Set in British India in the 1920s, A Passage to India has a fairly straightforward plot. Adela Quested, a young Englishwoman, visits the fictional city of Chandrapore to determine if she and Ronny, the City Magistrate, are a fit for marriage. Adela is accompanied by a chaperone, Mrs. Moore, who is also Ronny's mother. Noticing the gulf between Indians and Anglo-Indians, Adela quickly desires to experience "the real India." Shortly thereafter, Aziz, an urbane Indian doctor, invites both Adela and Mrs. Moore on a voyage to visit the Marabar Caves. Composing the crux of the novel, this journey to the mystical caverns ends in a muddle—a word, I've learned, that's very Forsterian.
What is a muddle? In A Room with a View, Mr. Emerson intuits that Lucy is denying her need for genuine love and says: "You are inclined to get muddled...Pull out from the depths those thoughts you do not understand, and spread them out in the sunlight and know the meaning of them." A muddle here is brought on by Lucy's inner falsehood, by denying the impulses of her "true" self. Muddle evokes confusion.
"Muddledom" in A Passage to India is more closely aligned with formlessness. The Marabar Caves are described by Forster as atavistic and "without attributes." Whatever word is spoken in them is reduced to an ou-boum, an echo that speaks of a universe in which all differences have been annihilated. In the caves, poor little "talkative Christianity" is silenced, and Mrs. Moore muses: "Pathos, piety, courage—they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value." Muddle for the British, with their desire for structure and the scientific, is not only distasteful, but disturbing. But Forster suggests that, for a perceptive few, muddle can reveal certain mysteries, unveil a more authentic world. Mrs. Moore, for example, possesses an intuitive understanding and sympathy; she's rendered holy as an embodiment of all-embracing charity. Unlike Adela, who views India as a "frieze," she can grasp its spirit and sense that, in India, the "inarticulate world" is closer than it ever is in England.
A Passage to India is overall many things—a portrait of a society in the grip of Imperialism, a comedy of manners, a tale of self-discovery, a melodrama, a detective story, a spiritual meditation. What's clear is that Forster attaches a holiness to the heart's affections. A failure of love between human beings is a moral catastrophe, with error and evil as its inevitable consequences. "No one can realize how much kindness we Indians need," says Aziz. "We do not even realize it ourselves."
Set in British India in the 1920s, A Passage to India has a fairly straightforward plot. Adela Quested, a young Englishwoman, visits the fictional city of Chandrapore to determine if she and Ronny, the City Magistrate, are a fit for marriage. Adela is accompanied by a chaperone, Mrs. Moore, who is also Ronny's mother. Noticing the gulf between Indians and Anglo-Indians, Adela quickly desires to experience "the real India." Shortly thereafter, Aziz, an urbane Indian doctor, invites both Adela and Mrs. Moore on a voyage to visit the Marabar Caves. Composing the crux of the novel, this journey to the mystical caverns ends in a muddle—a word, I've learned, that's very Forsterian.
What is a muddle? In A Room with a View, Mr. Emerson intuits that Lucy is denying her need for genuine love and says: "You are inclined to get muddled...Pull out from the depths those thoughts you do not understand, and spread them out in the sunlight and know the meaning of them." A muddle here is brought on by Lucy's inner falsehood, by denying the impulses of her "true" self. Muddle evokes confusion.
"Muddledom" in A Passage to India is more closely aligned with formlessness. The Marabar Caves are described by Forster as atavistic and "without attributes." Whatever word is spoken in them is reduced to an ou-boum, an echo that speaks of a universe in which all differences have been annihilated. In the caves, poor little "talkative Christianity" is silenced, and Mrs. Moore muses: "Pathos, piety, courage—they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value." Muddle for the British, with their desire for structure and the scientific, is not only distasteful, but disturbing. But Forster suggests that, for a perceptive few, muddle can reveal certain mysteries, unveil a more authentic world. Mrs. Moore, for example, possesses an intuitive understanding and sympathy; she's rendered holy as an embodiment of all-embracing charity. Unlike Adela, who views India as a "frieze," she can grasp its spirit and sense that, in India, the "inarticulate world" is closer than it ever is in England.
A Passage to India is overall many things—a portrait of a society in the grip of Imperialism, a comedy of manners, a tale of self-discovery, a melodrama, a detective story, a spiritual meditation. What's clear is that Forster attaches a holiness to the heart's affections. A failure of love between human beings is a moral catastrophe, with error and evil as its inevitable consequences. "No one can realize how much kindness we Indians need," says Aziz. "We do not even realize it ourselves."
Set in British India in the 1920s, A Passage to India has a fairly straightforward plot. Adela Quested, a young Englishwoman, visits the fictional city of Chandrapore to determine if she and Ronny, the City Magistrate, are a fit for marriage. Adela is accompanied by a chaperone, Mrs. Moore, who is also Ronny's mother. Noticing the gulf between Indians and Anglo-Indians, Adela quickly desires to experience "the real India." Shortly thereafter, Aziz, an urbane Indian doctor, invites both Adela and Mrs. Moore on a voyage to visit the Marabar Caves. Composing the crux of the novel, this journey to the mystical caverns ends in a muddle—a word, I've learned, that's very Forsterian.
What is a muddle? In A Room with a View, Mr. Emerson intuits that Lucy is denying her need for genuine love and says: "You are inclined to get muddled...Pull out from the depths those thoughts you do not understand, and spread them out in the sunlight and know the meaning of them." A muddle here is brought on by Lucy's inner falsehood, by denying the impulses of her "true" self. Muddle evokes confusion.
"Muddledom" in A Passage to India is more closely aligned with formlessness. The Marabar Caves are described by Forster as atavistic and "without attributes." Whatever word is spoken in them is reduced to an ou-boum, an echo that speaks of a universe in which all differences have been annihilated. In the caves, poor little "talkative Christianity" is silenced, and Mrs. Moore muses: "Pathos, piety, courage—they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value." Muddle for the British, with their desire for structure and the scientific, is not only distasteful, but disturbing. But Forster suggests that, for a perceptive few, muddle can reveal certain mysteries, unveil a more authentic world. Mrs. Moore, for example, possesses an intuitive understanding and sympathy; she's rendered holy as an embodiment of all-embracing charity. Unlike Adela, who views India as a "frieze," she can grasp its spirit and sense that, in India, the "inarticulate world" is closer than it ever is in England.
A Passage to India is overall many things—a portrait of a society in the grip of Imperialism, a comedy of manners, a tale of self-discovery, a melodrama, a detective story, a spiritual meditation. What's clear is that Forster attaches a holiness to the heart's affections. A failure of love between human beings is a moral catastrophe, with error and evil as its inevitable consequences. "No one can realize how much kindness we Indians need," says Aziz. "We do not even realize it ourselves."
Set in British India in the 1920s, A Passage to India has a fairly straightforward plot. Adela Quested, a young Englishwoman, visits the fictional city of Chandrapore to determine if she and Ronny, the City Magistrate, are a fit for marriage. Adela is accompanied by a chaperone, Mrs. Moore, who is also Ronny's mother. Noticing the gulf between Indians and Anglo-Indians, Adela quickly desires to experience "the real India." Shortly thereafter, Aziz, an urbane Indian doctor, invites both Adela and Mrs. Moore on a voyage to visit the Marabar Caves. Composing the crux of the novel, this journey to the mystical caverns ends in a muddle—a word, I've learned, that's very Forsterian.
What is a muddle? In A Room with a View, Mr. Emerson intuits that Lucy is denying her need for genuine love and says: "You are inclined to get muddled...Pull out from the depths those thoughts you do not understand, and spread them out in the sunlight and know the meaning of them." A muddle here is brought on by Lucy's inner falsehood, by denying the impulses of her "true" self. Muddle evokes confusion.
"Muddledom" in A Passage to India is more closely aligned with formlessness. The Marabar Caves are described by Forster as atavistic and "without attributes." Whatever word is spoken in them is reduced to an ou-boum, an echo that speaks of a universe in which all differences have been annihilated. In the caves, poor little "talkative Christianity" is silenced, and Mrs. Moore muses: "Pathos, piety, courage—they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value." Muddle for the British, with their desire for structure and the scientific, is not only distasteful, but disturbing. But Forster suggests that, for a perceptive few, muddle can reveal certain mysteries, unveil a more authentic world. Mrs. Moore, for example, possesses an intuitive understanding and sympathy; she's rendered holy as an embodiment of all-embracing charity. Unlike Adela, who views India as a "frieze," she can grasp its spirit and sense that, in India, the "inarticulate world" is closer than it ever is in England.
A Passage to India is overall many things—a portrait of a society in the grip of Imperialism, a comedy of manners, a tale of self-discovery, a melodrama, a detective story, a spiritual meditation. What's clear is that Forster attaches a holiness to the heart's affections. A failure of love between human beings is a moral catastrophe, with error and evil as its inevitable consequences. "No one can realize how much kindness we Indians need," says Aziz. "We do not even realize it ourselves."
Set in British India in the 1920s, A Passage to India has a fairly straightforward plot. Adela Quested, a young Englishwoman, visits the fictional city of Chandrapore to determine if she and Ronny, the City Magistrate, are a fit for marriage. Adela is accompanied by a chaperone, Mrs. Moore, who is also Ronny's mother. Noticing the gulf between Indians and Anglo-Indians, Adela quickly desires to experience "the real India." Shortly thereafter, Aziz, an urbane Indian doctor, invites both Adela and Mrs. Moore on a voyage to visit the Marabar Caves. Composing the crux of the novel, this journey to the mystical caverns ends in a muddle—a word, I've learned, that's very Forsterian.
What is a muddle? In A Room with a View, Mr. Emerson intuits that Lucy is denying her need for genuine love and says: "You are inclined to get muddled...Pull out from the depths those thoughts you do not understand, and spread them out in the sunlight and know the meaning of them." A muddle here is brought on by Lucy's inner falsehood, by denying the impulses of her "true" self. Muddle evokes confusion.
"Muddledom" in A Passage to India is more closely aligned with formlessness. The Marabar Caves are described by Forster as atavistic and "without attributes." Whatever word is spoken in them is reduced to an ou-boum, an echo that speaks of a universe in which all differences have been annihilated. In the caves, poor little "talkative Christianity" is silenced, and Mrs. Moore muses: "Pathos, piety, courage—they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value." Muddle for the British, with their desire for structure and the scientific, is not only distasteful, but disturbing. But Forster suggests that, for a perceptive few, muddle can reveal certain mysteries, unveil a more authentic world. Mrs. Moore, for example, possesses an intuitive understanding and sympathy; she's rendered holy as an embodiment of all-embracing charity. Unlike Adela, who views India as a "frieze," she can grasp its spirit and sense that, in India, the "inarticulate world" is closer than it ever is in England.
A Passage to India is overall many things—a portrait of a society in the grip of Imperialism, a comedy of manners, a tale of self-discovery, a melodrama, a detective story, a spiritual meditation. What's clear is that Forster attaches a holiness to the heart's affections. A failure of love between human beings is a moral catastrophe, with error and evil as its inevitable consequences. "No one can realize how much kindness we Indians need," says Aziz. "We do not even realize it ourselves."
