Interpretations of the Echoes in A Passage to India
1.Introduction
Edward Morgan Forster (1879---1970), was an English novelist, short story writer, essayist and librettist. He had five novels published during his lifetime, among which weddingdressA Passage to India was the most renowned. Forster took the title of the novel from American author Walt Whitman’s poem Passage to India, published in 1871. In Forster’s masterpiece A Passage to India, he describes cultural communication between the English and the Indian, indicating the difficulties in cultural communication between the East and the West.
The Marabar Caves is the central part of the novel, and it contains the climax. The “echo” in A Passage to India referred to the reflected sound in Marabar Caves. It played a significant role in the novel, and was mentioned veral times throughout the text. Many critics have noticed its significance. E. K. Brown writes, “The greatest of the expanding symbols in A Passage to India is the echo. The most lasting among the effects of the visit that Mrs. Moore and Adela Quested made to the Marabar Caves was the echo.” (Brown 1950: 98)
This paper will explore the implied meaning of the echo. And, it aims to answer the following questions. Why did Mrs. Moore become apathy after she came out of the cave? What resulted in Adela Quested’s muddle in the cave? What did the echo refer to?
2. The 羡慕英文Echoes in the Marabar Caves
2.1 The Echoes and Mrs. Moore
Mrs. Moore, the most 五金 英语reflective of the English characters, is the mother of Ronny Heaslop, the Chandrapore city magistrate, by her first marriage. Mrs. Moore rves as the moral center in A Passage to India, a woman of exemplary behavior and intentions towards others.
She appeared in antroublemaker什么意思 image of a kind-hearted Christian, and objected to the Anglo-Saxons’ rude attitude towards the Indians. She said to her son: “God…is…love”, “God has put us on the earth in order to be pleasant to each other”, “India is part of the earth”, “the English are out here to be pleasant”, and “the desire to behave pleasantly satisfies God.”(Forster 1985: 23)
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However, later on, the Marabar Cave incident changed her. Since she heard the echoes in the cave, she became apathy. At the first beginning, she was friendly to Aziz. “I like Aziz, Aziz is my real friend” (Forster 1985: 41), said Mrs. Moore. Now, she lost all interest in everything, even in Aziz: “the affectionate and sincere words that she had spoken to him emed no longer hers but the airs.” (Forster 1985: 64) When Ronny asked her to be a witness, she said: “Why should I be in the witness box?” “I have nothing to do with your ludicrous law courts,” “I shall attend your marriage, but not your trial”, “Then I shall go to England.” It ems that after the Marabar Cave incident, her Christian belief of God and love faded away as well. Her Christian love was the ba of all her pathos, tenderness, or sympathy, so it was understandable that her disappointment at God would necessarily result in her apathy.
2.2The Echoes and Adela Quested
Adela Quested, a British schoolmistress, arrives in India to decide whether to marry Ronny. And she declares to e the real “India”. The attempt of Adela to make clear of Indprivilege是什么意思中文
ian culture and to know the real India was proved naïve and unfeasible. The character Fielding calls Adela Quested “one of the more pathetic products of Western education”.
In one of the caves Adela had a hallucination that Aziz intended to make a xual assault on her. Since she returned from the Marabar attachmentCaves, she stayed in a wavy emotion: intellect for one time and muddle for another. The echoes made her vibrate between commonn and hysteria. When it came to the question whether Aziz had followed her into that cave, she became hesitated and calmed down to straighten out all her tangled emotion and answered: “I cannot be sure…I’m afraid I had made a mistake…Dr. Aziz never followed me into the cave.”(Forster 1985:100) Then the buzzing sound which she called an echo in her ears was finally gone.
Her hallucination is not only connected with the echo at the Marabar Caves but also related to her encounters in India, as she said, “I have been unwell ever since that expedition to the caves, and possibly before it” (Forster 1985: 104). As a result, not only the echo but also the uncanny and unknown culture connector是什么意思disturbed her original logical intellect into a muddle or a hallucination.
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阅读改变人生2.3The Symbolic Meaning of the Echoes at the Marabar Caves
At the centre of the novel is the visit to the Marabar Caves. All the connections and friendships established in the former chapters lead to this expedition. Critics have argued about the symbolic meaning of the cave. It is at least certain that whatever el they might suggest, they stand for misunderstanding and meaningless, or what Mrs. Moore calls “muddle”.
