Passage to India
In E.M. Forster's novel A Passage to India, characters often seem grouped into one of two opposing camps: Anglo-Indian or native Indian. All the traditional stereotypes apply, and the reader is hard pressed to separate the character from his or her racial and ethnic background. Without his "Britishness", for instance, Ronny disappears. However, a few characters are developed to the point that they transcend these categories, and must be viewed as people in their own right. Perhaps the most interesting of these is Mrs. Moore. Not only do ethnic boundaries not usually apply to her, but these divisions often blur in her case. Mrs. Moore straddles the line between conventional East and West in a number of different ways, and in some cases leaves both behind completely. From her very first appearance in the book, Mrs. Moore is an atypical Westerner. The only impressions of Anglos that the reader has yet gathered are the complaints of Hamidullah and his friends at the dinner party, Major Callendar's abrupt summons of Dr. Aziz and the rudeness of Mrs. Callendar and Mrs. Lesley. Mrs. Moore materializes from nothing in the dark mosque, an apparition in a place where no whites ever bother to visit. She has r
It is fitting that Esmiss Esmoor becomes a legend to be periodically revived in Chandrapur. Throughout the book, she is described with an aura of otherworldiness - she is East, she is West, she is something else entirely. She even dies at sea, in transit between the two worlds, giving the sense that her spirit still wanders back and forth. Mrs. Moore journeys between eternity and transience, society and universal humanity, the petty reality of an old lady and the immense reality of a world without end and without meaning, and in the end escapes all of them. 1) Forster, E.M. A Passage to India. Harcourt, Br Aziz forms an unusually deep attachment to Mrs. Moore almost instantly. He feels an affinity for her that is difficult to explain; it is rooted, though, in the pronouncement "Then you are an Oriental" (23). He says this after she reveals that she does not logically judge people, but only knows whether she likes them or not. Aziz, however, is viewing Mrs. Moore through the same dichotomy that he instinctively hates, but within which has been trained to operate. There is no such thing as an Oriental in the absolute, and no viewpoint that defines one. For convenience's sake, Western civilization has created an Other as counterpart to itself, and a set of characteristics to go with it. Aziz has been raised in a world of "us" and "them", and meeting an Englishperson with the perspicacity to see through these illusions is a remarkable occurrence for him. He recognizes that she is not "them", and bound by the idea of categories, automatically makes her "us". This distinction, though, does not diminish t
Some common words found in the essay are:
Modern Christianity, Moore Christianity, East West, Passage India, Dr Aziz, Lesley Moore, Adela God, Godbole Adela, Chandrapur Throughout, Esmiss Esmoor, passage india, east west, esmiss esmoor, dr aziz,
Approximate Word count = 1088
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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