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Ambivalence in a Passage to India by E. M. Forster

Ambivalence is the state in which two parties have contradictory ideas, feelings or attitude

regarding each other or something. In the novel, A Passage to India by Forster ambivalence

illustrates the ambiguous way in which colonizer and colonized regard one another.

We start the various instances where the state of ambivalence whereby it is first experience

when Aziz was arrested on suspicion of the rape of Adela sets up the climax of the film in the

magistrate’s courtroom. Firstly, there is inside the courtroom, an apparent physical manifestation

of Bhabha’s (p88) notion of ambivalence in the way that the Indian characters are able to interact

in the trial. This idea of physical ambivalence can be summarized as follows: the need of the

colonizer to ‘educate and civilize’ (Blaut, p96) the colonized other requires the active participation,

to a certain limited extent of course, of the colonized in the colonizer’s affairs. Therefore, in this

particular situation, it means that the Indians are permitted to become official actors in the trial

itself as a result of the ‘civilizing’ process and the attempt to bring India ‘up to the level’ of the

‘civilized’ British. Thus both judge5 and defense along with the general observers are Indian.

These actors are therefore able to observe the farcical nature and desperate attempts of the

‘civilized’ colonizers to swing the trial in their favor which exposes the ambivalent hegemony that

the British hold over them. The collapse of the trial leads to the uprising and the temporary loss of

British control in Chandrapore. The rape incident ultimately exposes how the ambivalence of
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colonialism becomes its own downfall; the fact that the exposure of the fragility of colonial rule

within the magistrates, which is in itself a physical manifestation of the British colonist’s power

in India, is significant. Spatially, the whole scene restricts the Indian characters to the periphery of

the room and places the British characters in the center of events. Indian onlookers observe from

the gantry and the judge appears to be a tool of British control after Ronny comments to Mrs.

Turton: ‘Don’t worry, he’s a good man’ and of whom London (Blaut, p102) describes as a

‘Western educated native, who is a cultivated, self-conscious and conscientious Indian civil

servant’. The rationally of the colonizer vis a vis McBryde as the prosecutor versus the irrationality

of the colonized represented as the Indian defense a.k.a. the character of Ali, who is unable to

control his emotions and storms out of the trial on the basis it is a farce, is interesting. It can be

argued that Ali’s behavior is indeed that of the Other: emotionally volatile and passionate, in

contrast with calm demeanor of McBryde, an enterprising colonizer, who despite appearing

nervous when he sees the trial tilting in Aziz’s favor certainly manages to keep his emotions under

control. Finally, it can also be put forward that the fan, which is swinging slowly above the court

as the trial progresses, in addition with Lean’s decision to repeatedly dedicate long screen shots to

it, reminds the viewer and the characters of the film that, despite British attempts to rule India and

‘civilize’ it, colonialisms fragile nature guarantees that the British can only ever temporarily

occupy Indian space. True India – not that of colonized space (which exists only because of the

construction of colonizer space) but something much more incomprehensible to the minds of the

British - perhaps encapsulated by the Marabar caves, and is something that can never be understood

or brought under the control of British hegemony6. With this in mind, the unbritish-like behavior

of the British at the trial (desperately trying to preserve the colonizer/colonized construct) can be

dismissed as an incident that the nature of the situation in India has brought upon them. The model
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of British hegemonic power is therefore preserved and the appropriation of the ‘Western Self’ is

secure.

Further from the very beginning of the book, the visual differences between what Said

terms ‘metropolitan space’ and ‘colonial space’ are evident. Metropolitan space is occupied by the

colonizers and is denoted by what Said describes as ‘socially desirable, empowered space (Blaut,

p61). Colonial space, of course, belongs to the subaltern. Said goes on to say that members of the

subaltern essentially “want to move into these space because there are viewed as desirable” (but

still subordinate). The manifestations of the two different kinds of space can be both physical and

mental. Physical; in relation to the ‘civilized order’ of metropolitan space in contrast with the

‘disorder and decay’ of colonial space (Horton, p134) and mental; in the spaces that exist in the

temporal constructs and attitudes of the people involved in colonialism. A Passage to India ensures

a strict reproduction of these spatial binaries.

On Mrs. Moore and Adela’s arrival to India, the colonial dichotomies become immediately

explicit. As the ship carrying the traveling British arrives, the viewer is presented with the ordered

structure of British-controlled Bombay harbor. Hybridity (Bhabha, p86) is also evident in the

ceremonial welcome by the Indian army who, dressed in British Empire military attire, express the

malevolent hegemonic power that British rule in India has over the population. The hybridized

nature of the welcome acts as a comforting presence to the arriving Britons and the assimilationist

agenda of British rule is also explicitly established. The assimilationist agenda introduced here is

portrayed through dress, Darby discusses ‘the role of disguise in cross-cultural dressing’ and how

it is ‘essentially a technique of surveillance which represents yet another attempt at control of the

subaltern peoples’ (Bhabha, P34) and is without doubt evident in this scene. Certainly, examples

of ‘cross-cultural dressing’ are evident throughout the movie: on Mrs. Moore and Adela’s arrival
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in Chandra pore, at the bridge party and in the courtroom during Professor Aziz’s trial. It appears

that, in consideration of the length of screen time allocated to showing cross-culturally dressed

Indian characters, Lean has used ‘cross-cultural dressing’ to repeatedly remind the audience of the

previously mentioned malevolent hegemonic control that colonial Britain holds over India. After

disembarkation from the ship, Adela and Mrs. Moore temporarily enter colonial a.k.a. colonized

space, depicted in marked contrast to the order of the British-controlled port. These spatial

contrasts are fundamental aspects of colonial film and are evident in other European works of the

same period; the European district and the Algerian Kasbah in The Battle of Algiers, British-

controlled Maya pore versus Indian Territory in A Jewel in the Crown and also in Ghandi. In A

Passage to India, the Otherness of ‘colonial space’ is exposed in its disorder and apparent chaos

of the crowds of ‘unusually dressed’ people; snake charmers also accentuate the exotic polarity of

the scene with familiar ‘British spaces’. Mrs. Turton’s explicit rejection of ‘colonial space’ is here

too disseminated by an expression of disgust regarding the smell of the bazaar area. Upon arrival

to Chandra pore, Lean once again expresses the portrayal of hegemonic control to the viewer

through the representation of the Union Jack flag placed upon the bonnet of the car that Mr. and

Mrs. Turton are traveling in en route to the British civil station. Lean continues to depict more

‘exercises of control’ by the British throughout the movie; specifically, the British national anthem

which continuously interrupts various gatherings and functions within colonizer space to demand

the attention of Britons and Indians alike in order to remind them of the colonizer’s control. During

the Turton’s drive through Chandra pore, India is again shown in its fundamental Orientalist

construction: that of disordered, primitive space with a suggestion of the mysterious unknown. As

the car enters the main bazaar, this can be seen as the mosque slowly enters into full screen view

in synchronization with an ‘Orientalist-style’ musical fill. Immediately after this, the reckless
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impatience of the Indian driver of the car nearly results in an accident involving the characters of

Professor Aziz and Ali who, after gathering themselves after falling off their bikes, implicitly

discuss the adoption of the colonizer discourse by the British: “McBryde (passing by in the

following car). When he first came out [to India], Hamidullah said he was quite a good fellow.

(Aziz:) But they all become exactly the same. I give any Englishman two years. The women are

worse. I give them six months (Lean, P34).”

From the perspective of this essay, the physical and mental spatial boundaries that it aims

to identify are clearly evident from the beginning to the end of the film. The discursive limits of

these boundaries affect the decisions, actions and ideas of all the characters in the film.

Foucauldian notions of power play an important part in maintaining these limits, a good example

being the moment when Mrs. Moore leaves Aziz at the entrance to the club after he says that

Indians are not allowed to enter (as analysed earlier) and the trees which surround the civil station

to ‘screen’ Chandrapore from British eyes. It can also be concluded that the spatial boundaries

identified are presented through Orientalist discourse as defined by Said.

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Work Cited

Betty, Jay Colmer, E.M. Forster: A Passage to India, Trumpington: Icon.2010

Horton, Bhabha Ian, Colonialist Stereotypes in Innovative European Comic Books, In: Leinen, F

and Rings, G (eds), Worlds of Images, Worlds of Texts, Worlds of Comics, Munich:

Meidenbauer, p125-141.Bhabha, Homi, The Location of Culture, London and New York:

Routledge. (2016)

Blaut J.M., The Coloniser’s Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric

History, New York: Guilford 2011.

Canby, Vincent, A Passage to India: Review [online]. Available at:

<http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9C05E6D61238F937A25751C1A9629482

60> 2012.

Lean, David , A Passage to India, UK/USA: Columbia Pictures:2014