BIBLIOTECA TECLA SALA May 16, 2019 A Passage to India E. M. Forster

Forster’s style is marked by his sympathy for his characters, his ability to see more than one side of an argument or story, and his fondness for simple, symbolic tales that neatly encapsulate large‑scale problems and conditions. These tendencies are all evident in A Passage to India, which was immediately acclaimed as Forster’s masterpiece upon its publication. It is a traditional social and political novel, unconcerned with the technical innovation of some of Forster’s modernist contemporaries such as Gertrude Stein or T.S. Eliot. A Passage to India is concerned, Contents: however, with representing the chaos of Introduction 1 modern human experience through patterns of imagery and form. In this A Brief Author 2-3 regard, Forster’s novel is similar to Biography modernist works of the same time period, An introduction to 4 such as James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) and A Passage to India Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (1925).

A review… from 5 [https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/passage/context/] 1924!

The mystery and 6-8 muddle of A Passage to India

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A Brief Author Biography

he gained a sense of the uniqueness of the individual, of the healthiness of moderate skepticism, and of the importance of Mediterranean civilization as a counterbalance to the more straitlaced attitudes of northern European countries.

On leaving Cambridge, Forster decided to devote his life to writing. His first novels and short stories were redolent of an age that was shaking off the shackles of Victorianism. While adopting certain themes (the importance of women in their own right, for example) from earlier English novelists such as George Meredith, he broke with the elaborations and intricacies favoured in the late 19th century and wrote in a freer, more colloquial style. From the first his novels included a strong strain of social comment, based on acute observation of middle- class life. There was also a deeper concern, however, a belief, associated with Forster’s E.M. Forster, in full Edward with a high sense interest in Mediterranean Morgan Forster, (born January 1, of moral responsibility, his “paganism,” that, if men and 1879, London, England—died June mother’s more feckless and women were to achieve a 7, 1970, Coventry, generous-minded, gave him an satisfactory life, they needed to Warwickshire), British novelist, enduring insight into the nature keep contact with the earth and essayist, and social and literary of domestic tensions, while his to cultivate their imaginations. In critic. His fame rests largely on his education as a dayboy (day an early novel, The Longest novels Howards End (1910) and A student) at Tonbridge School, Journey (1907), he suggested that Passage to India (1924) and on a Kent, was responsible for many cultivation of either in isolation is large body of criticism. of his later criticisms of the not enough, reliance on the earth English public school (private) alone leading to a genial Forster’s father, an architect, died system. At King’s College, brutishness and exaggerated when the son was a baby, and he Cambridge, he enjoyed a sense of development of imagination was brought up by his mother and liberation. For the first time he undermining the individual’s paternal aunts. The difference was free to follow his sense of reality. between the two families, his own intellectual inclinations; and father’s being strongly evangelical The same theme runs

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through Howards End, a more during the trial at which she is values behind the fight against ambitious novel that brought the central witness. Much of the Nazism and Fascism. In 1946 his Forster his first major success. novel is devoted to less old college gave him an honorary The novel is conceived in terms spectacular values: those of fellowship, which enabled him to of an alliance between the seriousness and truthfulness make his home in Cambridge and Schlegel sisters, Margaret and (represented here by the to keep in communication with Helen, who embody the liberal administrator Fielding) and of an both old and young until his imagination at its best, and Ruth outgoing death. Wilcox, the owner of the house and benevolent sensibility Howards End, which has (embodied in the English visitor Although the later Forster is an remained close to the earth for Mrs. Moore). Neither Fielding important figure in mid-20th- generations; spiritually they nor Mrs. Moore is totally century culture, his emphasis on recognize a kinship against the successful; neither totally fails. a kindly, uncommitted, and values of Henry Wilcox and his The novel ends in an understated morality being cong children, who conceive life uneasy equilibrium. Immediate enial to many of his mainly in terms of commerce. In reconciliation between Indians contemporaries, it is by his a symbolic ending, Margaret and British is ruled out, but the novels that he is more likely to Schlegel marries Henry Wilcox further possibilities inherent in be remembered, and these are and brings him back, a broken Adela’s experience, along with best seen in the context of the man, to Howards End, the surrounding uncertainties, preceding Romantic tradition. reestablishing there a link are echoed in the ritual birth of The novels sustain the cult of the (however heavily threatened by the God of Love amid scenes of heart’s affections that was the forces of progress around it) confusion at a Hindu festival. central to that tradition, but they between the imagination and the also share with the The values of truthfulness and earth. first Romantics a concern for the kindness dominate Forster’s status of man in nature and for The resolution is a precarious later thinking. A reconciliation his imaginative life, a concern one, and World War I was to of humanity to the earth and its that remains important to an age undermine it still further. own imagination may be the that has turned against other Forster spent three wartime ultimate ideal, but Forster sees aspects of Romanticism. years in Alexandria, doing civilian it receding in a civilization war work, and visited India devoting itself more and more In addition to essays, short twice, in 1912–13 and 1921. to technological progress. The stories, and novels, Forster When he returned to former values of common sense, wrote a biography of his great- themes in his postwar novel A goodwill, and regard for the aunt, Marianne Thornton (1956); a Passage to India, they presented individual, on the other hand, documentary account of his themselves in a negative form: can still be cultivated, and these Indian experiences, The Hill of against the vaster scale of India, underlie Forster’s later pleas for Devi (1953); and Alexandria: A in which the earth itself seems more liberal attitudes. History and a Guide (1922; new alien, a resolution between it During World War II he ed., 1961). Maurice, a novel with and the imagination could appear acquired a position of particular a homosexual theme, was as almost impossible to achieve. respect as a man who had never published posthumously in 1971 Only Adela Quested, the young been seduced by totalitarianisms but written many years earlier. of any kind and whose belief in girl who is most open to [https://www.britannica.com/ personal relationships and the experience, can glimpse their biography/E-M-Forster] possible concord, and then only simple decencies seemed to momentarily, in the courtroom embody some of the common

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A brief introduction to A Passage to India

E M Forster began writing A the different aspects of British, Passage to India after his first visit Muslim and Hindu India. to India in October 1912. The impetus to write the novel came The novel is structured in three partly from something Forster had parts: I, Mosque, II, Caves and III, been told by Syed Ross Masood, a Temple. Its main character, a young Indian man whom he had Muslim doctor called Aziz, tutored in Latin and fallen – arranges a trip to the Marabar unrequitedly – in love with: ‘You Caves. When he is sent to prison know my great wish is to on the basis of a false accusation get you to write a book on India, of sexual assault by the English for I feel convinced from what I traveller Adela Quested, he turns know of you that it will be a great against British rule. The novel book’. ends with him telling the character Fielding his prediction Forster finished A Passage to that they can only truly be friends India after returning to India for when India is free; a point Forster nine months in 1921, this time as illustrates with the image of private secretary to the Maharajah horses galloping in different of Dewas State. In the intervening directions. period of between 1912 and 1921, the devastating losses of the First A Passage to India (1924) had sold World War – a war to which 17,000 copies in Britain by the Indian troops had made a end of 1924 and 54,000 in the substantial contribution – had USA. By the time of Forster's permanently changed Britain’s death in 1970, it had sold 1 relationship with its Empire. Adding million; it subsequently became to the turbulence, in April 1919, in one of the foundational texts of what became known as the post-colonial literary scholarship. Amritsar Massacre, colonial troops Despite this success, however, it shot and killed 379 unarmed was Forster’s last work of fiction. Indians who were protesting for [https://www.bl.uk/works/a- self-governance, and wounded a passage-to-india] further 1,200.

Though Forster had begun the novel ‘as a little bridge of sympathy between East and West’, he later felt that this was no longer viable, writing that ‘most Indians, like most English people, are shits’. He wrote that he wanted the book to speak to ‘something wider than politics’, and to be ‘philosophic and poetic’, and indeed he has been praised for his ability to conjure

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A review… from 1924!

The first duty of any reviewer is "Even the striking of a match elderly, the mother of the city to welcome Mr. E. M. Forster's starts a little worm coiling, magistrate, and one, Miss reappearance as a novelist and to which is too small to complete a Quested, comparatively young, express the hope that the general circle but is eternally watchful." who becomes for a time engaged public as well as the critics will To speak of his characters as to him. The one has a natural and recognise his merits and their being "well drawn," would be the other a theoretical sympathy good fortune; the second is to crude; they draw themselves, for the country and its people. congratulate him upon the tone and mainly in their conversation. As the guests of Dr. Aziz they make More remarkable even than his and temper of his new novel. To an excursion to the Marabar Caves, speak of its "fairness" would vision is Mr. Forster's power of where Miss Quested loses her head convey the wrong impression, inner hearing; he seems and accuses Aziz of having insulted because that suggests a conscious incapable of allowing a person to her - a series of minor accidents virtue. This is the involuntary speak out of character, and Dr. lending plausibility to what was, in fairness of the man who sees. Aziz strikes one as less invented effect, an hallucination. Aziz is than overheard. Equally pure is arrested, and East and West rally We have had novels about India Mr. Forster's humour. His round their prejudices and from the British point of view and people, British or native, are not conventions, though Fielding believes Aziz to be innocent, and breaks with from the native point of view, and satirised or caricatured or made his own order to support him. in each case with sympathy for the the targets of wit; they are other side; but the sympathy has simply enjoyed. At the trial, before a native been intended, and in this novel magistrate, Miss Quested withdraws there is not the slightest The story is, essentially, that of her accusations and Aziz is acquitted; suggestion of anything but a the close contact of East and but in the following turmoil Fielding, personal impression, with the West in the persons of Dr. Aziz, against his will, is true to his blood in prejudices and limitations of the a Moslem, assistant medical sheltering Miss Quested, and he and writer frankly exposed. Mr. officers of the Chandrapore Aziz drift apart. "Why can't we be friends now?" he says at the end. "It's Forster, in fact, has reached the Hospital, and Mr. Fielding, what I want. It's what you want." But principal of the College. In all stage in his development as an India answers: "No, not yet...No, not artist when, in his own words the other characters the contact there." about Miss Quested, he is "no is governed by conventions - longer examining life, but being official or would-be sympathetic Thus we are left with the feeling that examined by it." He has been - but in them it is as close as the blending of races is a four- examined by India, and this is his blood itself allows. So far as dimensional problem. In his presentation of the problem Mr. confession. affection is concerned they are Forster leans, if anywhere, towards friends, so that the interplay of There can be no doubt about the his own race in his acute sense of East and West is along the very their difficulties, but not more than principal faculties which have finest channels of human by the weight of blood; and, again, contributed to its quality: intercourse - suggesting the fairness is not the word for his imagination and humour. It is comparison of the blood and air sensitive presentation. It is something imagination in the strictest sense vessels in the lungs; but the much less conscious; not so much a of the world as the power of friendship is always at the mercy virtue as a fatality of his genius. seeing and hearing internally, of the feelings which rise from Whether he presents Englishman or without any obligation to fancy - the deeps of racial personality. Moslem or Hindu or Eurasian he is though Mr. Forster has fancy at no longer examining life, but being his command to heighten the The action of the story is examined by it" in the deeps of his personality as an artist. impression, as in his treatment of provided by outsiders; two the echoes in the Marabar Caves. travelling Englishwomen, one [https://www.theguardian.com/ books/1924/jun/20/classics]

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The mystery and muddle of A Passage to India

In A Passage to India, India looms as plot’s mystery with India’s: ‘I tried the familiar. India, he felt, unfathomable, undefinable, or, to to show that India is an demanded the same. use E. M. Forster’s expression: a unexplainable muddle by mystery and a muddle. On his first introducing an unexplainable After spending time as secretary visit to the country in 1912, muddle – Miss Quested’s to the Maharajah of Dewas, Forster’s experience of the ancient experience in the cave.’ In his Forster returned (though city of Ujjain fed his blurry refusal to give away anything somewhat unhopefully) to his impression of India. Here, he found beyond what is contained in A Indian novel. A lot had changed in that: Passage to India, more than ever, it the decade or so since he’d last is up to the reader to draw his or worked on it – in India, in There was no place for anything, and her own conclusions. England, in the world. The First nothing was in its place. There was no World War had, of course, had a time either. […] One confusion ‘The sense of racial tension, tremendous impact, and enveloped Ujjain and all things. Why of incompatibility, never left politically, culturally, socially, differentiate? I asked the driver what me’ Anglo-India had significantly, kind of trees those were, and he irrevocably changed. In 1919, answered ‘Trees’; what was the name Writing Passage was not easy. Colonel Dyer ordered his British of that bird, and he said ‘Bird’; and Forster began the novel after his Indian army troops to open fire the plain, interminable, murmured, 1912 trip, but didn’t finish it until on a crowd of nonviolent ‘Old buildings are buildings, ruins are 1924, following a second trip to protesters who had gathered for a ruins’. the country in 1921. His writing Sikh festival in north-west India. first faltered around 1913. At that Over a thousand died in the ten The India of Forster’s 1924 novel time, he wrote to his friend minute ceaseless fire, in what spills beyond all order, all Forrest Reid complaining that became known as the Amritsar comprehension, and the mystery ‘The only book I have in my head Massacre. Forster had already and muddle that characterises what is too like Howards End to interest considered himself anti-imperial, he depicts as an essentially me’. ‘I want something’, he said, but following this, was deeply, unknowable country leaves the ‘beyond the field of action and vehemently so. With 70 or so reader of the story with many behaviour […] India is full of such pages of the book written before unanswered questions, and an wonders, but she can’t give them these events and this time-lapse, overwhelming sense of to me’. India proved too elusive, he faced a chronological issue. His irresolution. I P Fassett, a critic and, as his memories faded he solution was to write the novel for The Criterion (a modernist withdrew into another project: ’out of time’. He makes no magazine), complained that the writing the book that was to reference to dates or the ferment novel was ‘all very vague’. Living eventually become Maurice. of contemporary politics, and it is until 1970, Forster was plagued by Though his Indian novel wasn’t yet difficult to say with any certainty readers for decades with the to be, Maurice did cater to his whether it is post- or pre- war. question: ‘what happened in the urge to write something unlike his The tone of the book had Marabar Caves?’ His definitive and previous four novels, allowing him certainly changed however, as he immovable response? ‘I don’t to move away from the quaint wrote in 1922 to Syed Ross know’, he would simply – conventionality and polite Masood (to whom he dedicated frustratingly – say. Even the restraint of quintessential the novel), ‘when I began the incident at the heart of the novel’s Englishness. As he pushed beyond book I thought of it as a little plot, therefore, was, like India, the boundaries of Edwardian bridge of sympathy between east maintained as a mystery. In a letter romance in his gay novel, Forster and west, but this conception has to his friend and fellow author, sought images and a language that had to go, my sense of truth William Plomer, he connects the also went beyond the bounds of

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forbids anything so comfortable’. transcendental beyond. After instance – and certain attitudes as Like Howards End, this is a novel experiencing the Marabar caves, out-dated. His depiction of the that hopes for connection, but, Anglo-Indians was the most She had come to that state where just as the India of the novel is lambasted aspect of this book, the horror of the universe and its depicted, the call for connection is and, as one serviceman of 30 smallness are both visible at the ‘not a promise, only an appeal’. years put it, it was felt that he same time – the twilight of the had ‘treated English officials very The Twilight of the Double double vision [where…] a spiritual unfairly’. Ignoring many of these Vision muddledom is set up for which no objections, Forster did engage high-sounding words can be found. with the latter concern, As with so much of Forster’s acquiescing that: ‘I have only been fiction, A Passage to India is The echo has an extraordinary to the country twice (year and a unsettled by binary tensions. The nullifying effect. It trivialises the half in all), and only been central question of the novel – systems and structures that acquainted with Indians for whether an Englishman and an order and reassure, and, in the eighteen years’. Yet, he Indian can ever be friends – is senseless pervasive continues , ‘I believe that I have played out in the drama of reverberation of the ‘ou-boum’, seen certain important truths converging and diverging articulation fails, and certainties that have been hidden from you opposites. In his other novels, the fall into fathomless abyss. despite your thirty years service solid, ordered world of ‘telegrams In Howards End, the merging of […] several times in your letters and anger’, ‘pickpockets and ‘the prose and the passion’, the when you lay down that certain trams’ is troubled by a sense of material and metaphysical realise things can’t happen I am the unseen, the metaphysical. Forster’s hope for connection. reminded from experiences that In Passage, Forster works his In Passage, however, the unseen they can’. And, replying to philosophical and aesthetic forces trouble and thwart another critique of the same ilk preoccupation with dualism to its resolution. In answer to the he states bluntly: ‘I don’t like climax. question of whether and Anglo-Indians as a class. […] Englishman and an Indian can be How can I ever like them when I Writing of the condition of friends, India replies – in her happen to like the Indians and modernity, Forster complained hundred, undefined voices – they don’t?’ that ‘the heavens and the earth ‘No, not there,’ ‘not yet’. have become terribly alike since The book has weathered this Einstein’. In Passage, there is a The problem with Passage type of criticism. The more sense that he is working to A Passage to India sold incredibly significant and persistent issue, restore that double vision of the well: 30,000 copies in the first however, is levied by post- earthly and heavenly, the solid and month in America. Given its vast colonial readings of the novel, the nebulous. The tripartite readership and controversial and their response, in particular, structure, repeated images – the subject, it comes as little to the mystery and muddle of wasp, ‘mosque, cave, mosque, surprise that there is no Forster’s India. Edward Said cave’ – and atmospheric, shortage of negative responses reads Passage through the lens of metaphysical language imbue the to his handling of the ‘India his seminal theory of orientalism. novel with a rhythmic, musical problem’. Despite his calculated In the novel, the narrator asks quality, suggesting ‘something lack of temporal situation, Anglo ‘how can the mind take hold of more’ than can usually be seen or -Indians and Indians picked on such a country?’ For Said, said. Mrs Moore seems to see certain details as factually Forster’s depiction of India as through the visible, material world implausible – Aziz’s arrest, for ‘unapprehendable’ is an act of to some inexpressible,

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evasion rather than understanding; he exoticises and mystifies the nation, rather than engaging and elucidating.

There is weight to this criticism, and it is important not to skate past the discomfiture that a post- colonial reading prompts. But it is also important that this not be the only lens through which we read this complex novel. We risk missing, warping, obscuring so much if we do so. Said finds that ‘Forster’s India is so affectionately personal and remorselessly metaphysical that his view of India as a nation contending for sovereignty with Britain is not politically very serious, or even respectful’. But this is not the only way of reading the binary of the ‘personal’ and the ‘metaphysical’, and reading Forster’s dualism in this singular way perhaps fails to engage with his philosophical concerns and aesthetic innovation.

[https://www.bl.uk/20th-century- literature/articles/the-mystery-and- muddle-of-a-passage-to-india]

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