In this lesson, we'll introduce the characters and many twisted plotlines of George Eliot's classic novel,

'Middlemarch.' Called the only Victorian novel 'written for grown-up people' by Virginia Woolf, this work
is both expansive and highly realistic.

Middlemarch

The first thing you need to know about Middlemarch is that the title refers to a fictional town. It's not a
time of the year. It's not an entreaty to 'march in the middle.' Because it's a novel named after a town,
you might be able to make a few guesses about what it's going to be like right off the bat. Unless we're
in a kind of world like Pixar's Cars, except instead of cars that are people towns that are people - I don't
know. Unless we're in some crazy land, we're probably dealing with multiple protagonists. That's what
we get from naming it after a place instead of after a person or a theme or whatever. And its subtitle, A
Study of Provincial Life, really confirms this assumption.

As in most studies, we're going to be examining a bunch of different people with the aim of figuring out
something about provincial life. And you can note the removed tone right away. It's not a 'novel;' it's a
'study.' This novel - excuse me, study - is super long. My paperback copy, when I had this, was about 800
pages; it's a huge book. So it's more of a 'testing out a new heart medication' study than a, 'I'm a senior
sociology major. Please fill out my survey!' kind of study. This is a big-deal novel. It's set against the
backdrop of the Great Reform Act of 1832, which is aimed at making voting more fair in England. It
redistricted stuff, so it was a bit more representational, and also extended the vote to more people.

So who wrote this novel? George Eliot, who is - psych - a woman! You don't want to get caught with
your pants down thinking that George Eliot is a man because she is not; she is a woman. Her real name
is Mary Anne Evans, and Middlemarch is probably her most famous novel - her most well-known,
certainly. Virginia Woolf, who was a famous Modernist writer (so, in the early 20th century),
characterized Middlemarch as 'the magnificent book that, with all its imperfections, is one of the few
English novels written for grown-up people.' You might worry that 'novel for grown-up people' is a
synonym for boring, but in this case it's not! I mean, I like it, and do I seem like a real grown-up? (Don't
let the blazer fool you.)

Plot Summary

So what happens in and around the town of Middlemarch and in and around this novel? As I mentioned
before, we're dealing with lots of characters, and these characters have lots of intersecting storylines.

First we encounter Dorothea Brooke, who is a 'beautiful, smart and marriageable young woman.' But
she's a little bit idealistic. We find her devising schemes to improve living conditions of her family's
tenants, along with Sir James Chettam, who's clearly got the hots for her. But instead of marrying him
like everybody expects, she decides that she's going to marry this guy named Edward Casaubon, who's
an old guy and a scholar, and he's trying to write a book called the Key to All Mythologies. She thinks this
is going to be a great work, that she can help him to do this and that she can share in his intellectual
triumphs because she's smart, and she wants to do things that are helpful and good; that's her goal.

The next major character we meet is Tertius Lydgate, who is a young doctor, and he's also got
aspirations to be a reformer. He's a smart guy. He's fairly highly born, but he still wants to be a country
doctor. He's not going to go and make a lot of money. (He's not going to go into plastic surgery or
whatever. I guess they didn't have that back then, but whatever the equivalent was, he's not going to do
that.) Being a doctor, his ideas for reform are more medically based. He gets to Middlemarch and he
starts his own hospital. He gets a good reputation as a doctor but he's also a 'marriageable' young man,
and he's quickly ensnared by the beautiful Rosamond Vincy, who's the beauty of the town. She's the
niece of a guy named Mr. Bulstrode, who's a prominent banker in Middlemarch. (He's important; we're
going to get to him a little bit later, but just remember that name, Mr. Bulstrode. He's Rosamond Vincy's
uncle.) She's super vain, but I guess it's kind of justified because she is really pretty. She's also actually
pretty smart. She's educated, she uses this to her advantage, she's born middle class but she really
wants to rise up to a better class. And since Lydgate is higher born (the doctor), she figures this might be
the way to do it.

So we've started out right off the bat here with two marriages that we're pretty sure are going to end in
disaster. We've got old man, young woman and scholarly pretensions - that doesn't sound like it's going
to end well. And then we've got a medical reformer and vain wife who wants to use him for his money.
That doesn't seem like that's going to work out. And right here we can note something that is actually
fairly unique, at least compared to novels that came before this: a bunch of Victorian novels (and
Romantic novels that came before, like Jane Austen and things like that) end in marriage. There's
something that's called a marriage plot, where everything resolves itself by two people getting married
at the end. And this is still pretty common today. If you've ever seen a romantic comedy, you've seen a
marriage plot, where it ends in a kiss. In these kinds of books and movies, the marriage is the climax; it's
the goal - the solution to everyone's problems. Eliot goes out of her way here to point out that marriage
is actually the start of everybody's problems. She starts with these marriages instead of ending with
them, and then she goes on to document these problems at great length. That's pretty much the whole
rest of the book.

So we've talked about Lydgate and Rosamond; we've talked about Dorothea and Casaubon. There's a
third player in this book: Rosamond has a brother, named Fred Vincy, who's supposed to go into the
church. That's what his parents think he should do. He's kind of a drunk, and he's kind of bad with
money - he likes to gamble. All he really wants to do is marry Mary Garth, who's his childhood
sweetheart. She won't do it unless he gives up on the church because she doesn't want to be married to
someone who hates his job (which makes sense because that's miserable). And he would have had
money so he didn't have to go into the church because he had this inheritance from an old guy named
Mr. Featherstone. But Featherstone rescinded it at the last minute, and then he tried to un-rescind it,
but it didn't work. So, basically, Fred is stuck in a hard place because he's going to have to go into the
church, but then he can't marry the love of his life. So that's a problem. That's sort of the third problem -
we've got three main sets of issues, essentially.

These people are all connected because they live in Middlemarch, and if it sounds a bit scattered, it's
worth knowing that Eliot actually didn't intend for all of these things to be in the same book at first. She
was writing about Dorothea, and she was also writing about the other people. She ended up stringing
them into this novel, weaving them all together. So that's why it sounds a little bit disparate, but it does
all come together in the end, and I will tell you how … eventually. Basically, their paths are crossing all
throughout.

Dorothea goes on her honeymoon to Rome (she's married this old guy). Quickly, the scales fall from her
eyes, and she realizes that Casaubon doesn't really care about her helping him out with his work. She
also begins to realize that his Key to All Mythologies probably isn't ever going to be finished because he
just keeps working on it. He isn't really internally motivated for scholarship; he just wants to write this
thing so that he gets famous. It's kind of like your friend who's been 'working on his screenplay' for five
years and is convinced it'll drag him out of his life of obscurity working at Denny's. Except Casaubon
does have money, so that's the difference, but it's definitely not a good thing. Also the sex is not that
good. He's 'not passionate enough for her,' is how George Eliot puts it. I think we all know what that
means. He's kind of an old dude, remember?

Anyway, all of this coincides nicely with her meeting one of his much younger cousins - whose name is
Will Ladislaw - and I think you can see where this is going. Will's an artsy guy, and he runs into her in
Rome, but Dorothea is loyal to Casaubon. She does not have an affair; she's not that kind of woman.
George Eliot actually compares her to St. Theresa in a famous opening prologue. So she's not an
adulterer, she's not Madame Bovary; this is not what we're talking about. Still, Casaubon is really not
happy with Ladislaw's presence because he suspects there's something going on. They're definitely
attracted to each other, but they're not going to act on it, at least not now.

They all come back to England, and meanwhile, Lydgate and Rosamond's marriage is totally falling apart
like we predicted. They get into money troubles, in part because Rosamond's got really expensive tastes.
Her charms are wearing thin on Lydgate, and his lack of money is making her love run dry because she's
slowly realizing that this is not going to be the kind of life she anticipated with him. He ends up taking a
loan from Mr. Bulstrode (remember, he's the banker who's Rosamond's uncle) to keep things going with
his practice.

Meanwhile, it finally seems like Dorothea might catch a break because Casaubon is sick! And he's
probably gonna die because he's super old! This is really exciting when you're reading the book because
you're like, 'I hate this guy,' and you think, 'Maybe she'll get to marry Will Ladislaw! That would be
great.' No! Casaubon has got provisions against that in his will. He does die, but it turns out that he's put
all these stipulations that if Dorothea marries Ladislaw, she will lose her inheritance from him, which is
really nasty. Up until now, we've probably just thought that Casaubon is just a little bit distracted, kind
of old, not really that into stuff. But this is really directly mean; he's being nasty to Dorothea. So this is a
problem. What's she going to do? We don't know.

We leave that be for a second, and we go back to Fred Vincy, who's our third thread in all of this. His
money troubles continue, and he has to borrow money from Mary Garth's father (remember, Mary
Garth is the woman he wants to eventually marry, so that's embarrassing). But then things are looking
up a little bit. He starts training to be a land agent under Mary's father, and things might be going better.
He starts to learn a new profession, and maybe that will be better than just becoming a drunken,
gambling vicar, which was seemingly the plan before.

All throughout this (this is not chronological), Dorothea's uncle, who's referred to as Mr. Brooke, has
decided to run for Parliament as a reform candidate. This plotline seems to be largely for comic relief
because he is terrible at it, but it does underscore a major theme in the novel that we can see with all of
these characters, which is self-delusion. Casaubon is wrong about the significance of his project.
Dorothea is wrong about Casaubon's dedication to intellectual pursuits. Lydgate is wrong about
Rosamond. Rosamond is wrong that marrying Lydgate is going to make her upper class.

So when Mr. Brooke fails comically (his entire run is sort of hypocritical - Dorothea was actually working
to make his tenants' lives better and he doesn't care; he just wants to be in Parliament) it underscores
another point: the difference between people who pursue something for its own worth and people who
pursue it for outside validation, like Mr. Brooke, who just wants to be in Parliament; he doesn't care
about actually helping his people - that's a huge difference that's in the book. Casaubon is doing his
research to be recognized rather than just because he wants to do it, whereas Dorothea actually cares
about bettering herself and learning and dedicating herself to reform and all of that stuff. Lydgate
actually cares about being a doctor. He didn't go into a more lucrative field; he went to be a country
doctor, whereas Rosamond does everything to get a better social station. So that's another separation
we get between the characters. Are you watching this video out of a love of learning, or are you
watching it to get college credit? I don't know. Either is okay, but this difference is what Eliot is getting
at.

How does this all wrap up? This is a lot of stuff that we've talked about. It wraps up weirdly. When I first
read this, I was like, 'Huh? What is going on? I don't understand this.' I'm going to try to break it down
for you the easiest way that I can. Mr. Bulstrode (you must think, 'Why does she keep mentioning this
guy? He clearly is nothing important;' he is important) has bailed out Lydgate from financial trouble. It
turns out that Bulstrode does not have an innocent past. His wife is actually Will Ladislaw's grandma,
and he made his money from stolen goods! He's been concealing all of this so nobody knows, and then
this old man who's dying - his name is Raffles, which is kind of a funny name - turns up and knows
everything; he knows all the stuff about Bulstrode's past. He basically jeopardizes Bulstrode's whole
operation.

Lydgate, the doctor, treats Raffles because he's dying, and he's like, 'Don't give him booze!' Of course,
Bulstrode gives him booze because he wants to finish him off, and this works. The poor guy dies. But the
cat's already out of the bag - Raffles has already told people about Bulstrode's elicit starts and his
banking efforts - and Bulstrode is disgraced. He takes Lydgate down with him, since people find out that
he gave Lydgate a loan and they assume Lydgate's involved. Bulstrode and Lydgate both leave town.
Rosamond is happy at least because she finally gets to get out of Middlemarch. She makes Lydgate
become a moneymaking kind of doctor, and then she gets the money that she's always wanted.

This book seems like it's unrelentingly sad! This is awful; why does this happen to all these people? It's
not quite unrelentingly sad. Fred Vincy and Mary Garth do get to get married, like I alluded to before,
when I said that things might be looking up for him. And Dorothea says, 'No, I don't need Casaubon's
inheritance. I'm going to marry Will Ladislaw anyway.' So that's nice; she gets to marry this guy. But Eliot
still doesn't let us feel super great about this ending; otherwise it would be just a traditional marriage
plot. Dorothea, we've seen, really does have goals. She wants to be a reformer, she wants to be smart,
she wants to learn things. She gets a nice ending (she marries this nice guy), but she doesn't get to do
any of those things that we thought she would get to do, that it seemed like were so good. So it's
bittersweet. She has a happy ending, she's a wife and mother and she does pretty well, but she doesn't
really fulfill her potential in the way that we hope she will at the beginning.

Lesson Summary

So how do we think about all this? (You think this was long? Try reading the thing.) I mentioned that you
can read the novel as a commentary on self-delusion, hypocrisy, all of these things. Everyone's wrong
about everyone else - Dorothea and Casaubon, Lydgate and Rosamond, Mr. Brooke who tries to run for
government. And you can also break it down into which characters pursue knowledge for its own sake
and which pursue it for gain.

But what else is this 'study of provincial life' trying to do? As do many novels with multiple protagonists,
it seems to be investigating the problem of perspective - as Eliot puts it, ego. There's a famous scene in
which Eliot describes what happens when you place a light on the surface of a scratched mirror. There
are these random scratches; you put the light down and suddenly it seems as if the scratches have
aligned themselves in a ring because they're illuminated in that way. She's using this as a metaphor
particularly for Rosamond Vincy's egotism - that she thinks the random world is revolving around her.
But you can use this as a metaphor for storytelling itself - that the random events of life always have to
be organized around one perspective (the light) or another, or else they'd be entirely incomprehensible.
You wouldn't have any idea what was happening. Eliot's aiming for uncompromising realism - you can
see this by the bummer of an ending. And part of this realism is the truth in realizing that reality is
constantly being organized by egos, either the characters' or an extension of the author. So the idea of
all these different perspectives contributes to Eliot's desire to have something that is a real novel and
that Virginia Woolf praised as being the only novel written for grown-ups.

I told you a lot; I hope you picked up some of it. That's Middlemarch, and it's really a great book.

Lesson Objective

After watching this lesson, you should be able to describe the plot, characters and themes of George
Eliot's Middlemarch.

***********************************************************88

his lesson explores E.M. Forster's masterpiece, 'A Passage to India.' The lesson also examines and
analyzes key themes within the novel and discusses the novel's significance in relation to modern English
literature.

A Passage to India

There's a reason why A Passage to India, by E.M. Forster, is considered by many to be the best novel
written during the author's illustrious career. It captures all of the complexities of the modern era and
casts a critical eye on the dynamics of political oppression and the very real toll that it takes. In this story
of British-controlled India in the years just prior to its independence in 1947, Forster shows us the
human face of oppression - the people, places, and relationships ravaged in the name of political power.

Summary of the Plot

The novel begins with two English women, Mrs. Moore and Adela Quested, traveling to India, where
Adela is to become engaged to Mrs. Moore's son, Ronny Moore, a magistrate for the city of
Chandrapore. There, they befriend Cyril Fielding, the principal of Chandrapore's government college,
and Dr. Aziz, an Indian physician.

During a picnic given by Dr. Aziz at the fictional Marabar Caves, Adela admits that she doesn't love
Ronny. Impulsively, she asks Aziz, a Muslim, if he has more than one wife. Offended, Aziz stalks off and
when he returns, he finds that Adela has taken the car back to the city alone. Back in Chandrapore, the
friends learn that Adela has accused Dr. Aziz of attempted rape, and he is quickly arrested.

The nation divides along racial and ethnic lines. Mrs. Moore doubts Adela's claims but can't bring herself
to publicly oppose the young woman; she decides to return to England, but dies on the sea voyage
home. Fielding is one of the sole Britons to support Dr. Aziz.
Ultimately, Adela admits her lie and Dr. Aziz is freed. Fielding admires Adela's courage in telling the truth
and befriends her, which disgusts Aziz and threatens his friendship with Fielding. When Adela returns to
England and Fielding follows shortly thereafter, Aziz assumes that their friendship is pretty well dead.
When he learns that Fielding has married, he also assumes Adela is the new bride and bids good
riddance to them both.

Two years later, Dr. Aziz runs into Fielding and Fielding's brother-in-law, Ralph, visiting an ancient
temple. Fielding has not married Adela, but Mrs. Moore's daughter, Ralph's sister. Ralph and Dr. Aziz hit
it off, but Aziz's feelings toward Fielding are still pretty raw. Ultimately, Aziz realizes that he and Fielding
can never truly be friends until the British leave India once and for all.

Themes & Analysis

Some of the themes in 'A Passage to India' include the impact of colonization, search for the 'real' India,
and sexual stereotypes.

Let's start with the impact of colonization. Forster's novel is set in the final years of British colonial rule
over India, and we can see this unequal power dynamic infecting every level of the novel. It
contaminates every relationship, not just relations between the English and the Indians, but even among
those of the same race, religion, and nationality.

In the novel, Adela and Mrs. Moore are torn apart, Fielding and Aziz can never cultivate their friendship,
and Aziz's suspicion that an Indian and an Englishman can never be friends is proven right. There is
simply too much inequality, too much abuse, and too much distrust. Forster's novel shows that the
fissures of political oppression run deep, tearing apart not only the oppressor and the oppressed, but
also friends and families alike.

Early on, Mrs. Moore declares that she wants to find the 'real India,' but ultimately abandons her project
in despair. There is no such thing, she concludes, only an irreconcilable multitude of 'Indias.' That's really
what Forster's novel as a whole boils down to: English imperialism. The imperialists view the 'real India'
as exotic, alluring, and primitive and in need of rescue, or civilizing, by the English.

The truth is that India is not one thing, and it is certainly not the primordial paradise in need of English
salvation. Instead, India is as varied, complex, and contradictory as the individuals who live there, from
the Muslim Aziz to the Christian Fielding to the Hindu majority that they serve. To insist upon a single
story of the 'real India' is to create a lie, one so often used to justify hatred, exploitation, and
oppression. The imperialists need this fiction of the 'real India,' a primitive India, to legitimize their
conquest by calling it the advancement of 'civilization.'
Adela's claims of attempted rape play on imperialist sexual stereotypes related to the sensuality and the
promiscuity of the racial and ethnic 'Other.' According to this stereotype, English women are under
constant threat of sexual attack at the hands of non-European males. The English woman's beauty and
purity prove too much for the over-inflated sex drive of the colonized male to resist. Rape is nearly
inevitable for an English woman in the colonies, unless her European protectors remain ever-vigilant,
which again, is nothing more than a fiction designed to legitimize English conquest.

Analyzing the Marabar Caves

One of the weirdest scenes in all of English literature is this novel's scene in Marabar Caves, where Adela
and Aziz have the confrontation that leads to the rape accusation. When Mrs. Moore first enters the
cave, she is so overwhelmed and disoriented by an uncanny or creepily familiar echo that she can't go
on. Aziz and Adela go ahead alone and the weirdness of the place seems to prompt all the chaos that
follows.

But what the caves really symbolize are the forces of empire, the ideas and the prejudices that
penetrate to the very core of those involved. Theoretically, women like Adela and Mrs. Moore should
have very little to do with imperialism. After all, they hold no political offices and they have no say in the
way that the colonies run.

Forster's novel shows us that political oppression is a force far, far bigger than each individual player. It
is as mammoth, disorienting, and all-consuming as the Marabar Caves. Once you are inside it, it is also
inside of you, echoing in the mind, infiltrating your conscious and subconscious minds. It inflects your
actions, beliefs, and perceptions. The rapidity with which Adela jumps to the charge of rape when Aziz
displeases her, her countrymen's readiness to believe the charges, and the impossibility of Fielding's and
Aziz's friendship all testify to the destructive pervasiveness of political oppression, especially in the form
of British imperialism.

Lesson Summary

A Passage to India by E.M. Forster is a masterful meditation on the destructive forces of political
oppression, especially in the form of British imperialism. The novel tells the story of two English women,
Mrs. Moore and Adela Quested, and their relationship with Dr. Aziz, a Muslim Indian, and Cyril Fielding,
the principal of the government college in Chandrapore.

When Adela falsely accuses Aziz of attempted rape, the burgeoning friendship between the quartet is
fractured. But what the accusations, trial, and aftermath ultimately reveal is how all-encompassing
political oppression truly is. These forces of conquest and subjugation, the novel shows, are far bigger
than the individual players. They infect the beliefs, behaviors, and the perceptions of all involved,
contaminating relationships and making friendship, love, and trust impossible. Once you are inside such
an unjust system, the novel suggests, that system is also inside of you.

Print Lesson

'A Passage to India' is one of E.M. Forster's most celebrated novels. Watch this lesson to see why this
sad story of British colonialism has stuck with audiences for almost a century.

Background

In a previous lesson, we talked about the life and work of E.M. Forster, and we talked about how one of
his number one interests throughout all of his books was class. Forster loved to show how people from
different economic backgrounds can come together to find their common humanity and connect and
reach an understanding despite social pressures that maybe say they should stay apart. For his fifth
novel - the one published 14 years after his previous four - he turned his attention to breaking down
other social barriers - specifically, those of race.

As you might guess from the title, Forster's 1924 novel A Passage to India is set in India. It was
completed after Forster himself spent some time in an administrative position there. This was the early
1920s, during a really tumultuous period when the Indian independence movement had begun to come
to a head (and that's independence from England). This came right on the heels of Mahatma Gandhi's
nonviolent resistance movement that advocated for unity of all Indians in the face of British rule.

So, India had been subject to British imperial power since the early 18th century, and, shockingly, they
weren't wild about it. Two hundred years of being ruled from the outside is the background that
inspired Forster to craft his last novel published during his lifetime and, to many, his most important
(though to me, not my favorite).

We'll talk about the thematic implications of A Passage to India, but first let's just do some plot
summary. We're going to go through the book, and keep in mind that colonialism, or one country
exerting political power over another (generally not through pleasant means), is a really big theme
through this book and a big deal to Forster. Throughout the novel, we'll see how British imperial
attitudes hinder Forster's characters and, in some cases, lead to some really surprising developments.
Also, pay attention to this key question established early in the book by its main Indian character: is it
possible for an Indian and an Englishman to be friends? Maybe we know how we feel about that now,
but this was a bigger deal back in 1924.

Summary
Dr. Aziz and Mrs. Moore meet at a mosque

Passage to India Dr. Aziz and Mrs. Moore

So, A Passage to India opens, as half of Forster's books do, with two Englishwomen on a vacation in a
foreign country. The two women in question are Mrs. Moore, the mother to a British Indian city
administrator, and Adela Quested, a young schoolmistress (which I think is an awesome name). Adela
and Mrs. Moore are visiting the fictional city of Chandrapore, and they express interest in engaging with
the real India instead of just the British conception of it, the way that some people don't just want to see
the Eiffel Tower - they want to see how French people live. That's sort of what they're up to.

That explains why, one night, our main Indian character, Dr. Aziz, runs into Mrs. Moore in a mosque, or a
traditional place of Indian worship, where maybe not every British tourist would go.

At first, Aziz is surprised and upset to see an English person there - he just came from a rough night at
the hands of his British hospital administrator - but he quickly finds out that Mrs. Moore has a legitimate
interest in and respect for Indian ways. So, the two part the mosque as friends.

Mrs. Moore tells her friend Ronny and young Adela about her encounter with Aziz. Ronny's upset - he's
a strong proponent of racial separation - but Adela's intrigued. Given her interest, another Chandrapore
official throws a party that many gentlemen of both Indian and British persuasions are invited to. That
party turns out to be kind of a bust, as members of both nationalities mostly keep to themselves (a la a
seventh grade dance), but it's there that Adela meets Cyril Fielding, the novel's other main English
character (with an incredibly awesome English name), and he's also the head of the city's government-
run college for Indians. The two immediately hit it off, and Fielding decides to set up a tea date for
Adela, Mrs. Moore and a few of his other Indian friends. On Adela's behalf, he also invites Dr. Aziz, which
is nice.

At tea, Fielding and Aziz form an instant bond and become friends. The whole group gets along so well
that Aziz invites them all to join him at the Marabar Caves, a fictional tourist destination based on the
real Barabar Caves. Everyone agrees to go, although Adela's betrothed, Ronny, is outraged at the
thought of them traveling with Indians because he's a racist. The two of them have a fight about it, and
Adela actually vows not to marry him anymore because of this, though that night there will be a
frightening car accident that will bring them back together. Still, doubt has been planted in her mind
about Ronny's character and who he is.

Aziz and Fielding become fast friends

Passage to India Dr. Aziz and Cyril Fielding

Once they get to the caves, Mrs. Moore bows out pretty early; she claims to be claustrophobic (which I
totally get), and the dark and echo-y nature of the tunnels don't appeal. Adela, Aziz and a lone tour
guide press on ahead.

Adela is still full of doubts about her upcoming marriage to Ronny, and she decides to ask Aziz if he has
multiple wives - she doesn't really understand why this is an inappropriate question. Aziz is unnerved by
the stereotypical inquiry of Adela's - I think he thought better of her - and he ducks into the cave to
regain composure while the guide waits outside and Adela presses ahead. Why? Who knows. When Aziz
finally emerges from the caves, he sees that Adela has gone back to the car in town and thinks nothing
of it.

Dr. Aziz, Adela and a guide tour the caves together

Passage to India Cave Scene

It turns out that he's wrong, though, because when Aziz gets back to town, he's arrested by British
police. Adela, apparently, has accused him of sexually assaulting her in the caves. This is an accusation
that British authorities are all too happy to believe. Cyril Fielding defends Aziz and is ostracized by his
British peers for defending an Indian guy when he's been accused by a British woman of a terrible crime.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Moore, who's pretty rational and sympathetic, doesn't believe that Aziz is guilty but
doesn't really want to take his side either. The whole ordeal is way too much for her, and city
administrators and Ronny happily arrange for her to go back to England, and, unfortunately, she will die
en route. Spoiler alert.

When it's finally Adela's turn to take the stand in court, she has a moment of clarity where she realizes
that actually Aziz did not assault her in the caves - the caves caused her to have a panic attack in which
she imagined that Aziz attacked her. Because she was still pretty prejudiced, even though she was trying
to learn more about the Indian culture, this wouldn't necessarily have been that big of a leap for her to
make in her mind - at least, that's what we're supposed to believe. She clears Aziz of all the charges, and
the case is dismissed, though the British are none too happy about it.

Fielding defends Aziz in court

Passage to India Court Scene

As you might guess, this whole ordeal put a lot of strain on Aziz, as being falsely accused of a violent
crime might do, not to mention it's been hard on his relationship with Fielding because not a lot of
Indian guys had British friends at the time. It's put Fielding in an awkward place, too, because it's caused
a strain on his relationship with his British friends. Fielding wants to remain friends with Aziz, but he also
wants to comfort Adela, who he believes was at least very brave to come forward and admit that she
had falsely accused Aziz in the first place.

That wasn't an easy thing to do at the time with all the prejudice that the British people felt for the
Indians. He knows what the pressures of British society are like, and he's proud of her for standing up for
herself, even though she acted wrong in the first place. Fielding eventually convinces Aziz not to sue
Adela for damages. This is angering to Aziz, and he breaks off his friendship with Fielding, even going so
far as to swear off British people in general. Meanwhile, Adela returns to England, but her engagement
with Ronny is finally broken for good, which is probably for the best.

As it happens, business eventually will take Fielding out of India, and two years later, he will return and
seek out Aziz again. However, Aziz hears that he married in England and, assuming that his bride was
Adela, is now angrier than ever because he thinks that his friend married this woman who accused him
of a crime, and he's pissed. Fair enough. But, of course, he's wrong. However, much as he did with Mrs.
Moore so many years ago, Aziz encounters Fielding by chance and learns that he is not married to Adela
but in fact to Stella Moore, Mrs. Moore's daughter from her second marriage. Aziz calms down, and Aziz
and Fielding rekindle their friendship, but despite that, at the novel's end, Aziz recognizes that he and
Fielding can never really be friends until the Indian nation is completely free of British rule.

Themes: Friendship and Colonialism

So, that brings us back to that question that we asked at the beginning: is it possible for an Indian (a
person living in India) and an Englishman to be friends during the time of British colonialism in England?
Forster seems to think that the answer is 'no,' at least not while British imperialism is the setting. Note
that many of the characters in A Passage to India are quite interested in breaking down cultural barriers
- in fact, in comparison to some of his other novels (Howard's End, perhaps), some of these characters
are practically saints. Yet, they all have some failings in one way or another - they're not actual saints.

Let's start with Adela. For all of her interest in the culture of India, she still can't get past her prejudices
and ends up accusing Aziz of assault. Mrs. Moore is accepting to a point, but when her homestead is
challenged, her open attitude falters. The best examination really is when the friendship between Aziz
and Fielding crumbles under the pressure of the trial and the accusation and the different attitudes
towards Indian people and British people. We might feel bad for Cyril Fielding because he has an
awesome name and he really wants to find a middle ground between Adela and Aziz; perhaps like
Forster himself, he always seems to try to be negotiating connections and understanding between
people of different backgrounds. He just wants everyone to get along. But, at the end of the book, it
becomes pretty clear that that's not going to be possible, at least not in Aziz's eyes.
Why is that? In all of Forster's other novels, problems have been solved by human connection - when
characters are willing to challenge social norms of acceptability, they always reap the rewards, but here,
that doesn't seem to be enough. The most obvious reason seems to be A Passage to India's emphasis on
colonialism. Forster's critique of this practice seems not to be so much political as it is personal: when
one people assert their power over another, it makes true human connection impossible, no matter how
hard the parties try - and Fielding and Aziz really do try.

And, it's important to note that it's not just the colonized who suffer in Forster's vision - it's everybody.
Adela and Mrs. Moore both meet less-than-noble ends when they get wrapped up in England's
colonialist system and wrapped up in prejudices about Indian people because if you believe that people
of a certain country are subject to you and your country, you can never really view them as equals. Even
Fielding doesn't really get what he wants - he misses out on that great friendship with Aziz because of
England and India's relationship and England's colonial rule.

When social systems impose a ruler/subject hierarchy, Forster seems to be saying that all parties will
suffer in some way because they're reduced into these roles. The human connection that he so gladly
celebrated in novels like Howard's End or A Room with a View just can't be found.

Lesson Summary

It seems fitting in this last novel that he would publish during his lifetime - it also has the most
ponderous ending - nothing's really tied up in a neat little bow the way you might expect. There's no
chance for happiness built into the novel until English colonialism is a thing of the past - that's what he
seems to be arguing. In structuring his novel this way, Forster creates a really touching, sad story that
has gone on to receive numerous accolades as well as becoming yet another movie, like most of his
books have. But, the movie is no substitute for reading the book!

For those of you who know your history, you'll of course know that India did in fact gain independence
from England in 1948, well within Forster's lifetime, I might add. But, though the actual historical
circumstances that inspired his novel may not still apply, certainly A Passage to India stands as a
testament to the necessarily dehumanizing business of one people making subjects of another - a lesson
that stands the test of time. I hope you check out A Passage to India.

Learning Outcome

You will gain a greater understanding of E.M. Forster's novel A Passage to India after watching this
lesson.
Print Lesson

A Passage to India is one of E. M. Forster's most famous novels, taking him ten years to complete
between 1913 and 1924. In this lesson, we'll cover a plot summary, briefly discuss a few of the book's
major themes and characters, and finish with a quiz to test your knowledge.

A Passage To India: Plot Summary

Have you ever visited a foreign place and experienced the feeling of being intrigued by the people and
customs you encountered while also missing the familiarity and comfort of home? Have you ever
struggled to communicate with someone from a different cultural, racial, or religious background? Each
of us can probably identify with an experience of this kind, and it is this struggle to overcome human
differences and explore the foundations of political and social tension between people and nations that
influenced the writing of E. M. Forster's novel A Passage to India. Forster completed the novel in 1924
after two trips to India, and it explores English-Indian relations during a period when India was still
under British rule.

The story unfolds in the fictional town of Chandrapore, India, where a young English schoolteacher,
Adella Quested, and her friend Mrs. Moore have traveled to visit Mrs. Moore's son, Ronny Heaslop, the
city magistrate. Adella is supposed to marry Ronny and has made the trip to see him and decide
whether or not she truly wants to. While visiting a mosque, Mrs. Moore meets the young Dr. Aziz, a
Muslim, who at first shouts at her not to defile the sanctity of the mosque but realizes that she in fact
has respect for native customs; she has even removed her shoes and acknowledges God to be present
there.

Adella and Mrs. Moore are both curious about the natives, and one of the English tax collectors arranges
a tea party for them to meet some of the Indian gentlemen in town. There they also meet Cyril Fielding,
the headmaster of a British government-run college for Indians. Fielding invites Adella and Mrs. Moore
to another tea party, and Adella requests that he invite Dr. Aziz. Fielding and Aziz become fast friends.
At the party, Aziz offers to take the women on a tour of the Marabar Caves.

Dr. Aziz arranges an expedition to explore the caves with Mrs. Moore and Adella as promised. Mrs.
Moore, however, becomes overwhelmed by claustrophobia and the echoes in the first cave and declines
to continue. With a local guide, Dr. Aziz and Adella continue their exploration of the caves, but when
Adella's curiosity about Indian customs prompts her to ask him if he has more than one wife, he leaves
her abruptly and ducks into a cave to compose himself. When he returns, Adella has gone off by herself
into another cave, and he finds her binoculars lying broken on the ground. As he looks down the hill he
notices that Fielding has arrived to join the party with another young English woman, Miss Derek. Dr.
Aziz runs down the hill to greet them, but Adella departs with Miss Derek without any explanation.
When Dr. Aziz, Mrs. Moore, and Fielding return to Chandrapore later that day, they are met by the
police, and Aziz is charged with sexually assaulting Adella. Adella has reported that he followed her into
a cave and attempted to touch her, and she got away by swinging her binoculars at him. The only piece
of evidence is the pair of broken binoculars Dr. Aziz found, but despite this, English prejudice makes
nearly everyone assume that he is guilty. Mrs. Moore and Fielding both insist on his innocence, but
because Ronny, in his position as magistrate, is determined to find Aziz guilty, he decides to send his
mother back to England to prevent her from testifying on Aziz's behalf.

Adella suffers a nervous breakdown before the trial and becomes confused. At the trial, she is directly
asked if Dr. Aziz assaulted her, and she has a flashback to the moment in the cave. As it turns out, she
had experienced a similar attack of claustrophobia to Mrs. Moore, ran around the cave confused,
smashed her binoculars, and escaped. She mistook the experience and the echoes for an attack by Dr.
Aziz. With this information given, the case is dismissed.

Though proven innocent, Dr. Aziz is embittered by the experience and vows never to be friends with an
English man or woman ever again. He feels especially betrayed by Fielding, who befriended Adella after
the trial and allowed her to stay in his home until she could return to England.

At the novel's end, Fielding, having gone back to England and married one of Mrs. Moore's daughters,
returns to India and seeks out Dr. Aziz. At first Dr. Aziz does not wish to forgive him, and while he
eventually forgives Fielding, he tells him sadly that the men cannot be friends until India is free from
British rule.

The novel explores colonial tension between England and India, which was still under British rule at the
time Forster wrote it. Although Aziz is proven innocent, the supposed attack on a white, English
woman's body by an Indian man represents the colonized subject's frustration with his oppression under
British rule and the British fear of supposed native savagery.

Major Characters

The struggle between colonizer and colonized is enacted in the relationships between the English and
Indian characters in the novel.

Dr. Aziz perhaps most clearly illustrates the struggle of the Indian under British rule. Stereotyped by
Adella as a native savage, he becomes embittered toward the English and longs desperately for India's
freedom. In telling Fielding at the novel's end that they cannot be friends while India remains under
British rule, he expresses the belief that the colonizer/colonized relationship prevents them from seeing
one another as individuals independent of racial and cultural differences.
Cyril Fielding is the tolerant Englishman whose duty it is to educate the Indians in his position as a school
headmaster. Despite his willingness to befriend natives like Aziz, his duty to his country and the cultural
and racial tensions that surround him complicate their friendship, particularly when the trial catches him
between standing up for Aziz and supporting Adella.

Adella Quested is a young, intelligent, but sheltered school mistress who has a desire to see the 'real
India.' The problem, of course, is that she sees India through her English point of view--the colonizer's
point of view. In projecting English fears and prejudices onto Aziz, she cannot truly come to know the
Indian people and way of life, and her mistaken accusation against Aziz forces her to come to terms with
her prejudicial point of view.

Mrs. Moore, like Fielding, respects the Indian way of life and the Indian people, but her experiences,
particularly Adella's accusation against Aziz, leave her feeling disheartened and apathetic. She is the
wise old English mother who endeavors, unsuccessfully, to inject some common sense into her children.
Her son, Ronny Heaslop, embodies the British colonial point of view; he holds the belief that the Indian
people must be civilized, and he ends his engagement to Adella when she retracts her accusation against
Aziz, viewing it to be a betrayal of the English race.

Ultimately the interactions between the characters in the novel illustrate the extent to which colonial
domination and racial prejudice damage and even destroy our ability to transcend our differences and
connect to one another as human beings.

Lesson Summary

E. M. Forster's novel A Passage to India explores English-Indian relations during a period when India was
still under British rule. One of the novel's main characters, Dr. Aziz is falsely accused of sexual assault by
another main character, Adella Quested. Though some of the novels characters are willing to testify to
Aziz's innocence, and though the charges are eventually dropped, Dr. Aziz reaches the sad conclusion
that an English person and an Indian person cannot be friends until England's colonization of India ends.
This is because colonial domination and racial prejudice damage and even destroy our ability to
transcend our differences and connect to one another as human beings.

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