Edward Morgan Forster ( )

Born in a well-to-do professional family He went to Cambridge He became one of the leading members of the Bloomsbury Group He remained an independent liberal throughout his life Early Life

Italy inspired his earliest novels. Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905)  English gentility vs. Italian vitality; The Longest Journey (1907)  a satire of the public school system and the English notions of respectability; A Room with a View (1908)  the contradictions of love; Howards End (1910)  the difficult relationship between what people feel and the way they act. The Trip to Italy

1912  he went to India and spent some months travelling with an Indian friend. Maurice (1971)  homosexual experience. During World War I, he was a Red Cross worker in Alexandria, Egypt  he revisited India and was the personal secretary to the Maharajah of Dewas Senior for some time. A Passage to India (1924)  relationships between the British and the Indians. He lectured in Cambridge. Aspects of the Novel (1927)  critical work. Travels to India

With the Modernists he shared: the inability to believe in accepted values; the conviction that reality is elusive and many-faceted; unconventional themes (ex anti-imperialism, homosexuality); From a technical point of view, on the other hand, he: has little in common with the experimenters of the modern novel form; uses clear language and style; does not reproduce the chaotic flow of thoughts in the human mind. A Modernist or a Traditional Writer?

It is divided into three parts = the main moments of the story and the three Indian seasons: 1. ‘Mosque’  the cool weather; 2. ‘Caves’  the hot weather; 3. ‘Temple’  the rains. It deals with the difficult political and human relationships between the British and the Indians: The British despise the Indians; The Indians’ behaviour ranges between fear and hatred for the British. Forster’s irony is pitiless against both the British and the Indians. A Passage to India

Mrs Moore and Adela Quested have come to Chandrapore to visit Ronald Heaslop, Mrs Moore son and Adela’s future husband. They are full of enthusiasm for Indian culture, but soon find out that the ‘real’ India is exactly what Anglo-Indians do not want to know. Mr Fielding is the only British resident who is interested in the Indians and their culture. Fielding is an English liberal who is friends with Dr Aziz, a Muslim Indian, anxious to establish warm personal contacts with the British. The Story

Aziz invites the two English women to visit the Marabar Caves, a sacred Hindu site. Once there, Adela accuses Aziz of having attempted to rape her. During her testimony at the trial which follows, she retracts her accusation and Aziz is acquitted. The Story

The trial proves to be the turning point in the characters’ lives: Adela is deserted by the British colony and has to return to England with all her ideals shattered. Heaslop’s career is ruined because of the scandal. Aziz and Fielding’s friendship is finished. Aziz now hates the British and thinks that being friends with one of them would be the ultimate weakness for an Indian. The Story