LITR / CRCL 5734: Colonial & Postcolonial Literature
University of Houston-Clear Lake, Summer 2001
Sample Student Research Project

Kimberly L. Jones
Colonial & Postcolonial Literature
Dr. Craig White
30 June 2001 

An Inward Collapse of the Human Perspective in E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

                                                                       —Wallace Stevens             

 

     The reverberation of sound in the form of an echo is threaded throughout E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India, and the link between the echo and the hollowness of the human spirit is depicted in the text.   The echo is not heard in the beginning of the text when the English newcomers, Mrs. Moore and Ms. Quested, arrive in India; it is more clearly heard as their relationship with India gains complexity.  The influence of the colonizers and the colonized on one another is inevitable; however, the usual assumption is that the colonists are the most successful in imposing their values and ideologies on the individuals whom they view as the “natives.”   In an introduction to a text depicting a portrait of the colonizer and the colonized, Jean-Paul Sartre states that in attempting to dehumanize colonized individuals, the colonist becomes dehumanized himself. “A relentless reciprocity binds the colonizer to the colonized—his product becomes his fate” (Sartre xxviii).  While Forster’s text possesses numerous instances of the English losing a humanistic perspective as they place the Indians in a submissive role and treat them as subjects, it can be argued that Sartre’s observation of the dynamic existing between the colonizer and the colonized is somewhat manipulated in Forster’s text—instead of being dehumanized from their exposure to the colonized, the colonizers gain greater insight into the essence of humanity.  The English characters in the text are embraced by the mystery and spirituality of the Orient, which is the focus of their imperialism.  As a result, the English join their Indian counterparts in looking inward and outward to discover that the void and emptiness supporting the echo in the text loses intensity as the characters move towards greater metaphysical and humanistic unity, but the emptiness of the human spirit is never fully diminished.   Forster depicts the influence of the colonized on the colonizers who are exposed to their inward emptiness as a reflection of their metaphysical disconnectedness.

      The environment in which the English find themselves in India is diametrically opposed to the sense of order and reason presumed to exist in the Western world.   In relation to characteristics attached to colonists in general, the English colonists have arrived in India with pre-conceived notions of how the world operates and how people should behave within the constructs of their rational world.  The English view the world from a limited perspective, and the chaos that India introduces to them challenges many of the English characters’ ideologies of spirituality in the universe and within themselves.  Even though India is portrayed as a puzzling environment where the native inhabitants lack a sense of self as they submit to the colonists, it is the English characters who appear weak as they are juxtaposed to an environment rich in wisdom and spirituality.  

     Forster describes the section of Chandrapore in which the English reside as a “city of gardens,” which is in contrast to the residences of the Indians described as “So abased, so monotonous is everything that meets the eye, that when the Ganges comes down it might be expected to wash the excrescence back into the soil” (Forster 4) . However, in the midst of the beauty in which the English residences are located, the central civil station “provokes no emotion” even though it is “sensibly planned” (Forster 5).   The English colonists’ perfectly ordered civil station exudes a feeling of emptiness in the middle of a lush, tropical atmosphere; in essence, the physical structures representing the English imperialism of the colonists are being consumed by the physical surroundings representing the majesty of India.  From the beginning pages of the text, symbols of English ideologies are being overpowered by those of Indian ideologies.  

     Forster infers a possible connection between Western and Eastern thought as he further describes the English residence as having “nothing hideous in it, and only the view is beautiful; it shares nothing with the city except the overarching sky” (Forster 5).  There is an overall sense of absence that is associated with the English residential area in both an inward and outward perspective. Even though there is nothing overly “hideous” in the English area, there is also nothing extraordinary in the area either.  Yet, Forster hints through the use of the image of an “overarching sky” that there can be a possible connection between the English and the Indians in a metaphysical sense. Since the Indians have already acquired a higher level of metaphysical knowledge than the English, it is the English who must alter their ideologies in order to align with those of the Indians to gain a clearer understanding of their place in the universe.   Of course, as the English are lead to look within themselves and gain a greater spirituality aligned with that of the Indians, the emptiness of spirit and even displacement from the idea of a universal oneness is the result of the acquisition of their new insights.  While the English are never able to define or even realize they have been engulfed by Eastern thought, they feel discomfort from changing ideologies as a result of their experiences in India. The English “—caught in their own narrow circles—do not often see this great unifying context or hear the echoes that connect inner and outer, unconscious and conscious, microcosm and macrocosm” (Stone 300).   Since the English are not cognizant of the changes occurring in their thoughts and ideas, their actions in the text become completely irrational in a failed attempt to assign order to a world entirely incomprehensible to them.

     The incident occurring in the Marabar Caves is a pivotal point in the text where the English characters begin to become fully immersed in attaining an inward perspective.  Up until this scene, the characters appear to have accepted their roles of the colonizer and the colonized, and there is not an attempt to be understood by the other.   Even though there are relationships between characters who do relate to one another such as Mrs. Moore and Aziz, as well as Fielding and Aziz, there is not an attempt to change anyone’s beliefs or ideas.  When an encounter occurs between Aziz and Mrs. Moore in the mosque, Aziz states to Mrs. Moore, “You understand me, you know what others feel. Oh, if others resembled you!” (Forster 21).  Mrs. Moore is evidently able to empathize with others, and she is also in support of the idea that God is love; however, even though Mrs. Moore is open to the idea of a wholeness in the universe, she is not prepared to look inward to her own connection with the outer universe.  

     Forster describes the Marabar Caves as being the only extraordinary part of Chandrapore, and he sets the stage for a mysterious occurrence in the caves that ultimately transforms the ideologies of certain English characters.  Before Mrs. Moore and Adela reach the caves, their rational world was beginning to disintegrate as they listen to Godpole sing an odd song that is difficult for them to understand.  Godpole explains the meaning of his song by stating, “I placed myself in the position of a milkmaiden. I say to Shri Krishna, ‘Come!come to me only.’ The god refuses to come […] O Lord of the Universe, come to me.’ He refuses to come” (Forster 85).  

        The constructs of Mrs. Moore’s and Adela’s world are weakened as the concept of a godless universe is introduced to them.  The song “prepares Adela and Mrs. Moore for their experience of that unspeakable region. It prepares them by insinuating that God is absent from his universe, and this notion takes them a little way toward an understanding of the Marabar’s message” (Thomson 221).  Godpole’s song is the first instance in terms of metaphysicality where the English characters are introduced to emptiness in the universe; the trip to the Marabar caves forces Mrs. Moore and Adela to discern this void within the human spirit as well.  Godpole, who is part of the culture being colonized, strongly influences the thoughts and opinions of two of the English colonizers whether they are consciously aware of it or not.  The situation is complicated by the idea that it is usually the colonists who are forcing religious ideologies onto the colonized individuals.  Instead of the English forcing Christian ideologies onto the Indians, Godpole’s song questioning the existence of God depicts a shift in whose thoughts and beliefs are influencing the situation.   The lack of strength of the English colonists’ religious beliefs in relation to the Indians’ beliefs is called into question by Hamidullah who asks Fielding, “Is it correct that most are atheists in England now?” Fielding replies, “The truth is that the West doesn’t bother much over belief and disbelief in these days” (Forster 120).  Hamidullah raises the question of how England, a country of declining morals, can justify holding India.  Forster depicts the English as not having strong belief structures in order to allow them to be easily manipulated into “[…] complex bewilderment about social and spiritual identity” (Parry 160).

     Through building the Marabar Caves up to be a significant element in the text and developing the idea of spiritual weakness on the part of the English, the colonists’ trip to the caves is clearly a turning point for how Mrs. Moore and Adela view themselves and the world around them.  “The incidents in the Caves are of course the symbolic heart of the novel, where India exerts its force of illusion and disillusion upon the British visitors” (Crews 155).   Forster’s elaborate description of the caves also illustrates the majesty, mystery, and emptiness they symbolically represent in relation to the universe. Forster states, “Nothing, nothing attaches them, and their reputation—for they have one—does not depend upon human speech. It is as if the surrounding plain or the passing birds have taken it upon themselves to exclaim ‘extraordinary,’ and the world has taken root in the air, and been inhaled by mankind” (Forster 137).  The frequent reference to the word “nothing” in relation to the caves can be related to “Wallace Stevens’s vision of the Snowman: the ‘nothing that is not there and the nothing that is’. It is a substantive, not just an emptiness, a presence as well as an absence” (Stone 307). In contrast to the English civil station Forster describes in the beginning of the text as “provoking no emotion,” the Marabar Caves, seemingly serving to represent the soul of Chandrapore, evoke emotion to such a great extent that it cannot be expressed in words.   The opening of the text depicts a vast difference between the English and Indian residences that both exist under a commons sky, which are a direct contrast to the “[…] climactic message of the caves, in which everything is characterized by negative sameness, in which the smallness of the universe becomes embodied in an echo that says ‘ou boum’ to whatever is said” (Rosecrance 189).  

     The terrifying echo heard in the caves is extremely disconcerting to Mrs. Moore who, up until hearing Godpole’s song, is one of the most spiritually grounded characters in the text as far as being confident in her values and beliefs.  The emptiness and non-existence of God illustrated in Godpole’s song is now physically depicted for Mrs. Moore in the caves.  After visiting the caves and hearing the echo, Mrs. Moore reflects on the fact that “No one could romanticize the Marabar because it robbed infinity and eternity of their vastness, the only quality that accommodates them to mankind.” Forster further describes the effect of the echo on Mrs. Moore as “undermining her hold on life,” and depicts her hearing a murmur of the echo stating, “Everything exists, nothing has value” (Forster 165).  In this one instant, all of Mrs. Moore’s Christian ideologies come into question and “the universe, never comprehensible to her intellect, offered no repose to her soul” (Forster 166).   The echo Mrs. Moore hears in the caves forces her to reflect on the absence of infinity and eternal light. In the caves, she experiences a collapse inward, only to feel a disconnect with the outer world. As a result, Mrs. Moore loses all interest in worldly matters, and, not surprisingly, dies shortly after she departs from India. 

     Of course, Indians visit the caves without experiencing any profound changes in their outlook on the universe since they do not receive the message in the same light as Mrs. Moore does.  The echo “is carried across India to the ears of Hindu, Moslem, Anglo-Indians alike, bringing a message of terror or of peace—depending on the individual’s capacity to receive or to assimilate it” (Stone 307).  Indians visiting the caves, particularly Hindus, are not as susceptible to being affected by the echo due to the fact that the circularity symbolized by the echo’s reverberating pattern is reminiscent of the cycle that is inherent in their religious ideologies.  Since Hindu Indians expect to return to Earth through future lives, unless they complete their cycle through successfully advancing through all stages in life, the act of looking inward is not as terrifying to them as it is to an individual who believes in the concept of existing in an infinite afterlife.  Yet, all of the characters in the text are experiencing the same echoes, which connect all of the to one another, even though the echoes affect each character in a different manner. In the text “[…] the visitors to the caves are making a return from consciousness to unconsciousness, going back to a prehistoric and pre-rational condition from which they have been released, but which is still a lurking—though repressed—presence in all of them” (Stone 310).  In this regard, the ideologies of the English and the Indians are already aligned with one another; the English just need their repressed ideas to be re-awakened in them.  Of course, once this occurs in the text, it is difficult for characters like Mrs. Moore to comprehend the emptiness she feels.

     Adela’s experience in the caves differs from Mrs. Moore’s due to the fact that Adela’s understanding of unity in the world before entering the caves was not as developed as Mrs. Moore’s understanding.  In fact, while Adela and Aziz are walking to the next cave, the only thought Adela is able to process focuses inward onto herself and the issue of her impending marriage to Ronny Heaslop.  Even when she makes an inappropriate comment to Aziz, she is completely unaware of anything outside of herself.  As Aziz seems noticeably irritated, Adela “[…] followed at her leisure, quite unconscious that she had said the wrong thing” (Forster 169).  Due to Adela’s “unconscious nature,” the effect of the caves on her psyche is not as immediate as it is with Mrs. Moore. Even though it will never be truly known what occurred in the caves, it is certain that Adela attains a certain level of enlightenment from her exposure to the Marabar Caves, which represent Indian consciousness.   After Adela accuses Aziz and she reflects on the incident in the cave, she is “[…]always reminding herself that no harm had been done…then she would hear the echo again, weep, declare she was unworthy of Ronny, and hope her assailant would get the maximum penalty” (Forster 215). 

     Adela’s lack of self-awareness prior to entering the caves prevents her from processing all of the information she is receiving after the incident.  While Mrs. Moore’s reaction is terror, Adela’s reaction to the echo, at first, is utter confusion. Initially, the experience causes her to look inward, but she is not reaching the appropriate conclusions.  Perhaps the confusion resulting from Adela being violated in some manner in the caves is the result of her losing her grip on the rational thought processes associated with the West when confronted with the spirituality of the East.  When Adela is walking through the caves prior to the mysterious incident, she is trying to reason through her relationship with Ronny, after being exposed to the echo of the caves, as well as being allegedly attacked, she seems to have lost all ability to intelligently rationalize her situation.  

     During the trial, the significance of hearing the echoes in the caves on Adela is fully revealed.  As she sits in court, “the fatal day recurred, in every detail, but now she was of it and not of it at the same time, and this double reaction gave it indescribable splendor” (Forster 253).  When Adela finally reveals that Aziz did not follow her into the caves, the echo she continuously hears ceases.  The idea of the caves forces her to look inward to disclose what is true.  “Adela’s ecstatic experience stands in direct contrast to Mrs. Moore’s experience of desolation with its ‘double’ vision of the horror and smallness of the universe (Thomson 226).   Instead, Adela’s experience in the caves is one of transcendence. Whereas Mrs. Moore focuses on the trapped feeling the caves inflict upon her, Adela is able to reflect upon the exterior and interior of the caves as she sits in the courtroom.  The memory of the caves forces Adela to think outside of her own static ideologies, which ultimately leads her to the truth about Aziz.  Whether the English characters are affected positively or negatively by their experience in the Marabar Caves, they are forced to focus on their own ideas about the human spirit and the universe in a manner they had never previously considered before traveling to India. 

      While reflecting back on the incident in the caves aids Adela in realizing the truth about Aziz, “the Marabar Caves have not brought us into the presence of ultimate truth” (Crews 159).   Even thought Forster’s text addresses the effect of the exposure of the English to the Indians, the reader is not presented with any insights about the relationship between man and his own spirit or man and God.  At the close of the text, the same feeling of emptiness exhibited by the echoes in the caves pervades as the idea of the “nothingness” of human and spiritual relationships has never been resolved through the narrative.   In essence, “India is a metaphor for the human condition, in herself a denial of unity” (Rosecrance 200). By returning to India, the English characters have not merely been exposed to new ideologies, they have been introduced to the common denominator of the human condition—a lack of unity.  While the British have been attempting to compensate for this deficiency through incorporating a strong system of organization and reason into their worlds, and even imposing their beliefs onto others, India forces the English visitors to step outside of the ideological constructs they have built in their lives; of course, what is outside of those constructs is disorder and discontinuity. 

     Forster’s text depicts that the chaos of the human condition India represents is completely out of the control of human beings.  Therefore the characters are not empowered to alter the emptiness that exists within them as they take an inward perspective, and they are also not able to resolve the dualities that exist within them. The idea of dualities within human consciousness is depicted as Fielding and Godpole discuss the incident that occurred in the Marabar Caves.   Godpole refers to the incident as an “evil action” and states, “It was performed by you…It was performed by me…It was even performed by the lady herself…When Evil occurs, it expresses the whole universe. Similarly when good occurs” (Forster 197).   Godpole goes on to explain that good and evil are different, but they are both an integral part of the universe.  Forster’s narrative illustrates that, while a lack of unity exists, the one common element among all men is the dualities existing within them. “No one character in book is good or evil, and Mrs. Moore and Adela come to realise that they contain these opposites within themselves, just as Hinduism embraces the contest” (Parry 165).

     While nearly all of the characters in the text are on opposite ends of an ideological spectrum of Western and Eastern thought supporting the theme of separation in the text, Fielding and Aziz are two characters whose thoughts remain on the middle of the spectrum. “Aziz can be seen as mediating in a way between East and West,” and Fielding is portrayed as a humanistic character who also values both Eastern and Western thought  (Stone 320). A friendship between these two characters suggests a chance of solidarity to compensate for the feelings of emptiness existing between all relationships throughout the text.  In the final passages of the text as Fielding and Aziz discuss their relationship, the horses they were riding on “swerved apart.”  Forster states in his final sentence of the narrative, “ ‘No, not yet,’ and the sky said, ‘No, not there’” (Forster 362).  The final reference to the sky creates a feeling of circularity since it can be tied back to the “overarching sky” referenced in the first pages of the text.  The final image of the two men being denied unity by forces outside of their power reinforces the idea that that disconnectedness is not only inherent in India, but it is the nature of the universe. Since human beings crave unity and order, the text depicts the problem arising when man attempts to find reason in a universe that only seems to provide chaos.  As a result, many of the characters in the text begin to question how their thoughts and beliefs fit into the whole universal pattern.

     The English visitors in India would not have been able to grasp the sense emptiness existing within themselves if they had never been exposed to Eastern thought.   Mrs. Moore and Adela represent two British visitors who traveled to India with the intent to understand India, and left with a deeper understanding of themselves.  The echo both women are exposed to in the Marabar Caves is an echo that already existed within them, but they were not conscious of it before being physically exposed to it.  Immersion in Western thought had successfully covered up the echo, and allowed the English visitors to exist in a world allowing them to focus outward as opposed to inward.  Forster states, “[…] the destiny of the English seems to resemble their predecessors’, who also entered the country with the intent to refashion it, but were in the end worked into its pattern and covered with its dust” (Forster 234).   As it can be argued that Forster’s India represents the human condition,  the English colonizers in A Passage to India have not only been influenced by those who they are attempting to colonize, but they have been influenced by inner truths that had never previously been revealed to them, allowing them to realize they are a reflection of the outer world. Therefore, the English visitors trip to India is a

                                                Passage to more than India!

                                                O secret of the earth and sky

                                                Of you O waters of the sea! O winding creeks and rivers!

Of you O woods and fields! of you strong mountains of my land!

Of you O prairies! of you gray rocks!

O morning red! O clouds! O rain and snows!

O day and night, passage to you!

—Walt Whitman