Resumo de A Passage To India

Forster's great novel has often been described as 'Orientalist',on the one hand, or reflecting the patronising attitude of the British colonialists in India. Yet it is so much more. What were his real motives for writing the book? On one level we can regard A Passage to Inda as Forster's personal exploration of the effects of British imperialism as it was organised and administered, on the lives of individuals. He had a concern for the insensitive handling of the colonised population and how such attitudes diminish the human relationships involved. Despite relationships that have to be formed out of the domination of one nation over another, Forster believed that all such struggles can be subordinated to a higher, universal truth, such truth to be found when individuals recognise the point of connection between one another.

Thus the novel begins with a 'wide lens' sweep over and above the area of the city of Chandrapore, people and landscape becoming merged and significantly, the landscape and its embellishments all assume a far greater characteristic than any human inhabitants. In a later passage, when the English go on a day trip and enter the Marabar Caves, human foibles and weaknesses will shrink to insignificance against the 'nothingness' of the Caves. The apparently meaningness negativity of the Caves find their exact counterpart in the religious ideology of Hinduism and Buddhism. The cave, or cell, is a natural progression from the temple where the world of living forms is left behind and only the spirit is manifest. Faced with the strangeness of the Marabar Caves the Western visitors are lost and confused, their social armour falls away with devastating consequences for the young doctor, Aziz. The cultural and social divide is exposed. In the end, however, it is the paternal liberal, Fielding, a man who feels uncomfortable in India, who ironically will need the friendship of Aziz. The tables are turned, and the West finds a need for the East. Aziz may appear at first to be the embodiment of what the colonialists felt to be the 'childish innocence' of the Indian people. Political events however will change Aziz, if he was ever a childish innocent in the first place.

Forster was a product of his times and doubtless there are criticisms that can be levelled at his work. But even if this be so, this is a complex, intriguing, beautifully written and moving book.

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