The book “A passage to India”
Choose one of the questions below and write a 4-5 page essay in response, writing a draft first, that you then thoroughly revise, changing the order of the paragraphs if necessary to make the argument you have arrived at. Make sure you have the reading in front of you, and work with the ideas it expresses. The best way to do this is to choose good phrases and/ or passages to quote. Make sure you quote correctly and use quotation to help yourself engage more closely with the writer’s ideas, not just as evidence. Move back and forth between your writing and the novel, being careful also to avoid summary of the text. Assume that your reader is familiar with the story. When you write about an event or scene, do not retell it, but instead refer to it briefly and then make a bigger point about it. Your essay’s organization will be based on the bigger argument you make about the book, not on the story’s plot. 1. In E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India, there are many religions, including Islam, Hindu, Christianity, and others. Centrally, Mrs. Moore loses religious faith after the Marabar Caves visit, although she earlier spoke of Christianity convincing her that kindness matters more than anything. Anglo-Indians either speak of their atheism, like Fielding, or a version of Christianity more connected with the national anthem than anything else. Aziz has a poetic sense of Islam, and the Brahmin, Professor Godbole, is a fervent Hindu, who at crucial moments either sings or speaks of unusual beliefs that seem central to the novel, in spite of their absurdity. We also see references to the universe as something transcending human concerns, or that might be empty and godless. Explore the novel’s use of religion and work to decide its final position on religion as either creating division, or, if you like, as bringing characters together, or of India as undermining religious faith in some way. What, at the end, does Forster seem to say about the effects of religion on the characters? 2. Mrs. Moore and Adela Quested each goes through a profound challenge to her core beliefs in E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India, as a result of what they experience in the Marabar Caves. You could argue that each woman moves towards of a crisis before the visit to the caves, perhaps because of the effects of the Indian landscape, because of being among Anglo-Indians and seeing their behavior towards Indians, or perhaps because their presence in India has induced a sense of pointlessness instead of being stimulating. Account for each woman’s experience in the Marabar Caves. What does the visit undermine for each woman? Does this go beyond our usual sense of religion or of feelings in romantic relationships? Does Forster suggest that the novel’s setting in India creates this deep reconsideration of beliefs? Please be sure to think of each character’s experiences separately, and then also to think of them together. What happens if you think of their experiences at the same time?
