ^ "Fiction winners Award winners". The University of Edinburgh. 22 August 2014. Archived from the original on 31 October 2013. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  4. ^ "All Time 100 Novels". Time. 16 October 2005. Archived from the original on 13 March 2010. Retrieved 23 April 2010.
  5. ^ Sarker, Sunil Kumar (1 January 2007). A Companion to E.M. Forster. Atlantic Publishers & Dist. p. 702. ISBN 978-81-269-0750-2. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  6. ^ Kummings, Donald D. (19 October 2009). A Companion to Walt Whitman. John Wiley & Sons. p. 21. ISBN 978-1-4051-9551-5. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  7. ^ Sarker, Sunil Kumar (1 January 2007). A Companion to E.M. Forster. Atlantic Publishers & Dist. p. 708. ISBN 978-81-269-0750-2. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  8. ^ Bloom, Harold (2004). Novelists and Novels. p. 251.
  9. ^ "The Sunday Tribune - Books". www.tribuneindia.com. Retrieved 9 September 2022.
  10. ^ Meyers, Jeffrey (14 February 2022). Fiction & the Colonial Experience. Routledge. ISBN 9781000528350 – via Google Books.
  11. ^ a b "The mystery and muddle of A Passage to India". The British Library. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
  12. ^ Parry, Benita (1998). Delusions and discoveries : India in the British imagination, 1880-1930. London: Verso. p. 280. ISBN 1859841287. OCLC 40922011.
  13. ^ a b Parry, Benita (2004). Postcolonial Studies: A Materialist Critique. New York: Routledge. pp. 163. ISBN 0-203-42053-5.
  14. ^ Khan, Maryam Wasif (22 June 2016). "Enlightenment Orientalism to Modernist Orientalism: The Archive of Forster's A Passage to India". MFS Modern Fiction Studies. 62 (2): 217–235. doi:10.1353/mfs.2016.0027. ISSN 1080-658X. S2CID 163305870.
  15. ^ a b Said, Edward W. (1994). Culture and Imperialism (1st Vintage books ed.). New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0679750541. OCLC 29600508.
  16. ^ Said, Edward W. (1979) [1978]. Orientalism (1st ed.). New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 039474067X. OCLC 4831769.
  17. ^ Khan, Maryam Wasif (22 June 2016). "Enlightenment Orientalism to Modernist Orientalism: The Archive of Forster's A Passage to India". MFS Modern Fiction Studies. 62 (2): 230–233. doi:10.1353/mfs.2016.0027. ISSN 1080-658X. S2CID 163305870.
  18. ^ Suleri Goodyear, Sara (1992). The rhetoric of English India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 132–135. ISBN 9780226779836. OCLC 23584165.
  19. ^ Palmer, Zuma (27 November 1948). "Sunday Programs". Los Angeles Evening Citizen News. p. 20.
  20. ^ "A Passage to India". Internet Broadway Database. Archived from the original on 20 October 2012. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  21. ^ Angelini, Sergio (2003–2014). "Passage to India, A (1965)". BFI Screenonline. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
  22. ^ Wallia, C. J. "IndiaStar book review: Satyajit Ray by Surabhi Banerjee". IndiaStar. Archived from the original on 19 February 1997. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  23. ^ "A Passage to India". IMDb. Archived from the original on 14 January 2013. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  24. ^ "Shared Experience Take Forster Passage to India". What'sOnStage. 30 August 2002. Archived from the original on 8 January 2015. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  25. ^ Isherwood, Charles (4 November 2004). "A Minimal Meeting of Forster's Twain". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 22 June 2013. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  26. ^ Hart-Davis, Rupert: Halfway to Heaven p55, Sutton Publishing Ltd, Stroud, 1998. ISBN 0-7509-1837-3
  • S. M. Chanda: A Passage to India: a close look in studies in literature (Atlantic Publishers, New Delhi 2003)
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