EM Forster, A passage to India

Adela lay for several days in the McBryde's bungalow. She tells that she went into a detestable cave, remembers scratching the wall with her finger nail, and then there was a shadow down the entrance tunnel, bottling her up. She hit him with her glasses, he pulled her round the cave by the strap, it broke, and she escaped. He never actually touched her. She refuses to cry, a degradation worse than what occurred in the Marabar and a negation of her advanced outlook. Adela feels that only Mrs. Moore can drive back the evil that happened to her. Ronny tells her that she must appear in court, and Adela asks if his mother can be there. Adela worries that Mrs. Moore is ill, but Ronny says that she is merely irritable at the moment. When she sees her, Adela thinks that she repels Mrs. Moore, who has no inclination to be helpful. Mrs. Moore appears slightly resentful, without her Christian tenderness. Mrs. Moore refuses to be at all involved in the trial. She tells that she will attend their marriage but not their trial. She vows to go to England. Ronny tells her that she appears to want to be left out of everything. Adela wonders whether she made a mistake, and tells Ronny that he is innocent. She feels that Mrs. Moore has told her that Aziz is innocent. Ronny tells her not to say such things, because every servant he has is a spy. Mrs. Moore tells Adela that of course Aziz is innocent. Mrs. Moore thinks that she is a bad woman, but she will not help Ronny torture a man for what he never did. She claims that there are different ways of evil, and she prefers her own to his. Ronny thinks that Mrs. Moore must leave India, for she was doing no good to herself or anyone else. Analysis: PREMIERE PARTIE: Forster portrays Adela as primarily a victim of the circumstances surrounding her attack rather than a victim of the attack herself. Adela approaches the events of the cave as simple if unpleasant facts, but her real degradation occurs with regard to the others' treatment of her. The way that the Anglo-Indians treat Adela places her as a perpetual victim, handling her like a fragile child. Adela refuses to play the role of the helpless victim, however, partially to retain her dignity and partially because she remains unsure of the actual legitimacy of her charges. Two significant forces trouble Adela: ___The first is her doubt that Aziz is guilty of the crime with which she has charged him, and she even tells Ronny that she believes she has made a mistake. Mrs. Moore confirms this doubt, definitively stating to Adela that Aziz is innocent. Her statement contains great significance, for Mrs. Moore serves as a paragon of behavior for Forster and the statement serves to shatter the atmosphere of condescending tenderness that surrounds Adela. Mrs. Moore's statement that Aziz is innocent is a turning point in the novel: it is the first time that anybody confronts Adela with the idea that she may be mistaken. ___ The second factor that concerns Adela is the state of Mrs. Moore. She has been kept apart from Adela, perhaps because she might serve as an advocate for Aziz. However, during her separation from Adela Mrs. Moore has become bitter and cynical; despite her status as perhaps the most moral character in A Passage to India, Mrs. Moore doubts her own virtue, considering herself to be in some sense evil. Her actions, however, demonstrate the contrary, as she opposes her son and confronts Adela with what she believes to be the truth. Mrs. Moore's conversation with Adela serves as a turning point for Mrs. Moore as well as Adela. It is here that Mrs. Moore breaks from her depression to take an active role in the story. She reasserts herself as the moral force in the story, a role that Adela's isolation and Mrs. Moore's solipsism had forced her to abandon. Ronny's realization that his mother must leave India is tainted with some degree of malicious self-interest. He seems to fear that she will interfere with the events of the trial by proclaiming Aziz's innocence and appears ready to send his mother back to England where she cannot oppose his interests. This is perhaps the most disturbing evidence that Ronny and his colleagues are interested not in the facts of the case but in the larger social ramifications. Ronny is ready to manipulate his mother and secure the conviction of an innocent man as part of Anglo-Indian politics. Chapter 22 is essentially Adela's inner struggle. The reader should note especially the many references to the echo she keeps hearing, which disappears when she suddenly cries that Aziz is innocent. Ronny does his best to convince her that she is mistaken and confused, and that his mother's defense of Aziz is just as mistaken. Adela is an intensely honest person in an emotional crisis, and her inability to think logically of what actually did happen in the caves distresses and horrifies her. Mrs. Moore, to whom Adela turns, repudiates her. Forster chooses specific expressions to show that Mrs. Moore withdraws from the situation, much as Godbole has done except that his withdrawal is peaceful. Mrs. Moore says that when she settles the marriages of her children she will "retire . . . into a cafe of [her] own." In another instance she remarks, "Oh, why can't I walk away and be gone?" Godbole has already gone. Although Ronny fears that his mother will probably help Aziz if she remains in India, it is Mrs. Moore who decides to return to England before the trial. She sails for England as the guest of Lady Mellanby, wife of the lieutenant governor of the province. Ronny, always impressed with rank and station, basks in the glow of this unexpected honor. As the omniscient author, Forster reveals Mrs. Moore's meditations. He shows her pondering immorality. She had come to India satisfied with her view of man and his relation with infinity. She played her game of "patience," secure in the traditions of her Christian belief. Her experiences in India, and particularly her experience in the cave, resulted in a change of attitude. The evil of the Marabar was for her "the undying worm" itself. This presumably has reference to Mark 9:44, "where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched." The subject is hell, for Mrs. Moore, the hell of meaninglessness. It should be noted that the caves do not effect everyone equally. Mrs. Moore reacts violently to her experience in the first cave; Adela does not react until she reaches the second one, and her reaction is different; and Aziz and Fielding seem unaffected.    Back at the bungalow, Adela finds that this is indeed so. She keeps wanting reassurance from Mrs. Moore - that she is doing the right thing, that the older woman sympathizes, etc. - yet she seems unable to get any response. "Mrs. Moore showed no inclination to be helpful. A sort of resentment emanated from her. She seemed to say: 'Am I to be bothered for ever?' Her Christian tenderness had gone, or had developed into a hardness, a just irritation against the human race; she had taken no interest at the arrest, asked scarcely any question..." Talking about the caves, Adela mentions the echo. "I can't get rid of it," she explains. "I don't suppose you ever will," Mrs. Moore replies rather unkindly - but then Mrs. Moore is suffering herself, though her son Ronny does not understand this. He is simply annoyed with her and reflects that she is "by no means the dear old lady outsiders supposed. India had brought her out into the open." Now she wants only to return to England, and Ronny is inclined to let her go, despite the heat. Later that night, Adela tells Ronny - strangely - that Aziz is "innocent, I made an awful mistake." Immediately on saying this, she exclaims that her echo is better and adds that "Aziz is good. You heard your mother say so." Ronny tells her that his mother said nothing, but Adela seems to be suffering from the extraordinary hallucination that Mrs. Moore said "Dr. Aziz never did it." Worse yet, when Ronny, "to clear the confusion up," asks his mother about it, she denies having said anything, but then adds that "of course, he is innocent." Adela is terribly upset by this, and when Ronny tells her that now "the case has to come before a magistrate" because "the machinery has started," she is in tears. Ronny, furious with his mother, decides that she ought to leave India at once. Comment: Both Adela and Mrs. Moore have had the same devastating experience in the caves, an experience of cosmic "panic and emptiness" which has led them-each in her own way-to abandon all faith in human values. Mrs. Moore, the same Mrs. Moore who told Ronny that "God is love," now rejects "all this rubbish about love," and though she knows Aziz is innocent, refuses to be bothered about his defense. Her state of revulsion with the world seems to be a stage in the mystical experience, which might eventually develop beyond negation to something else, though Forster has not suggested what. When Adela, however, thinks she hears Mrs. Moore saying that Aziz is innocent, her "echo" seems to go away for a moment-as though the goblins of nihilism could be dispelled by human faith and trust. The question now is, can they be dispelled by anything, for any length of time? Crying after Mrs. Moore's chilly reception, Adela begins to cry out Aziz's name. She believes she has made a mistake. The echo goes away after saying his name and she asks Ronny if she should give up the trial. A Her story is that she entered the cave, scratched the wall with her fingernail to start the echo, and a shadow entered down the ntrance, shutting off her exit. She hit at him with the glasses, he grabbed them and pulled her around the cave by the strap until it broke, then she escaped. She feels that it's a lot of nonsense, that she's upset, but she'll get over it. All the women are sympathetic, but Mrs. Moore will have nothing to do with her. There had been a near riot at the offices at the civil station, but it had been stopped, Ronny and McBryde tell her. They also say that she will have to appear in court, identify the prisoner, and submit to cross-examination by an Indian lawyer. She wants to know whether Mrs. Moore will be with her, and Ronny assures her that she will be, and that he will also be there. Since Ronny can't serve as magistrate in this case, it will come before his assistant, who is an Indian. This decision has been protested, but Adela is not bothered by it. Now they tell her that Fielding is defending Aziz and has sent her a letter, which they have opened, in case it was useful to them. It wasn't. He only suggests that she has made a mistake and that Dr. Aziz is innocent. She replies, "Would that I had!" Adela has been at the McBrydes since the incident, but Ronny now takes her back to his own bungalow and to Mrs. Moore, who is not cordial. Ronny tells her she will have to testify, and she refuses. She wants nothing to do with it. "I shall attend your marriage, but not your trial," she tells them. "Then I shall go to England." Now Adela tells Ronny that Aziz is innocent; that she has made an awful mistake. Mrs. Moore affirms, "Of course he is innocent." She says that she will not testify. She will not help them to torture the doctor for something he didn't do. Adela wants to withdraw the case, but it's too late. Ronny decides to send his mother home before the trial so she can't testify. Part 2: Chapter 22 Analysis: We have again the suggestion that the caves themselves have supernatural powers. Adela's account of the incident indicates that she was trying to set up the echo when she was interrupted by the shadow in the entry tunnel. Mrs. Moore is not herself and has not been since her encounter with the echo in the cave. We have begun to suspect in this chapter that Fielding is right-Aziz is innocent. We know we can trust Mrs.Moore, and she declares that he is innocent even though she was nowhere near the cave when Adela was attacked. But the die has been cast. The case will go forward in full fury. Ironically, an Indianwill be sitting as the judge because of Ronny's vested interest. Ronny now intervenes on behalf of the Anglo community and spirits his mother out of the country so she will not be able to