Post by Mlle Bienvenu on Aug 20, 2004 12:19:28 GMT -5
Misinterpretation, Miscommunication, and Generally a Muddle:
This is an essay I wrote in my freshmen year in college.
Confusion as a theme in A Passage to India
E. M. Forster’s “A Passage to India” reflects the atmosphere of Colonial India with astounding accuracy; He discusses themes of culture shock and the attempts to fit a square peg in a round hole, but Forster’s feeling’s towards the situation as a whole are nowhere more blatantly apparent than in the interesting theme of ‘muddles’.
Throughout the course of the novel, Forster uses misinterpretation, miscalculation, and misleading, unreliable and vague language to convey the lack of understanding and general uncertainty surrounding the political and social aspects of English Colonialism in India and it’s resolution.
From the very beginning, Forster wastes no time in making confusion a theme. Indeed, one of the first actions is an act of miscommunication; Aziz receives a note from Major Callender to come right away on a medical needs but when Aziz gets there, he finds he had left. Then, immediately following this (as if this wasn’t rude enough), he has his tonga pinched by Mrs. Callender and her friend who were completely oblivious that Aziz was even there. This demonstrates the aspect of the oblivious attitudes of the British towards the Indians. The two women fail to even see Aziz or to even wonder why or who the tonga could have brought, they just assume it was for them and take it. Just like England assumes that they can have India (as if Indians weren’t even there) and so they take it.
This incident prompts Aziz’s response to Mrs. Moore at the Mosque. This foreshadows Aziz’s ultimate distrust of the British at the end of the novel. Here it is Aziz’s turn to misjudge the English. But Mrs. Moore proves him wrong, showing him she has in fact taken of her shoes according to Islamic custom. This premature reprimand, poses that not all British are inherently evil and that maybe both Indian and British can learn to coexist if given sufficient time, space and understanding.
The first serious muddle we encounter in the novel is at the Bridge Party. What was an attempt at bridging the communication gap between India and England, (representative of Indian-English relations, an example of the use of a microcosm) goes seriously awry. (This foreshadows future events in the novel) First, for the most part, there is a lack of communication altogether between the Indian guests and the English guests. What attempts are made are forced and stiff. To top it off, the British behave generally poorly towards the Indians.
(Representative of the outside turmoil.) and the few English who are civil to the Indian guests are grossly misunderstood; When Ronny comments on the missing collar stud and how it indicates the Indians’ inattention to detail. (Another example of misinterpretation on the part of the English) when in fact it wasn’t Aziz’s thoughtless dressing habits but his thoughtfulness in loaning Fielding his own stud (which, by the way, is another breakdown in communication, since Aziz had lied and said he had a spare.). This irony shows the English’s lack of concern for the facts and their preference for how things appear to be.
Another incident during the party contrasts this by the Indian people’s own inability to properly read between the lines and understand British polite speech. When Mrs. Moore is talking with Mrs. Bhattachara, Mrs. Moore suggests that she would like to visit her sometime. Which either means that some indefinate time in the future we should make plans to get together. Or it could just be a polite remark that is never followed up on. (seeing that this is Mrs. Moore we are dealing with and not Mrs. Callender, we can assume the former. )But Mrs. Bhattachara misinterprets the gesture, meant as a pleasantry, and thinks the gesture denotes a signal of an intimate friendship and accordingly decides to postpone her vacation to Calcutta just to see Mrs. Moore instead.
This is ironic since the next miscommunication is the same thing only in reverse. When Aziz suggests (as a pleasantry) that he would like to invite them all to his house. All the English take this as significant and ask for specific plans (when it was meant to be vague). It is ironic that this small insignificant misunderstanding should cause the main event of the novel.
The first straightforward foreshadowing of the events to come occurs with the car accident. This is the first event in the novel truly left unresolved (but certainly not the last). Indeed, even the character’s explanations range from the logical to the supernatural. The concrete events of the car accident are left unclear and the reader begins to feel the lack of communication between them and the author. This is the beginning of a pattern which reaches it’s climax in what transpires at the Marabar Caves.
And the author pushes the trust of the reader to the limits. He offers conflicting views of the caves themselves; He presents them as mundane holes in the monotonous rock-face (This is illustrated eloquently in the movie) but the characters themselves say they are interesting and the highlight of Chandrapore.
And this is when a new kind of miscommunication occurs; thus far all of the miscommunication can only be taken, at the very most, only slightly negative. However, with the bribery of Anthony (which in itself is a devious act) there erupts a series of events that can be horribly misconstrued against Aziz. (Which is ironic since one of Aziz’s main focuses has been to avoid insulting the English. Which is why he plans the trip in the first place, to avoid saying he didn’t really mean that he wanted them over but meant it as a polite gesture.)
When Aziz is alone with Adela at the Marabar Caves, the chapter is laced with sexual innuendo between them, to confuse and muddle the readers thought processes from the logical conclusion. This is directly counteracted by the fact that, when Aziz was supposed to have assaulted her, the author switches to his viewpoint, thus attempting to eliminate the chance that the reader will think that Aziz is guilty, but this action is counteracted by the fact the the narrator has been thus far fairly vague and, at the extreme, unreliable.
The only explicitly stated event in the chapter is when Aziz finds her field glasses, thus establishing to the reader, once and for all, Aziz’s innocence. But to the characters, devoid of the omniscience of the reader, this very action can be very easily misinterpreted (and is). Aziz having the field glasses complicates his assertion that he was not present when Adela was assaulted.
And the mayhem continues with the trial. Which snowballed and no longer was about whether Aziz assaulted Adela or not, but became a trial of whether India was assaulted by England or not. So a practically nonexistent event (Indeed, it may have all been a hallucination) becomes a concrete battle of the rights of Indians.
Through this attitude, Adela’s illness is again misconstrued. She isn’t at all physically sick. (Which was reported) but she had been interpreted by the British as a perpetual victim. This is an example of the authors ability to take a concrete thing, such as a person, and misconstrue it into an a symbol which it never meant to represent in the first place. This is exemplified later when Mrs. Moore is nearly deified by the Indians. The author even decides to go as far as having her name (Mrs. Moore) misheard to something akin to the name of a goddess (Esmiss Esmoor) of freedom, when she herself had cooled to the whole situation and had bowed out while everyone interpreted from her leave that she was forced to leave the country.
“A Passage to India” is an enlightening tale which captures the essence of miscommunication and misconception. It makes a very vital assertion that communication is one of the most important aspects of not only political relations, but also between relationships of any kind. It asserts the fact that listening to one another is also paramount and that everybody talking at once gets little done.
This is an essay I wrote in my freshmen year in college.
Confusion as a theme in A Passage to India
E. M. Forster’s “A Passage to India” reflects the atmosphere of Colonial India with astounding accuracy; He discusses themes of culture shock and the attempts to fit a square peg in a round hole, but Forster’s feeling’s towards the situation as a whole are nowhere more blatantly apparent than in the interesting theme of ‘muddles’.
Throughout the course of the novel, Forster uses misinterpretation, miscalculation, and misleading, unreliable and vague language to convey the lack of understanding and general uncertainty surrounding the political and social aspects of English Colonialism in India and it’s resolution.
From the very beginning, Forster wastes no time in making confusion a theme. Indeed, one of the first actions is an act of miscommunication; Aziz receives a note from Major Callender to come right away on a medical needs but when Aziz gets there, he finds he had left. Then, immediately following this (as if this wasn’t rude enough), he has his tonga pinched by Mrs. Callender and her friend who were completely oblivious that Aziz was even there. This demonstrates the aspect of the oblivious attitudes of the British towards the Indians. The two women fail to even see Aziz or to even wonder why or who the tonga could have brought, they just assume it was for them and take it. Just like England assumes that they can have India (as if Indians weren’t even there) and so they take it.
This incident prompts Aziz’s response to Mrs. Moore at the Mosque. This foreshadows Aziz’s ultimate distrust of the British at the end of the novel. Here it is Aziz’s turn to misjudge the English. But Mrs. Moore proves him wrong, showing him she has in fact taken of her shoes according to Islamic custom. This premature reprimand, poses that not all British are inherently evil and that maybe both Indian and British can learn to coexist if given sufficient time, space and understanding.
The first serious muddle we encounter in the novel is at the Bridge Party. What was an attempt at bridging the communication gap between India and England, (representative of Indian-English relations, an example of the use of a microcosm) goes seriously awry. (This foreshadows future events in the novel) First, for the most part, there is a lack of communication altogether between the Indian guests and the English guests. What attempts are made are forced and stiff. To top it off, the British behave generally poorly towards the Indians.
(Representative of the outside turmoil.) and the few English who are civil to the Indian guests are grossly misunderstood; When Ronny comments on the missing collar stud and how it indicates the Indians’ inattention to detail. (Another example of misinterpretation on the part of the English) when in fact it wasn’t Aziz’s thoughtless dressing habits but his thoughtfulness in loaning Fielding his own stud (which, by the way, is another breakdown in communication, since Aziz had lied and said he had a spare.). This irony shows the English’s lack of concern for the facts and their preference for how things appear to be.
Another incident during the party contrasts this by the Indian people’s own inability to properly read between the lines and understand British polite speech. When Mrs. Moore is talking with Mrs. Bhattachara, Mrs. Moore suggests that she would like to visit her sometime. Which either means that some indefinate time in the future we should make plans to get together. Or it could just be a polite remark that is never followed up on. (seeing that this is Mrs. Moore we are dealing with and not Mrs. Callender, we can assume the former. )But Mrs. Bhattachara misinterprets the gesture, meant as a pleasantry, and thinks the gesture denotes a signal of an intimate friendship and accordingly decides to postpone her vacation to Calcutta just to see Mrs. Moore instead.
This is ironic since the next miscommunication is the same thing only in reverse. When Aziz suggests (as a pleasantry) that he would like to invite them all to his house. All the English take this as significant and ask for specific plans (when it was meant to be vague). It is ironic that this small insignificant misunderstanding should cause the main event of the novel.
The first straightforward foreshadowing of the events to come occurs with the car accident. This is the first event in the novel truly left unresolved (but certainly not the last). Indeed, even the character’s explanations range from the logical to the supernatural. The concrete events of the car accident are left unclear and the reader begins to feel the lack of communication between them and the author. This is the beginning of a pattern which reaches it’s climax in what transpires at the Marabar Caves.
And the author pushes the trust of the reader to the limits. He offers conflicting views of the caves themselves; He presents them as mundane holes in the monotonous rock-face (This is illustrated eloquently in the movie) but the characters themselves say they are interesting and the highlight of Chandrapore.
And this is when a new kind of miscommunication occurs; thus far all of the miscommunication can only be taken, at the very most, only slightly negative. However, with the bribery of Anthony (which in itself is a devious act) there erupts a series of events that can be horribly misconstrued against Aziz. (Which is ironic since one of Aziz’s main focuses has been to avoid insulting the English. Which is why he plans the trip in the first place, to avoid saying he didn’t really mean that he wanted them over but meant it as a polite gesture.)
When Aziz is alone with Adela at the Marabar Caves, the chapter is laced with sexual innuendo between them, to confuse and muddle the readers thought processes from the logical conclusion. This is directly counteracted by the fact that, when Aziz was supposed to have assaulted her, the author switches to his viewpoint, thus attempting to eliminate the chance that the reader will think that Aziz is guilty, but this action is counteracted by the fact the the narrator has been thus far fairly vague and, at the extreme, unreliable.
The only explicitly stated event in the chapter is when Aziz finds her field glasses, thus establishing to the reader, once and for all, Aziz’s innocence. But to the characters, devoid of the omniscience of the reader, this very action can be very easily misinterpreted (and is). Aziz having the field glasses complicates his assertion that he was not present when Adela was assaulted.
And the mayhem continues with the trial. Which snowballed and no longer was about whether Aziz assaulted Adela or not, but became a trial of whether India was assaulted by England or not. So a practically nonexistent event (Indeed, it may have all been a hallucination) becomes a concrete battle of the rights of Indians.
Through this attitude, Adela’s illness is again misconstrued. She isn’t at all physically sick. (Which was reported) but she had been interpreted by the British as a perpetual victim. This is an example of the authors ability to take a concrete thing, such as a person, and misconstrue it into an a symbol which it never meant to represent in the first place. This is exemplified later when Mrs. Moore is nearly deified by the Indians. The author even decides to go as far as having her name (Mrs. Moore) misheard to something akin to the name of a goddess (Esmiss Esmoor) of freedom, when she herself had cooled to the whole situation and had bowed out while everyone interpreted from her leave that she was forced to leave the country.
“A Passage to India” is an enlightening tale which captures the essence of miscommunication and misconception. It makes a very vital assertion that communication is one of the most important aspects of not only political relations, but also between relationships of any kind. It asserts the fact that listening to one another is also paramount and that everybody talking at once gets little done.
