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community in India, and exposes himself to the shifting and untrust–
worth y tides o f emo tion which are the na tural medium of his Indian
fr iend. U ltima tely the Fielding-Aziz connection lapses. But here the
interes ting point is th at when Fi elding fin all y takes the p a th the
Forster values seem to sanction , he retrea ts into a limita tion of his
bein g. His marriage to Stella Moore is intended to symbolize union of
the bes t o f Wes tern ra ti onality with Eas tern intuition (fo r although
Stell a is Eng lish , like her mo ther she is "Oriental " in her cap acity to
comp rehend the irra tiona l ). But the marriage is no t happy.
If
Forster is
on an yone's "side" here, it is on Stella's: Fielding'S unease refl ects
awareness of his own limita tions. Nevertheless, Forster goes out o f his
way
to
note th e less than perfect quality of the connecti on . But more
signifi canll y, and here the subversive strain is mos t manifes t, Fielding'S
loss of hi s sing le sta tus is the a bandonment of his moral independence.
Commitment, the des idera tum, is the giving of hos tages to fortune.
Once saddl ed with a famil y, Fielding becomes, as h e had not been
before, an Ang lo -Indian , "who would not now defy all his own people
for the sake of a stray Indian ." T hus commitment has engendered
limita tion , a reversion to repress ion and convention , the very qualities
Fors ter savagely sa tirized in his portrayal of the Ang lo -Indians. The
onl y sancti oned connec tion appears to be a sing le-sex on e, although
this is no t wh a t we read as the usual message o f
A Passage to Ind ia.
T he tension refl ected in this conflict finds larger express ion in the
search for harmon y and who leness th a t pervades the novels. T hose
before
A Passage to India
preach tha t insight is the reward, salva tion
the consequen ce of "connection ." The educations of Philip and
Ricki e, Lucy H on eychurch 's transformation , the reconcilia tion for
whi ch Ma rgaret strives, all express wha t has usuall y been conceived as
the substance o f Forster's humanisti c ideology. Yet in their enactment
o f the movements o f the central ch aracters toward who leness, the major
novels excep t for
A R oom Wi th a View
present the oppos ite of wha t
they claim
to
demo nstra te. Philip withdraws, Rickie is annihil a ted , in
her success Ma rgaret becomes remo te from humanity. This situa tion
partl y refl ects the development o f Forster 's metaphys ical position , a
course of deepening pess imism a bout the poss ibilities o f personal
rela ti ons th a t culmina tes in the vision of human limita tion of
A Pas–
sage to India.
Among th e ways in which it transcends the earlier novels,
A Passage to India
no t onl y defines limitation but confronts its
imp li ca tio ns. But it is impo rtant
to
reiterate that the germ of Forster's
trans forming vision in tha t novel is already present in
Where Angels
Fear to Tread.
