Passage to India Essay

1. Exigency:
The author, Forster, seems to have written this book about the social conditions in colonial India. Passage to India is littered with social conflicts between the Indians and the English. Forster believes that it is impossible for the English and the Indians to be friends. Here are two examples out of many.
Near the beginning of the book, Aziz and his friends had a discussion whether the Indians and the English could be friends. Aziz’s friend Mahmoud Ali believed that the English could not be friends with Indians. Hamidullah disagreed; he believed that it was possible to be friends with the English but not in India.   Both of the Indians believed that the English take and do nothing, and the English think that the Indians are useless. Even the Indians in A Passage to India wondered if they could be friends with the English. Although both of the Indian’s views differed, they both believed that they could not be friends with the English in India.
In the last few lines of the book Fielding says “Why can’t we be friends now? It’s what I want. It’s what you want.” The sky answered Fielding’s question by saying “No, not yet. No, not there.” The paths that they took kept them separated; their horses kept them separated. It was almost as if the earth, gods, and spirits wanted to separate them. This symbolizes that the Indians and the English cannot be friends until India is a free nation. Forester wrote this book to broadcast his view that the English and the Indians could not be friends in India.
- Did Forster think that the Indians could be friends with the English after India had become an independent state? Why did Forster, an Englishman, write about the social conflicts in India? What can you infer from the text that motivated him?
2. Audience:
This piece of Literature was written for the general populace. This novel was written to show the social conflicts of colonies and their mother country. This book was written for the people in the present...