Brief Analysis of the Beginning of A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

The title itself, A Passage to India, connotes a journey. Some of character's names allude to it as well. Miss Quested had "quest" in her name and Mrs. Moore has "more" in hers. Their names are fitting because Miss Quested continually expresses her desire to see the Indians so that she can see the "real India" (Forster25) so that her experience in India is a quest and not something conventional that she is used to in England. Mrs. Moore, leaves the club to a local mosque because the play, Cousin Kate is not interesting, as she has seen it before. She wants more than what she is used to seeing and experiencing. India however, is ridden with prejudice on both sides, which the narrator successfully discloses to readers. Even though the novel is about a quest, or a journey for more, travelers will find prejudice on both ends of their trip. Although the narrator reveals and presents both sides, is it possible that the voice might be questionable, and thus the presentation of both sides unequal? The evidence lies in the description of the setting, especially in the opening of the novel. Just when the narrator sounds objective in his descriptions, he personifies the natural setting and creates a more subjective tone full of interpretations rather than observations.

The opening of the novel describes two contrasting settings in Chandrapore. The contrasting worlds in the same city set up the scene for the rest of the novel. There are now two sides that need to be explored and considered, just as I have previously discussed. Then however, the narrator turns to say, "The sky settles everything...by herself she can do little" (Forster 5). Here the tone turns from being strictly objective to being suggestively subjective with the personification of natural elements, such as the sky. Now the description is laden with interpretation rather than just observation. Furthermore, the narrator is giving more power to certain natural elements over others. The sky apparently has more power than the rest of the earth, because it settles everything. The narrator explains this phenomenon saying, "They sky can do this because it is so strong and so enormous" (Forster 5). Out of every other natural element, the narrator judges the sky as the most powerful because if its size. Nothing is being measured, the strength of the sky is judged from interpretation of opinion rather than empirical observation.

If the narrator is not objective in all of his descriptions, it can lead to an unequal treatment the prejudice of Indians on English and vice versa. The novel then has a leaning toward the thinking, or prejudices of either side, which is our job as readers to discover as we continue reading.

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