E.

M Forster’s A Passage to India

Submitted to: Maam Faiza

Submitted by: Tania Arshad

Roll no: 6923

Subject: 20th century fiction and non-fiction

BS English 8th semester

Govt Postgraduate collage for women Haripur

E M Forster Biography:

Edward Morgan Forster, (born January 1, 1879, London, England—died

June 7, 1970, Coventry, Warwickshire), British novelist, essayist, and
social and literary critic. His fame rests largely on his novels Howards
End (1910) and A Passage to India (1924) and on a large body
of criticism.

Forster’s father, an architect, died when the son was a baby, and he was
brought up by his mother and paternal aunts. The difference between the
two families, his father’s being strongly evangelical with a high sense
of moral responsibility, his mother’s more feckless and generous-
minded, gave him an enduring insight into the nature of domestic
tensions, while his education as a dayboy (day student) at Tonbridge
School, Kent, was responsible for many of his later criticisms of the
English public school (private) system. At King’s College, Cambridge,
he enjoyed a sense of liberation. For the first time he was free to follow
his own intellectual inclinations; and 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 interest in Mediterranean “paganism,” that, if men and
women were to achieve a satisfactory life, they needed to keep contact
with the earth and to cultivate their imaginations. In an early novel, The
Longest Journey (1907), he suggested that cultivation of either in
isolation is not enough, reliance on the earth alone leading to a genial
brutishness and exaggerated development of imagination undermining
the individual’s sense of reality.

The same theme runs through Howards End, a more ambitious novel

that brought Forster his first major success. The novel is conceived in
terms of an alliance between the Schlegel sisters, Margaret and Helen,
who embody the liberal imagination at its best, and Ruth Wilcox, the
owner of the house Howards End, which has remained close to the earth
for generations; spiritually they recognize a kinship against the values of
Henry Wilcox and his children, who conceive life mainly in terms of
commerce. In a symbolic ending, Margaret Schlegel marries Henry
Wilcox and brings him back, a broken man, to Howards End,
reestablishing there a link (however heavily threatened by the forces of
progress around it) between the imagination and the earth.

A Passage To India: Introduction:

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 and won the
1924 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for
fiction. Time magazine included the novel in its "All Time 100 Novels"
list. 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.

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), Adela thinks she finds herself alone with Dr. Aziz in one of the
caves (when in fact he is in an entirely different cave), 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 who rule
India.
Reason Behind A Passage To India:

Looking at E.M. Forster’s novels, readers can clearly see that his life and
the world around him had a profound impact on where he drew
inspiration from for his writing. Forster’s novels are all marked by
analysis of society within the narrative. Whether the focus of this
commentary is love or colonization, much of the characters’ experiences
reflect insight that Forster gained in his own life. He used his own
upbringing in a middle class family, education in a metropolitan city of
England, and travels abroad to bring validity to his story A Passage to
India. Forster’s life experiences were in fact the whole inspiration for
this story: he helped the war effort doing civilian war work in India for
three years and later visited India twice in 1912-1913 and 1921. After
these experiences Forster wrote A Passage to India as an “anti-war
novel” (“E.M. Forster,” Beer). He depicts the characters Adela Quested
and Mrs. Moore almost immediately having problems with the social
hierarchy upon arriving in India. The obvious differences between the
middle-class Englishwomen and their male counterparts and the Indian
hosts who serve as their guides quickly evolve into more deep-rooted
cultural tensions. Forster demonstrated how the English’s
misunderstanding of the Indian people and their customs contributed to
the burden that the natives felt by being subjected to British rule. For
example, when Dr. Aziz is in the outdoor mosque, he is surprised to find
Mrs. Moore there as well. At first he is startled and concerned because
the English people paid little attention to the holiness of the sanctuary.
However, Mrs. Moore explains that she understands the customs of such
a holy shrine and removes her shoes out of respect. Aziz is pleased; she
not only demonstrates consideration for his religious beliefs, she also
shows that she was genuinely interested—something he did not expect
from an Englishwoman. “You understand me, you know what others
feel. Oh, if others were like you!” (A Passage to India 23), Aziz
exclaimed to her. He finds he is able to connect with Mrs. Moore, and he
appreciates that. He does not feel like there were any cultural or class
barriers between them. However, only a few moments later that changes
as Mrs. Moore says she wishes she could invite him into the
Chandrapore Club as her guest. Aziz explained that it was an all-whites