Arranging the impressions after reading Forster's novel, Passage to India, that emerge insinctively from the writer's thoughts woven into the characters, events and in the virtuosic and meaningful description of the surrounding area, some thoughts can be clearly formulated, but I must realise that language is too poor to give the exact equivalent of these emotions. There is always a gap between a word and thought, between intention and act inside a person and between two characters as well as there is between a human being and the natural world. The gap can get narrower or wider developing friendship or separation in the relationships.
The aim of my interpretation is to explore how the gaps and the arising echoes form and change the relationships between the characters, and what inherent features and interactions draw them closer or make them alienated and even hostile. I chose four characters from the novel: Aziz, Mrs Moor, Miss Quested and Mr Fielding.
From the mean streets and depressing, suffocating area, as the Indian scenery is described in the first chapter, Aziz, the Indian doctor, is brought into life. He is a member of a subordinated race. On the one hand he is against the British, whose ignorant, disdainful and humiliating behaviour caused him and his Indian fellows so many disappointments. On the other hand he is longing for the benevolance and appreciation of the other race, and wants to cross a bridge above the rif.
Mrs Moor is the first person who arouses his belief that there may be that kind of bridge. Their encounter is arranged in the mosque, where both of them are looking for peace and relief, where people can read 'the ninety-nine names of God on the friezes, and pray for their wishes to become true. Mrs Moor regards Aziz as a human while listening to his wrongs. This is the first step that makes the gap narrower between an English and an Indian. The hopes burst into flames in Aziz:
"She had proved her sympathy by criticizing her fellow countrywoman to him, but even earlier he had known. The flame that not even beauty can nourish was springing up, and though his words were querulous his heart began to glow secretly. Presently it burst into speech. 'You understand me, you know what I feel. Oh, if others resembled you!'(45)
Mr Fielding is the principal of the Government College, and he is the only English person who is popular among Indians. He is represented characteristically at the bridge party, which was organized by the Collector in a slight, vain attemption to smoothen away the racial problems, "to bridge the gulf between East an West". Fielding knows not too much about Indians, but deriving from his own moral conviction, he despises the 'Anglo-Indian attitude, feels unfair their treatment to Indians. As Fielding's views are in accordance with the views of the 'newcomers', Mrs Moor and Adela, who want to meet and know more about the inhabitants, their encounter is inevitable. Adela expresses her view, as she is talking to Fielding:
"I think my countrymen out here must be mad. Fancy inviting guests and not to treat them properly!" (65)As Mrs Moor, Adela and Fielding share their views, which are opposite of 'the Turtons' or 'Callendars' as to humane behaviour, they cannot have the title 'pukka', which is only deserved by those English who feel superior to Indians. Mrs Callendar's words show what belief conducts 'the pukkas' behaviour: "... the kindest thing one can do to a native is to let him die." (48)
Thinking over her future Adela, who is 'much too individual' as Mrs Moor describes her, does not wish to be alone, excluded from both English and Indian side. Adela's thoughts are formed into an idea: " ... she knew that she had come up against something that was both insidious and though, and against which she needed allies. She must gather around her at Chandrapore a few people who felt as she did,..."
The relationship between Fielding, Adela, Mrs Moor and Aziz starts to develop into friendship when Fielding invites the ladies and Aziz to his house. Before their encounter Forster puts his belief into words embodied in Fielding's character.
"The world, he believed, is a globe of men who are trying to _ reach one another and can best do so by the help of goodwill plus culture and intelligence ... . He had no racial feeling – not because he was superior to his brother civilians, but because he had matured in a different atmosphere, where the herd-instinct does not flourish." (80)
Fielding with his individual belief and pleasant manner towards the subordinated nation is not accepted by his countrymen, especially women and is not visited or invited by them either. But he does not mind being excluded and would rather 'pay the price' (81) than giving up his conviction set up as a member of a superordinate race.
Fielding's characterization is settled in just before Aziz arrives at Fielding's house. Unlike Aziz, the reader is not surprised at Fielding's amiable welcome "shouted from the bedroom, 'Please make yourself at home'." (81) Their conversation flows as if it were either between two Englishmen or between two Indian fellows. Both the scene, the room where is "nothing to intimidate poor Indians" (81), and Fielding's lovely voice encourage Aziz to feel equal. The following movements, the game in which Fielding tries to guess what Aziz looks like, and that Aziz helps out Fielding with his own collar-stud, even puts it in, are gradually filling in the gap and deepening their intimacy. It does not reach the peak point, however, as hearing about the ladies' arrival Aziz feels being disturbed, because he can not "be alone with his new friend". (84) It causes a sudden shift in Aziz's emotions and ends up in a misunderstanding followed by Aziz's question about Adela. "Is she a Post-Impressionist?" (84) Is it accidental to come up with just this trend of art? It must be not. As there is nothing just a coincidence in the novel. Forster builds up the structure, the scenery, characterizes the figures with the greatest consciousness. A Post-Impressionist artist makes the spectator move far from the painting to observe the contourless paint blobs as a whole, and search for the internal meaning. But how differently can a painting be interpreted! Aziz misinterprets Fielding's sentences, "Come along to tea. This world is getting too much for me altogether". (84) Aziz feels being hurt and his sulkiness makes him say the words almost unintentionally "I do not consider Mrs Moor my friend". (84)
Forster makes perceptible to what a great extent inner features are responsible for personal interactions.
"... he [Aziz] was sensitive rather than responsive. In every remark he found meaning, but not always the true meaning, and his life, though vivid, was largely a dream. Fielding [...] had not meant that Indians are obscure, but that Post-Impressionism is» a gulf devided his remark from Mrs Turton's 'Why, they speak English,' but to Aziz the two sounded alike." (84)
A friendly discourse with the benevolant ladies smoothens away the waves of Aziz's grumbling soul. Adela, Mrs Moor and Fielding’s kindness, their humane attitude fill Aziz with enthusiasm. Penetrated with goodwill and love, his emotions produce imaginary of fraternity and justice. Justice for everyone: guilty or innocent, English or Indian; peace, love and joy for every human. His emotions were born from the desire for ceasing the animosity between races but they alienate him from rationality. This is the point where Forster makes the reader feel the sinister sign of the following events. "Wings bore him up, and flagging would deposit him." (89)
On the other hand Forster suggests in the course of the conversation what an important role the unintentionally pronounced words have in personal relationships and later makes it clear what consequences these words carry. (Adela spontaneuosly reacts to Aziz's question: 'Why not settle in India?' 'I'm afraid I can't do that.' "She made the remark without thinking what it meant." (90) Aziz invites the ladies and Fielding to his house, but later he thinks of his 'bungallow with horror', and though has not even been to the Caves himself, he cannot come up with better idea than "I invite you all to see me in the Marabar Caves'. (91)
Besides exposing the features of his characters, Foster gradually builds up the mistery round the Marabar Caves. There is no person who can describe them, not even Professor Godbole, who has already been to the caves but cannot say anything that may be worth seeing there. He cannot, because there is nothing to be said about them. There are no ornaments, sculptures or stalactites, the caves exist as they are. Professor Godbole conceals the only thing which is bound up with the caves, and cannot be explained or defined by a human mind: 'Ancient Night', the genesis of mankind. The reader must realize that Forster's intention is much more than disclosing racial opposites and the efforts to cease the barriers between the Indian creeds or between the Indian and English races. There is something more above racial problems, personal relationships, which is far independent from any human efforts.
At Fielding's house an allience is woven, involving Mrs Moor, Adela and Fielding. The gaps become narrower. Forster unite them not only for the purpose of bringing the races together, but they set off to approach a mistery. But all the same the writer predicts right in advance the failure of any kind of effort which is to reach the inconceivable. This thought occurs when Aziz remembers his wife in chapter 6."...[Aziz] had thought she [his wife] could live in his mind, not realizing that the very fact that we have loved the dead increases their unreality, and that the more passionately we invoke them the further they recede." (:75)
The allience is woven, but not strong. Adela first breaks off the engagement with Ronny Heaslop, as she cannot accept his behavior to Indians. But after the car accident the longing for love arouses, she changes her mind, and wants to be engaged. Adela’s hesitating, uncertain acts weaken the allience.
When Fielding visits Aziz at his home, encircled by his Indian friends, it becomes clear that no other Indian can join this union. "The Indians were bewildered" (124) hearing Fielding’s honest words about why he is in India, and that he cannot explain why the English are there. Aziz and Fielding get closer to each other, but Forster, though deepens their friendship, yet does not let it develop uncloudedly. He breaks off the scene in chapter ten, as the Indian friends are leaving Aziz's house. The sinister signs resound now in a higher voice. "The heat had leapt forward in the last hour, the street was deserted as if a catastrophe had cleaned off humanity during the inconclusive talk." (126) Forster discloses to what a great extent the natural world embraces and determines the humankind. "It matters so little to the majority of living beings what the minority, that calls himself human, desires or decides." (126) The catastrophe is inevitable for the human who lives under the "overarching sky", whose "Strength comes from the sun" (32). The sinister voice becomes louder as pushing off the ground, brings the inaccessible sun closer, and reveals its power, which determines and subordinates everything in the earth." April, herald of horrors, is at hand. The sun was returning to his kingdom with power but without beauty – that was the sinister feature." (127) Fielding and Aziz do not care of sinister signs, or the heat which penetrates the Indian earth. Aziz, overcoming his shame for his deplorable shanty, calls back Fielding, and shows his only and deepest secret, his wife's picture, providing proof of his friendship. He pours his heart out to Fielding. "... No one can even realize how much kindness we Indians need, we do not even realize it ourselves." (128) This is the peak point of their intimacy, but as soon as becomes deeper, it starts to decline as well. Fielding cannot show anything from his life in return, and thinks there is nothing that Aziz would be interested in. He realizes that all he can give is kindness, which probably can not be effective cure for Indians. " I shall not really be intimate with this fellow, ..." (129)Their intimacy can not be deeper, but their friendship remains. "... their compact had been subscribed by the photograph, they _ trusted one another, affection had triumphed for once in a way." _ (133)
Forster makes perceptible the achronism and the eternal laws of nature by leading the reader back into prehistoric times when " India we call immemorial came into being". (137) The Marabar Caves keep the secret of life. But they have nothing to be seen only the walls, which are smooth like mirror, and where echoes arise. Caves where life may be born are the gaps, which through the echoes separate the individuals from one another and the humankind from the natural world.
The echo frightens Mrs Moor," For an instant she went mad” and causes an irreversable change in the old lady's soul. "The crush and the smells she could forget, but the echo began in some indescribable way to undermine her hold of life. (158)She gives up joining to both Indians and English, gives up explaining the echoes to Adela, even giving the evidence for Aziz’s innocence. She becomes estranged from Adela, his son, and from India, from everything and fades away. But she remains alive in Aziz's mind as he is the last person who is informed about her death.
As Professor Godbole and Fielding miss the train, Aziz is alone to be the host and guide of the English ladies. His proud and dignity dazzle his rational part of his mind to realize the that something goes wrong. Fielding, joining the campany later suspects the catastrophe, but it gets only clear when they return back to Chandrapore. Aziz's world is shattered. The rift between the races becomes tremendous. Every human effort is absorbed by the universe, and proves vain as well as the echo reflecting from the walls, blends the voices into a 'boum'. "If one had spoken with the tongues of angles and pleaded for all the unhappinness and misunderstanding in the world, past, present, and to come, for all the misery men must undergo whatever their opinion and position, and however much they dodge or bluff – it would amount to the same, ..." (161) Though Adela withdraws the accusation, the opposites between Indians and English become irreconcilable, and she gets excluded from both side. So does Fielding, who Fielding stands for Aziz, and claims even in the clue that he believes in his innocence. Aziz and Fielding's friendship gradually breaks up, as Fielding, though loves Aziz as a brother, always stands on the weak side, and gives a shelter to Adela. Fielding also convince Aziz to remitting the consolation price, and Aziz becomes estrange from Fielding. "Aziz had no sence of evidence. The sequence of his emotions decided his beliefs, and led to the tragic coolness between himself and his English friend." (268) Aziz feels being hurt again, as at the beginning of their friendship. He believes the rumour about Fielding and Adela, "whom he still regarded as his enemy» also why had he not been told? What is friendship without confidence?" (268) Misunderstandings, or gaps reoccur again in which words, intentions reaching the other person, have other meaning. As Fielding says in his more rational mind: "That is nothing, of course, we all make mistakes. In a friendship such as ours a few slips are of no consequence." (275) But Fielding perceives the their relationship in a different way. He "was conscious of something hostile, and because he really was fond of Aziz his optimism failed him." (276)
The alienation increases when Aziz misunderstands the news about Fielding's marriage. By this point he is full of his own traditions, and can not see through his prejudice, which is rooted in his disgraded race.
Retiring into his work in a remote state, "Some hundreds of miles westward of the Marabar Hills" (281), he does not wish to hear about the English not even Fielding. "And, though at the back of his mind he felt that Fielding had made sacrifices for him, it was now all confused with his genuine hatred of the English." (289) Misunderstandings become clear by the end of the novel, but the traces they draw can not be swept out for good. When Aziz learns the truth that Fielding's wife is not Miss Quested, but Mrs Moor’s daughter, it is far too late to bring the friendship as close as it was before. Aziz is reconciled with Fielding and writes an apologizing letter to Adela, saying thanks for her courage.
Their friendship can not cross the barriers, which are built up by the prejudice of both races and confirmed by the laws of nature. Every human is born with his own different genes, features, has different experience in his land and is sentenced to carry gaps, which can be approached, but never ceased. When someone yet tries to grasp and penetrate the empty space, enigmatical forces impede his effort, and crying "in their hundred voices, 'No, not yet', [..] 'No, not there'."
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