An Inward Collapse of the Human Perspective in Forsters...

An Inward Collapse of the Human Perspective in Forsters A Passage to India The reverberation of sound in the form of an echo is threaded throughout E.M. Forsters A Passage to India, and the link between the echo and the hollowness of the human spirit is depicted in the text. The echo is not heard in the beginning of the text when the English newcomers, Mrs. Moore and Ms. Quested, arrive in India; it is more clearly heard as their relationship with India gains complexity. The influence of the colonizers and the colonized on one another is inevitable; however, the usual assumption is that the colonists are the most successful in imposing their values and ideologies on the individuals whom they view as the natives. In an†¦show more content†¦Forster depicts the influence of the colonized on the colonizers who are exposed to their inward emptiness as a reflection of their metaphysical disconnectedness. The environment in which the English find themselves in India is diametrically opposed to the sense of order and reason presumed to exist in the Western world. In relation to characteristics attached to colonists in general, the English colonists have arrived in India with pre-conceived notions of how the world operates and how people should behave within the constructs of their rational world. The English view the world from a limited perspective, and the chaos that India introduces to them challenges many of the English characters ideologies of spirituality in the universe and within themselves. Even though India is portrayed as a puzzling environment where the native inhabitants lack a sense of self as they submit to the colonists, it is the English characters who appear weak as they are juxtaposed to an environment rich in wisdom and spirituality. Forster describes the section of Chandrapore in which the English reside as a city of gardens, which is in contrast to the residences of the Indians described as So abased, so monotonous is everything that meets the eye, that when the Ganges comes down it might be expected to wash the excrescence back into the soil (Forster 4) . However, in