In search of India

In Search of India , original title A Passage to India , is a 1924 novel by the British author E. M. Forster , whose plot takes place against the background of the conditions in British India and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s. He addresses the clash of Eastern and Western perspectives and ways of life, which leads to the failure of well-intentioned gestures. E. M. Forster knew the living conditions in British India from his own experience due to two longer stays in 1914 and at the beginning of the 1920s,

The novel, which was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1924 , was criticized immediately after its publication for its allegedly anti-British stance and its not always accurate portrayal of the conditions in British India, but is now regarded as an outstanding representation of a foreign culture and as a classic of 20th century literature. The US American magazine Time selected him in 2005 as one of the 100 most important novels to be published between 1923 and 2005. In 2015, 82 international literary critics and scholars voted the novel one of the most important British novels .

The English title of the novel is borrowed from a poem from Walt Whitman's main work Blades of Grass . Whitman's poem asks whether it is possible to have an equal relationship with another person when that relationship is complicated by an environment characterized by colonial power and racial discrimination.

action

Mrs. Moore travels with the young Adela Quested to Chandrapore in India, because she wants to find out whether she should really marry Mrs. Moore's son Ronny Heaslop. When Mrs. Moore happened to meet the young Indian doctor Dr. Aziz, who would like to learn as much as possible about the British way of life, befriends the two, and through Mrs. Moore, Dr. Aziz also know Miss Quested. She wants to get to know the "real" India and tries to circumvent the prejudices and social barriers of the British living in India. Dr. Aziz organizes a trip to the famous Marabar Caves for Mrs. Moore and Adela. For him, however, this excursion turned out to be a stroke of fate, which at the same time strained relations between British and Indians to the extreme. Adela accuses Dr. Aziz for molesting her while visiting the cave, Dr. Aziz is arrested. However, during the trial, Adela Quested withdraws her allegation. The acquitted Dr. Aziz angrily withdraws into a Hindu-Muslim community and rejects any further dealings with the British. In the third part of the novel, Dr. Aziz accepted a position in a state ruled by Indians and lives there in peace with his young family, writes poetry and reads Persian literature. He is visited by his former friend, Mr. Fielding, who was once the head of Government College. They discuss the future of India, and Aziz prophesies that he and Fielding can only become true friends when the British leave India.

people

Dr. Aziz

A young Indian doctor of Muslim faith who works in the British hospital in the (fictional) town of Chandrapore. He counts Cyril Fielding among his best friends. While at the beginning of the novel he is indifferent to the fact that he lives in a British colony, after the trial he becomes a supporter of the Indian liberation movement. E. M. Forster depicts him as a man driven by emotions and indicates in the novel that this is a characteristic trait typical of Indians.

Cyril Fielding

Fielding, 45, is unmarried and heads the small college in Chandrapore, where Indians can graduate. Fielding is portrayed as someone who cannot penetrate Indian life with his rational view of life. Fielding, however, is drawn as someone who is very respectful of Indian culture. He is friends with Aziz, but the events described in the novel lead to a temporary end of the friendship, for which there is only hope at the end of the novel.

Adela Quested

A young British teacher visiting India because she is considering marrying Ronny Heaslop. She is portrayed as intelligent, brave and honest, but at the same time also as prudish. Fielding describes her as a smug person at one point. She arrives in India to get to know the "real" India. Traumatized by a visit to the Marabar Caves, she presumably wrongly accuses Aziz of sexual harassment.

Mrs. Moore

The elderly and considerate mother of Ronny Heaslop. She visits Chandrapore to possibly witness her son's engagement to Adela Quested. She accepts the Indian way of life, and the Indians portrayed in the novel are more open and inclined towards her than towards other British people. After going through a traumatic experience similar to Adela Quested's, she becomes apathetic and bitter.

Ronny Heaslop

The British Magistrate of Chandrapore. He shares many of the racist prejudices of his British colleagues, even if he is portrayed as a generally decent man. He ends his engagement to Adela Quested when she hears her allegations against Dr. Aziz withdraws. He regards their behavior as a betrayal of their race. Towards the end of the novel, he turns out to be an anti-Semite.

Professor Narayan Godbole

An elderly, very polite and thoughtful brahmin who looks at the world with equanimity and serenity. He remains unaffected by the events described in the novel.

Mr. Turton

Chandrapore's British Treasurer. He shows no hatred towards Indians, not least because this would negate his work in this city. But he shows himself determined to defend members of his race and despises people like Fielding who are open to the Indians.

Mrs. Turton

Mr. Turton's wife. She is openly racist and often behaves rude to Indians and Europeans who are open to Indian culture. During the trial, she yells at Adela when she withdraws her allegations.

Major Callendar

The British chief physician and Dr. Aziz's supervisor at the hospital. He shows his racist attitude more openly than other male characters in the novel. There are rumors in Chandrapore that Callendar deliberately tortured an injured Indian by sprinkling pepper on his wound.

Mr. McBryde

The British Chief of Police in Chandrapore. Like Mr. Turton, he believes that dark-skinned people are inferior to fair-skinned people. During the trial, he publicly proclaims that it is a scientifically proven fact that dark-skinned men are attracted to light-skinned women, but not the other way around. Even so, he is more tolerant of Indians than most Brits and is easy friends with Fielding.

Miss Derek

An Englishwoman who has a job with a princely Hindu family. She often borrows their automobile and usually doesn't bother asking for their permission or returning it on time. She is having an affair with Mr. McBryde.

Nawab Bahadur

The socially highest Indian in Chandrapore, a Muslim. Wealthy and generous, he was initially loyal to the British. Among other things, he lends his automobile to Ronny Heaslop. After the trial, he refuses to continue using the title “Nawab” that the British have given him.

Hamidullah

Dr. Aziz's uncle and friend. He studied law at Cambridge and makes the statement at the beginning of the novel that it is easier in Great Britain to be friends with an Englishman. Dr. Aziz shares his opinion as the novel progresses.

Amritrao

A prominent Indian lawyer from Calcutta called to Chandrapore to assist Dr. Defend Aziz. He is known for his resolute anti-British stance. He takes on the case for political reasons and wants to work for Dr. Aziz from Adela Quested to sue 20,000 rupees for her withdrawn charge.

Mahmoud Ali

An Indian Muslim lawyer who openly hates the British.

Dr. Panna Lal

A low-caste Hindu physician named Dr. Aziz's rival at the hospital is.

Ralph Moore

A reserved and sensitive young man, the second son of Mrs. Moore.

Stella Moore

Mrs. Moore's daughter and later Fielding's young wife.

History of origin

E. M. Forster began to draft the novel in 1913 and had finished developing the plot in 1921. After revising the last part of the novel several times, he did not publish it until 1924. The literary historian Sutherland sees the reason why Forster struggled so long with the end of the novel is that a narrative is the inherent problematic of a political system - namely here the relationship between the dominant and the ruled - cannot resolve. The novel therefore ends with no result when the (former) friends Dr. Aziz and Cyril Fielding, who will not ride side by side because their surroundings force them apart:

But the horses didn't want it - they swerved apart; the earth didn't want it, sending up rocks through which riders must pass single file; the temples, the tank, the jai, the palace, the birds, the carrion, the Guest House, that came into view as they issued from the gap and saw Mau beneath; they didn't want it, they said in their hundred voices, 'No, not yet', and the sky said, 'No, not there'.

Adaptations

stage

The American writer of Indian descent Santha Rama Rau wrote a play that was first performed in 1960 and on Broadway from January 31, 1962 to April 28, 1962. Another stage adaptation is by Martin Sherman and premiered in London in 2002. It has since been performed at various theaters in the UK and was also shown in New York in November 2004.

Movie and TV

As early as 1965 there was a TV version based on the play by Santha Rama Rau, in which Sybil Thorndike , Virginia McKenna , Cyril Cusack and Saeed Jaffrey, among others , played. The television version aired in November 1965.

The best-known adaptation of the novel is the 1984 film Journey to India . After its success, two more novels by E. M. Forster were made into films in the years that followed, Zimmer mit Aussicht and Maurice .

The producers Brabourne and Goodwin had chosen David Lean to direct the film adaptation, who had not realized another project since his failure with Ryan's daughter in 1970. However, he then agreed to this project. David Lean wrote the script, directed the film, and as a former editor he was also able to finish editing the film. The shooting took place from November 1983 to April 1984 for the most part in Bangalore . The houses of the British for the film and the Indian village with the mosque were built on the property of the Maharajas of Bangalore. The producers tried to make the lavish locations easily accessible for the then 75-year-old director without the film team having to travel long distances. However, a few locations were found further away from Bangalore. The landscape shots at the end of the film were made in Kashmir.

The film was nominated for a total of eleven Academy Awards in 1985. At the 1985 Academy Awards , however, most of the awards went to Miloš Forman's film Amadeus , while Peggy Ashcroft went to India for Best Supporting Actress and Maurice Jarre for Best Score . Both artists were also awarded the Golden Globe Award in 1985. There was also a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film of the Year . At the BAFTA Awards 1986 it remained after originally ten nominations in the award for Peggy Ashcroft. The film was also able to win the coveted National Board of Review for Best Picture , while Victor Banerjee received the award for Best Actor .

expenditure

• EM Forster: A Passage to India. Edward Arnold, Cambridge 1924
• EM Forster: A Passage to India. Penguin Books, London 1936
• EM Forster: A Passage to India. Penguin Classics, London 2005 ISBN 978-0-14-144116-0
• EM Forster: In search of India. Translated by Wolfgang von Einsiedel. Fischer publishing house
• EM Forster: In search of India. Translated by Wolfgang von Einsiedel. Fischer paperback 1960, 2001, ISBN 3-596-15154-6

literature

• Margaret Drabble (Editor): The Oxford Companion to English Literature , Oxford University Press, Oxford 1985.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Drabble: The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 1985, p. 742.
2. ↑ The best British novel of all times - have international critics found it? In: The Guardian . Accessed January 2, 2016.
3. ↑ Donald D. Kummings: A Companion to Walt Whitman in Google Book Search. John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 978-1-4051-9551-5 .
4. ↑ ^{a b c} John Sutherland: How to be well read: A Guide to 500 great novels and a Handful of Literary Curiosities. Entry on A passage to India . Random House Books, London 2014, ISBN 978-0-09-955296-3 .
5. ↑ This fictional city refers to Bankipore am Ganges, today a district of Patna . See A Passage to India , Penguin Classics, p. 344.
6. ↑ In the (fictional) Marabar Caves it is easy to see the real Barabar Caves , which are located near Patna.
7. ^ A Passage to India . Archived from the original on October 20, 2012. Retrieved January 8, 2016.
8. ↑ Shared Experience Take Forster Passage to India . August 30, 2002. Archived from the original on January 8, 2015. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved January 8, 2016. 
9. ^ Charles Isherwood: A Minimal Meeting of Forster's Twain . In: The New York Times , November 4, 2004. Archived from the original on June 22, 2013. Retrieved January 8, 2016. 
10. ↑ BBC Play of the Month: Season 1, Episode 2 Passage to India . Archived from the original on May 2, 2009. Retrieved January 8, 2016.