"Mosque" Chapter in E.M. Forster's A Passage to India

Just as the opening of the first part of the novel entitled "Mosque," opens with a chapter of description of setting, the second part, "Caves," begins with a chapter of setting description. The first part however, establishes the city of Chandrapore, in which there seem to be two cities in one. The narrator creates two different worlds and environments in that one city. In "Caves," there is only a single setting, the Marabar Caves, but the emphasis is not a contrast between two spaces in one area. The emphasis instead, is on the bareness and barrenness of the environment. Aziz takes so much effort to organize the trip for Mrs. Moore and Miss Quested, but the result of the trip is anticlimactic. They come to a place that is almost completely empty and void, except for the caves. Aziz's efforts and worries appear to be excessive, but they are understandable. When trying to please those from another country, one has to take into account different cultures and ways of thinking. Aziz does not understand exactly how an English person thinks. It is no wonder then that he worries excessively and takes drastic measures to ensure satisfaction in the trip, but all of that comes to not. The opening chapter does not say anything of the coming problems inside the caves, but the description of the setting foreshadows them.

Kawa Dol, the hills in which the Marabar Caves are located seem to embody nothingness. The concept sounds like a paradox, that something can embody nothingness, but the nature of discrepancy continues into the anticlimactic trip Aziz takes the two English women. The caves are described with, "Nothing, nothing attaches to them" (Forster 137). The word, "nothing," is repeated twice consecutively, in a single sentence. There are no remarkable memories or adjectives that are "attached" to the caves. They are associated with nothingness. The idea of nothingness reappears in the chapters afterwards when the caves are described as "holes" (Forster 156). The caves are like black holes that are not only empty, but represent nothingness.

The work that Aziz puts into organizing the trip is disproportional to the outcome-nothing. Mrs. Moore does not go into the second set of caves. Instead, she feels the residue of the caves' nothingness as she sits outside as the others explore the other caves. At the end of the trip, Aziz is ultimately arrested for Adel's experience of the caves' nothingness. It is said that Aziz puts so much into organizing the trip because of his concept of hospitality. "Like most Orientals," says the narrator, "Aziz overrate hospitality" (Forster157). His sense of hospitality is from being "Oriental." He puts excessive work into the trip because he "overrates" its importance, but sadly, it comes to nothing. The question then arises of the result of the attempt to appease the English on the side of the Indians. Is it possible for the two groups of people to be friends if the effort is put into it? Most of us have been taught that if you work hard enough, you will get what you want, but in this case, Aziz does not experience that, forcing doubt onto the aphorism. The question is one that the novel grapples with until the end. The anticlimactic ending-of nothingness-of the trip to the Marabar Caves presents doubt to the question of friendship through effort.

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