Download Dr. Salah Second Semester Prose (7) Fourth Year A Passage to India

Dr. Salah
Second Semester
Prose (7)
Fourth Year
A Passage to India by E.M Forster
Part two (Caves):
 Remember that the first part (Mosque) was dominated by the
mood of unity.
 The second part is entitled (Caves) and it is an ingenious choice by
Forster to associate these caves with the Europeans, because the dark
caves represent the darkness and the hardness of the western culture. It
also shows that the westerners are advanced, yet, they are not
openhearted. This is also the major theme in The Heart of Darkness by
Joseph Conrad, in which Africans are black in color but they are white
at heart, whereas the westerners are white in color but black at heart.
Therefore, the darkness of the caves represents the darkness of the
hearts of the westerners who are scientifically advanced, yet spiritually
living in darkness.
 Darkness is also associated with sin. Remember that Pluto (god of the
underworld) kidnapped Persephone (the daughter of Demeter) to the
underworld, the world of darkness; this underworld represents sin and
injustice. Thus, the caves represent a clash, a friction against nature, the
hardness of the western culture, and the enclosure of the western mind
that does not accept the other. The echo in the caves represents the
hollowness of modern people; remember The Hollow Men by T.S.
Eliot. It also represents the culture of fear, because Mrs. Moore is
afraid of going into the other caves. The caves represent sin, because it
Mrs. Eman Afifi
2010/2011
1
Dr. Salah
Second Semester
is in the caves that Adela thought Dr. Aziz molested her. The caves are
a symbol of the physicality of the modern culture, because they are
where Mrs. Moore was disgusted at the physical touch of the sweaty
Indians; so many people crowded in the darkness, and this was too
much for her.
 The caves also represent the vacuity and the emptiness of the western
culture; an empty place gives more echoes. The darkness there
represents the lack of knowledge of the other, although the westerners
say that they have knowledge of the brain and the mind. However, they
don’t have the knowledge of the heart, which is stronger and more
valid. So, their culture is hollow and their knowledge is not a valid one.
The caves are also similar to the civil stations in which the westerners
live in fission or separateness. Remember that the first part (Mosque)
was dominated by a sense of unity. When speaking about Dr. Aziz and
Hamidullah, the writer associates their life with the word (delicious):
Delicious indeed to lie on the broad verandah with the moon rising in front and the
servants preparing dinner behind, and no trouble happening.
Also when the writer describes Mrs. Moore after her encounter with
Dr. Aziz:
Mrs. Moore, whom the club had stupefied, woke up outside. She watched the moon,
whose radiance stained with primrose the purple of the surrounding sky. In England the
moon had seemed dead and alien; here she was caught in the shawl of night together
with earth and all the other stars. A sudden sense of unity, of kinship with the heavenly
bodies, passed into the old woman and out, like water through a tank, leaving a strange
freshness behind.
This is contrasted by the second part which is dominated by a sense of
separateness and fission. The second part marked by a kind of hostility
and hate, because Ronny represents hate in the novel. Ronny wanted to
Mrs. Eman Afifi
2010/2011
2
Dr. Salah
Second Semester
frame Dr. Aziz; to fabricate a case against him. It is the part in which
the Anglo-Indians have the upper hand.
The writers Gertrude M. White and Betty Gill point out that in A
Passage to India Forster condemns the unfair colonial British policy
in India. Forster presents the Indians as especially Muslims and the
novel is a condemnation of the British colonial policy in India,
because he represents the Anglo-Indians or the Europeans as evil,
hostile, and unjust. He presents that the British colonial policy as an
evil that should be eradicated )‫(تمحى من على وجه األرض‬. Mr. Turton
signifies hostility, and Ronny is against any kind of intimacy
between the Anglo-Indians and the natives. So, Turton, Ronny and
all the Anglo-Indians in the novel, except for (Adela, Mrs. Moore
and Mr. Fielding), believe that any kind of intimacy or unity
between the two races will result in disaster. Therefore, the second
section of the novel is dominated by fear, disunity, fission, hate, and
darkness of the heart.
The main incident which manifests the hostility that dominates the
second part is the shattering experience of accusing Aziz of
molesting Adela in the Marabar Caves; this is the climax of the
novel with the highest emotional experience. Aziz would never
have thought that Adela the decent girl would accuse him. Adela
accused him because she was mistaken, after that she convinced
herself that she was mistaken. This incident brought nothing but evil
which dominates the second part; it is catastrophic to everyone,
especially Mrs. Moore. All the Anglo-Indians, except for Mrs.
Moore accused Dr. Aziz; she is a spiritual woman and she liked Dr.
Aziz more than anybody else. So, Mrs. Moore was torn between the
love to her son, and her admiration and respect towards Dr. Aziz.
That is why she became physically and spiritually dead; she was
Mrs. Eman Afifi
2010/2011
3
Dr. Salah
Second Semester
destroyed. Thus, the moods that dominate the second part are that of
darkness, enclosure, echo, fear, sin, physicality, and death. Mrs.
Moore, the most admirable character in the novel, dies in this part
as a result of the experience Adela had inside the caves. Whether it
was Dr. Aziz or not, it is dubious, and there is a sense of ambiguity
(absence of clarity) regarding the incident in the caves; because we
are not sure of the way Adela was touched, or who touched her. The
writer intentionally presents it as ambiguous because the western
culture is not the culture of light, rather of darkness. Maybe Adela
was not touched by anyone, but she got hysterical. In the darkness
of the heart and the mind we are not sure about anything. It is true
that the westerners know a lot, but they know through the brain, and
the brain’s knowledge is changeable; it is different from knowledge
of the heart. Knowledge of the mind is based on the five human
senses and on observation, whereas knowledge of the heart is based
on the spirit, which is divine. Sensual knowledge is changeable
while spiritual knowledge is not, and is not explainable. Thus,
modern culture is based on ambiguity and the absence of surety.
The Victorians were so solid and so sure about themselves, but after
the two WWs the westerners began to have this sense of ambiguity
and uncertainty. That is why modern western culture is a culture of
uncertainty. Nothing is so clear. Eliot talks about spring in his poem
saying:
“APRIL is the cruelest month”
The western culture is also a culture of death because it is a culture
of comfort. The maximum of physical comfort is death while the
maximum of the spiritual culture is activity and action; they say that
the spirit of God is the spirit of progression. That is why Mrs.
Moore died as a result of the caves experience. The caves drive
Adela to the brink of madness; this means that the culture of the
Mrs. Eman Afifi
2010/2011
4
Dr. Salah
Second Semester
caves is going to lead us to madness because it expresses one aspect
of the two; we are not made only of the brain, we also have a heart.
We have the physique but we have to have the spirit, the others. We
have to have a balance between the heart and the mind. If a person
doesn’t balance between the mind and the heart they are going to
die, because they overload the brain.
All of the destructive incidents in the novel are the result of the
negative experience of the caves; it ruins Dr. Aziz and his alters
entire beliefs. He believes he shall move away from this culture so
he moves to a small village. The experience of the caves destroys all
good relations between the British and the Indians; they got hectic
and emotional and they would start to fight. The caves thus destroy
all constructive relations between individuals.
As we said before, the caves represent darkness of the western
culture. The modern culture is a culture of knowledge, of knowing,
of trying to discover, uncover, unveil or decentralize. The devil
convinced Adam to eat the forbidden fruit because he wanted to
(de-veil) Adam. Modern man is eating from the same tree because
he wants to know. So, knowledge is based on dissection and
division. This led to the division of the atom eventually leading to
the discovery of the atomic bomb which caused to the destruction of
humans.
The incident of the caves united all the Indians in their fear and hate
against the British colonialists who are united in their arrogance and
injustice against the natives. The major theme of this part is the
conflict between the forces of love and dialogue on the one hand
against the forces of hate and clash on the other. In this sense, the
second part is dominated by the spirit of clash and violence; there is
Mrs. Eman Afifi
2010/2011
5
Dr. Salah
Second Semester
violence between the Anglo-Indians and the natives because of the
caves incident, whether it was imagined or real.
The word Marabar is symbolic: the word ends in (bar) which can
be interpreted as indicative of the nature of enclosure, of the
western culture of the head. You put bars around a place for
example so that thieves or outsiders cannot get into your house. The
incident in the caves isolates the Indians from the British. It was
only in the open that Mrs. Moore felt a sense of unity because she
lived in the spirit. She lived a moment of perfection, Nirvana or
epiphany; she lived in the spirit, and the spirit is associated with
God and the spirit is free from enclosure. If you travel from your
country to America for instance you would take long hours, but if
you close your eyes and travel through the spirit you can travel
immediately; it is through the spirit that you can know. The failure
to connect and to be fair led to the accumulation of evil which led to
the incident in the caves. Ronny was afraid of Dr. Aziz so he tried
to frame him as the person who touched Adela in the caves.
for all the misery men must undergo whatever their opinion and position, and
however much they dodge or bluff—it would amount to the same, the serpent
would descend and return to the ceiling. Devils are of the North, and poems can be
written about them, but no one could romanticize the Marabar because it robbed
infinity and eternity of their vastness, the only quality that accommodates them to
mankind.
When he Dr. Aziz about Adela and he said he doesn’t know Ronny
tried to charge him of a crime he didn’t commit. He wanted to
humiliate Aziz and torture him for attempting to get into a cordial
relationship with Adela. Adela herself admits she is not sure and
that she must have made a mistake in saying that Dr. Aziz molested
her. Ronny and the Anglo-Indians wanted to prove by any means
Mrs. Eman Afifi
2010/2011
6
Dr. Salah
Second Semester
that Adela was assaulted by Dr. Aziz; they would pick up pieces of
evidence that incriminate Dr. Aziz and hide the evidence of his
vindication.
End …
Mrs. Eman Afifi
2010/2011
7