1. Edward Morgan Forster (1879-1970)
Performer - Culture & Literature
Marina Spiazzi, Marina Tavella,
Margaret Layton © 2013

2. E. M. Forster
1. Life
Born in London in 1879.
His father died early and he was brought up by his mother and his great-aunt.
Entered King’s College, Cambridge in1897.
Lived in Italy and in visited India.
Became an Honorary Fellow of King’s College in 1946, and spent the rest of his life there.
Died in 1970.
The childhood home of Forster: Rooksnest, near Stevenage, England.
Performer - Culture & Literature

3. 2. Main works 1905 Where Angels Fear to Tread 1907 The Longest Journey
E. M. Forster
2. Main works
1905
Where Angels Fear to Tread
1907
The Longest Journey
1908
A Room with a View
1910
Howards End
A Passage to India
1924
1927
Aspects of the Novel
1971
Maurice (published posthumously)
Performer - Culture & Literature

4. 3. Traditional and modern elements
E. M. Forster
3. Traditional and modern elements
A writer of the comedy of manners who is interested in the society of his time.
The plot arrangement and the presence of an occasionally obtrusive omniscient narrator are drawn from tradition.
Optimism about the future is questioned through the technique of irony, reminiscent of Jane Austen’s.
Performer - Culture & Literature

5. 3. Traditional and modern elements
E. M. Forster
3. Traditional and modern elements
The emphasis is on personal relationships, on personal vision
the only ways «to connect»
to find harmony in the face of the increasing disintegration of the world
Forster’s complexity derives from his talent for self-scrutiny, his attempt to reach a visionary understanding of life.
Performer - Culture & Literature

6. 4. A Passage to India (1924) TITLE
E. M. Forster
4. A Passage to India (1924)
TITLE
Forster began to develop the novel in 1913 after visiting India.
He was concerned with the issue of ‘connection,’ as well as with the desire to overcome social and racial differences.
He named the novel after Walt Whitman’s poem Passage to India (1871) which celebrated the opening of the Suez Canal as a bridge between Europe and India.
Personal relationships are a fundamental value in the novel  general need for tolerance and sympathy.
The Suez Canal.
Performer - Culture & Literature

7. The novel has a tripartite structure
E. M. Forster
4. A Passage to India (1924)
STRUCTURE OF THE NOVEL
The novel has a tripartite structure
Mosque
Caves
Temple
Performer - Culture & Literature

8. 4. A Passage to India (1924) PLOT
E. M. Forster
4. A Passage to India (1924)
PLOT
Two English women, the young Miss Adela Quested and the elderly Mrs Moore, travel to India. Adela is engaged to Mrs Moore’s son, Ronny, a British magistrate from the Indian city of Chandrapore.
Both Adela and Mrs Moore hope to see the real India.
An Indian doctor, Aziz, offers them the chance to visit the Marabar caves accompanied by the headmaster of the local college, Fielding, and by Godbole, a Hindu professor.
Performer - Culture & Literature

9. 4. A Passage to India (1924) PLOT
E. M. Forster
4. A Passage to India (1924)
PLOT
After the visit of the caves, Adela accuses Aziz of physical assault and he is arrested.
Mrs Moore suffers a nervous breakdown and loses the will to go on living.
There is a trial but Adela realizes that she is not sure if Aziz is guilty. The judge drops the charges and the Indians celebrate Aziz's victory. The English community starts to despise Adela.
Aziz decides to move out of the Raj to a free Indian state. Fielding and Adela return to England and he marries Stella, Mrs Moore’s daughter.
Performer - Culture & Literature

10. 4. A Passage to India (1924) PLOT
E. M. Forster
4. A Passage to India (1924)
PLOT
Two years have passed and Aziz and Godbole now live in Mau, an independent Hindu state. Godbole is the Minister of Education and Aziz has a clinic in town.
Godbole receives a note that Fielding and his new wife will be paying a visit.
At first Aziz does not want to see Fielding because he thinks that he married Adela in London.
When they finally meet, Aziz gives Fielding a letter to deliver to Adela forgiving her for her charges against him.
Performer - Culture & Literature

11. 4. A Passage to India (1924) MAIN CHARACTERS
E. M. Forster
4. A Passage to India (1924)
MAIN CHARACTERS
Miss Adela Quested  A young Englishwoman who joins her fiancé Ronny in India. She is open-minded and wants to get to know India.
Mrs Moore  An elderly Englishwoman who travels to India, in the hope that Adela will marry her son Ronny. She becomes a symbolic presence. She symbolizes an ideal spiritual openness.
Performer - Culture & Literature

12. 4. A Passage to India (1924) MAIN CHARACTERS
E. M. Forster
4. A Passage to India (1924)
MAIN CHARACTERS
Dr Aziz  An Indian doctor from Chandrapore, who tries to make friends with Adela Quested, Mrs Moore, and Cyril Fielding. He is full of contradictions and uses irony to criticise his English superiors.
Cyril Fielding  The principal of the government college near Chandrapore. He thinks the Indians should be educated as individuals. He is Forster’s model of liberal humanism.
Performer - Culture & Literature

13. 4. A Passage to India (1924) MAIN CHARACTERS
E. M. Forster
4. A Passage to India (1924)
MAIN CHARACTERS
Ronny Heaslop  Mrs Moore’s son, the magistrate at Chandrapore. Although he was brought up with an open-minded attitude, he is suspicious of the Indians. Forster presents his failure as the fault of the colonial system, not his own.
Professor Godbole  A Brahman Hindu who teaches at Fielding’s college.
Performer - Culture & Literature

14. Adela realizes that she does not love Ronny.
E. M. Forster
5. Style and Setting
Occasionally obtrusive omniscient narrator, intrudes from time to time to comment on the situation.
Shifting point of view from character to character.
The Indian landscape dominates the novel challenging the established values of Western civilisation.
It has no interiors or exteriors, nothing is private
It awakens desire
Everyone can see you and know even your secrets, weaknesses and failures.
Adela realizes that she does not love Ronny.
Performer - Culture & Literature

15. 6. The Marabar Caves Based on the real-life Barabar Caves.
E. M. Forster
6. The Marabar Caves
Based on the real-life Barabar Caves.
Enclosed spaces that are, however, public spaces.
There are no paintings, decorations or other signs of human presence.
Both Mrs Moore and Adela have traumatic experiences inside them.
For both the transforming experience comes in the form of an “echo”.
The Barabar Caves.
Performer - Culture & Literature

16. E. M. Forster
6. The Marabar Caves
In Hindu mythology the caves represent the “womb of the universe”, from which emanated all the forms of created life.
A psychological explanation would identify this idea with the notion of the subconscious.
According to literary tradition the echo is the symbol of the harmonies in creation, but Forster gives the echo a de-humanizing quality.
Performer - Culture & Literature

17. 7. Themes The clash between the western and eastern cultures.
E. M. Forster
7. Themes
The clash between the western and eastern cultures.
The difficulties man faces in trying to come to terms with himself and the universe.
The dissolution of British dominion over India.
Criticism of imperialistic policies of discrimination under which personal relations were spoilt.
Forster shared the view of Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement, which wanted complete social equality between the British and the Indians.
The development of an Indian national consciousness is described by Forster in the character of Aziz.
Performer - Culture & Literature