'A Passage to India' by E.M. Forster
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'A Passage to India' by E.M. Forster |
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Home My 015 Classes My 914 Classes ESL Links About Me A Passage to India Writing an Essay Between and Beyond the Lines Avoiding Run-ons and Fragments Videos & Slides Quizzes (Run-ons, Fragments, Sentence types) About Me (Education and Work Experience, Research Interests and Publications, My Readings, My Travels) |
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Updated on 04/13/08 |
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Globe from wizzard.com | |||||||
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The plot begins (Mosque) with a young Englishwoman, Adela Quested, who travels to India to visit her fiancé, a British magistrate posted in a small town, together with his mother, Mrs. Moore, who is her traveling companion. Their wish to see something of the country and to meet everyday Indians, continually frustrated by the British community's insistence that relations with the locals are best experienced from a distance, is finally fulfilled when a friend, Mr. Fielding, introduces them to an Indian doctor, Dr. Aziz, whom Mrs. Moore had seen briefly on her visit to a mosque.
Dr. Aziz's taking them on an outing to the nearby Malabar caves, a local attraction, unfortunately starts a series of events that eventually threaten to destroy any civility between the British and Indian societies. Hearing the echo in a cave, Mrs. Moore is overcome by heat and fatigue, and decides to rest. Miss Quested, who goes on alone with Dr. Aziz and a guide, soon rushes out of a cave disheveled and hysterical and is taken away in the car by an English lady who has brought Mr. Fielding to the outing. This leads to the charge, possibly an innuendo because Adela never seems to have proffered the charge herself, that Dr. Aziz has attempted to rape her. He is arrested, and the British, with their surface unflappability and their underlying paranoia about the Indians, react as if they were under siege.
Mrs. Moore decides to have nothing to do with the impending trial, and sails away for England (she dies on the ship) while Mr. Fielding, who continues to feel that the mishap would have probably not occurred had he been able to join the outing in time (he was delayed because his colleague and another invitee, Professor Godbole, took too long in his prayers) sides with Dr. Aziz. The trial ends abruptly however, and Dr. Aziz is set free, when Miss Quested refuses in the court to identify him as the culprit. For the small and close-knit local British community, therefore, both Mr. Fielding and Miss Quested have now become the outcasts.
These are not the only lives that this "Cave" episode has changed for, two years later, in the third and final part of the novel (the Temple), we find that Aziz and Godbole have migrated to the neighboring Hindu state where Godbole is the Minister of Education and Aziz has a clinic in town. Fielding and Quested have returned to England. Nursing his embittered memories of the Cave episode, Aziz wishes to have nothing to do with the British, and has ignored all of Fielding's letters and postcards over the years as he assumes that Fielding has married Adela in London. Aziz thus refuses to see Fielding when Godbole shares with him the news that Fielding and his new wife will be visiting the state. They (Aziz and Fielding) do eventually meet when Aziz treats Fielding's new brother-in-law (Ralph) for a bee sting and realizes that Fielding did not marry Adela, but Mrs. Moore's daughter, Stella, Adela having introduced them in London. Aziz and Fielding become friends again, finally, and Aziz is able to leave his past behind him and even writes to Adela forgiving her for her charges against him.
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The 1984 David Lean film "A Passage to India" based on E.M. Forster's novel ... |
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This adaptation of E.M. Forster's
mysterious tale of British racism in colonial India turned out to be master
director David Lean's final film. Subtle and grand at the same time, Lean's
adaptation is faithful to the book, rendering its blend of the mystical and
the all-too human with exquisite precision. Judy Davis plays a young British
woman traveling in India with her fiancé's mother. While visiting a tourist
attraction, she has a frightening moment in a cave ― one that she eventually
spins from an instant of mental meltdown into a tale of physical attack that
ruins several lives. Lean captures Forster's sense of awe at the kind of
ageless wisdom and inexplicable phenomena to be encountered in India, as
well as the British tendency to dismiss it all as savage, rather than simply
different. ― Marshall Fine (this text refers to the VHS Tape edition) |
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Judy Davis,
Victor Banerjee,
Peggy Ashcroft,
James Fox,
Alec Guinness,
Nigel Havers,
Richard Wilson,
Antonia Pemberton,
Michael Culver,
Art Malik,
Saeed Jaffrey,
Clive Swift,
Anne Firbank,
Roshan Seth,
Sandra Hotz,
Rashid Karapiet,
H.S. Krishnamurthy,
Ishaq Bux,
Moti Makan,
Mohammed Ashiq,
Phyllis Bose,
Sally Kinghorn,
Paul Anil,
Z.H. Khan,
Ashok Mandanna,
Dina Pathak,
Adam Blackwood,
Mellan Mitchell,
Peter Hughes,
Edward Fox,
John Michie |
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| Director: | David Lean |
Rated:
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| Format: | Color, Closed-captioned, Dolby, Widescreen | Studio: Columbia Tri-Star | ||||
| DVD Release Date: March 20, 2001 | Run Time: 164 minutes | |||||
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"A Passage to India" on
the World Wide Web
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Book
Notes at
BookRags.com
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ClassicNotes:
A Passage to India
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Adaptation: John Maynard Original novel: E.M. Forster
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Synopsis:
In the Indian city of Chandrapore, Dr Aziz meets Mrs Moore when she enters a mosque at night. He criticises her, thinking that she has not removed her shoes before entering, when in fact she has. They talk about religion and about their families and quickly become friends.Cyril Fielding, the principal of Government College, invites Aziz over for tea at the suggestion of Mrs Moore. Aziz arrives early, just as Fielding is getting dressed. When Fielding breaks his back collar stud, Aziz offers him his own. He is upset when Fielding refuses this courtesy, seeing it as typical of the problems that beset the English and the Indians in India. Fielding apologises and accepts the stud. They are joined by Dr Godbole, a Brahmin who teaches at the College, and by Mrs Moore and Adela Quested, who has come to Chandrapore to marry the City Magistrate, Mrs Moore's son Ronny. Adela is clearly fascinated by Aziz's stories about the Mogul Emperors, but is also slightly apprehensive when he describes some of their more intimate customs. Adela and Mrs Moore express a desire to see the 'real India' and Aziz suggests an outing to the famous Marabar Caves. Dr Godbole and Fielding take Mrs Moore to see the school grounds. Ronny arrives and is clearly upset at seeing his mother missing and his fiancée having tea with Aziz. Adela gets angry with him and asks that their engagement be postponed. After they leave, Fielding apologises to Aziz for Ronny's rudeness.
Aziz organises a trip to the Marabar Caves but Fielding and Godbole miss the train. Mrs Moore reassures him that all will be well. Adela is clearly enraptured by the journey and by the Indian countryside. Outside the caves, she tells Aziz that she will marry Ronny after all. Aziz tells her of his late wife and of their children and describes their wedding ceremony. Mrs Moore becomes agitated by the echo inside one the caves and comes out weeping. She suggests that Aziz and Adela visit the other caves without her. Fielding and Godbole arrive a little later, just as Adela is seen making a hasty trip down the mountain slope and getting a lift in a passing car.
At the club, Fielding learns that Adela was picked up in a state on great distress and covered in cactus spines. She has accused Aziz of having attempted to rape her in one of the caves. Fielding refuses to believe it, but finds the whole British community against him. He resigns from the club so as to support Aziz. Ronny speaks with his mother. She is clearly distressed, not so much about Adela but by the emptiness she found in the caves. Deeply disturbed by the events, she claims that Adela has been suffering from a 'spiritual illness' for quite some time. She is adamant that she cannot help or give evidence and insists on going back to England.
Aziz is put on trial. He is humiliated when the cherished photo of his wife and his private letters are used in evidence. Mrs Moore is called by Aziz's lawyer, but Ronny reveals that she died on the ship home. When Adela gives her evidence, she suddenly says that she made a mistake and withdraws her accusation. She is abandoned by the other members of the British community and by Ronny. Fielding is the only one to take pity on her. She claims that for a long time the echo of the caves has been ringing in her ears, but that now it has gone. Fielding speculates that she unconsciously decided to destroy her India upon realising that she didn't really love Ronny. He convinces Aziz not to seek compensatory damages against her, as it would ruin her financially at a time when she has nothing left. The two men part, hoping that one day it may be possible for them to be true friends.
Source: http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/1052917/synopsis.html
This site was last updated on 04/13/08
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