A Passage to India

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E.M. Forster’s novel A Passage to India was published in 1924 and is based on two personal visits of Forster’s to India in 1912 and a few years later in 1921 (Langner 2003:3). This essay focuses on how Forster treats the problems of love and friendship in the novel. It discusses how he problematizes these relationships and by what methods Forster achieves this, as well as how the symbolic structure emphasises certain issues. The essay attempts to answer the central question in the novel regarding friendship: Can an Englishman and an Indian become friends under the British Raj? In order to this the essay analyses the friendships between Aziz and Fielding, Aziz and Mrs. Moore, Adela and other characters in the novel and the broader relationship or lack thereof between the British and the Indians. It analyses the love relationships between Ronny and Adela as well as why this relationship fails. The essay also discusses how Forster treatment of the various problems changed after his second visit to India. The novel centres around the lives of both British and Indian people living in Chandrapore and how their inability to overcome racial issues creates several problems between the characters in the novel who are trying to form inter-racial relationships. The novel is divided into three sections with the main conflict occurring in the second section namely, Caves. Forster himself made two trips to India and after his first visit in 1912 he wrote the first section of the novel, Mosque. In this section Forster satirises the racial conflict between the British and Indians through for example his description of the bridge party and how ridiculous their separation is at the club: ‘…and at the proper moment he retired to the English side of the lawn…it amused him to note the ritual of the English Club, and to caricature it afterwards to his friends’ (pp.40-41).
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