The Important Role of the Marabar Caves in A Passage to India
During the fourteen years that followed the publication of Howards
End, Edward Morgan Forster underwent a harsh mood change that culminated in
the publication of A Passage to India, Forster's bitterest book (Shusterman
159). Forster was not alone in his transition to a harsher tone in his
fiction. A Passage to India was written in the era that followed the First
World War. George Thomson writes that the novel "may be viewed as a reaction
to the disappearance of God in the nineteenth century.... Twentieth century
writers have symbolized this world without God as a wasteland" (293). Post-
war writers were appalled by the atrocities brought about by war and,
therefore, concluded that Earth is not overseen by a God. Rather, they
believed that the world was, in a sense, empty. Nowhere can this
emptiness be seen better than in the second of the novel's three major
sections, "Caves." Thomson writes that this section is "a great wasteland
image in which...the Marabar expresses the nonexistence of God" (293).
"Caves" begins as the story's major characters make a journey to the
mystifying Marabar Caves. In the monotony, hollowness, and evanescent
beauty of the Marabar Caves is revealed a truth about the universe that
Mrs. Moore and Adela are unable to accept, but by which both characters
are affected, as well as Aziz, who may have suffered the most severe
consequences of the three.
Forster foreshadows the important role that the Marabar Caves
will play in A Passage to India in the novel's first line. Forster writes,
"Ex...
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... Works Cited
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1965, 158-204.
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par. 1). With clever poetic purpose, Frost‘s poems meld the ebb and flow of nature to convey
Frost uses nature as a reflection of human experiences; just like humanity it can have seasons and life cycles. He uses different scenes to depict a certain mood for readers to step into the psychological happening of a man. The idea of how seasons change, Frost compares it through the life cycles that humans encounter. Contrary to popular opinion, I believe that nature is not Frost’s central theme in his poetry; it is about the relationship that man has with nature in which can be seen from “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, “The Road Not Taken”, and “An Old Man’s Winter Night.”
The vivid imagery, symbolism, metaphors make his poetry elusive, through these elements Frost is able to give nature its dark side. It is these elements that must be analyzed to discover the hidden dark meaning within Roberts Frost’s poems. Lines that seemed simple at first become more complex after the reader analyzes the poem using elements of poetry. For example, in the poem Mending Wall it appears that Robert frost is talking about two man arguing about a wall but at a closer look the reader realizes that the poem is about the things that separate man from man, which can be viewed as destructive. In After Apple Picking, the darkness of nature is present through the man wanting sleep, which is symbolic of death. It might seem that the poem is about apple picking and hard work but it is actually about the nature of death.
Frost’s nature poetry interconnects the world of the natural and the world of human beings – Both key elements of his motivation in writing poetry. The harsh reality of nature and the thoughtless expectations in the minds of man scarcely cohere to one another. Frost usually starts with an observation in nature, contemplates it and then connects it to some psychological concern (quoted in Thompson). According to Thompson, “His poetic impulse starts with some psychological concern and finds its way to a material embodiment which usually includes a natural scene” (quoted in Thompson).
...uses his poetry to celebrate, compare, and contrast the beauty of nature and rural living. Throughout Frost’s poetry he draws upon the beauty of nature to build up vast amounts of scenery. To contrast from nature, Frost also uses the integration of industrialized rural life. Frost uses nature to build the beauty in his poetry, but also uses it to say things that cannot be said with words alone. Heller once wisely spoke: “Maybe freedom really is nothing left to lose. You had it once in childhood, when it was okay to climb a tree, to paint a crazy picture and wipe out on your bike, to get hurt. The spirit of risk gradually takes its leave. It follows the wild cries of joy and pain down the wind, through the hedgerow, growing ever fainter. What was that sound? A dog barking far off? That was our life calling to us, the one that was vigorous and undefended and curious.”
Mishra, Vijay. "The Texts of Mother India." After Europe.Ed. Stephen Slemon and Helen Tiffin. Sydney: Dangaroo Press, 1989. 119-37.
Throughout the novel A Passage to India, by E.M. Forster, and Burmese Days, by George Orwell, the authors use race, culture, economics, and liberal humanism to discuss various colonial issues. These issues include controversies, power structures, injustices, and the idea of syncretism between the colonizers and the colonized. A Passage to India focuses largely on using culture and liberal humanism to explore issues of colonialism while Burmese Days mainly uses race and economics to explore these topics. While the novels use different methods of exploration, both novels very successfully take on the task of discussing the very colonial issues of controversies, power structures, injustices, and syncretism.
In the novel A Passage to India, written by Forster, he is bias towards the women in the novel. The society when Forster wrote the novel in the 1920’s had different views on women than it has today a...
Allen, Charles. Kipling Sahib: India and the Making of Rudyard Kipling. New York: Pegasus Books, 2009. Print.
...ke; “Of apple picking I am over-tired, of the great harvest myself desired”. He cannot find the meaning of his life, and it remains always elusive because, as humans we are confined only to look at the bad choices we have made, something that Robert Frost sees, looking toward nature instead to help make sense of it all.
Robert Frost is an amazing poet that many admire today. He is an inspiration to many poets today. His themes and ideas are wonderful and are valued by many. His themes are plentiful however a main one used is the theme of nature. Frost uses nature to express his views as well as to make his poetry interesting and easy to imagine in your mind through the detail he supplies.
...ert Frost 's poems, I now see his poems in a different perspective. I once thought as many do, that Frost 's poems where about nature but now I know that Frost 's true intention was of “taking life by the throat” (Frost Interview). While others consider him as a nature poet, Frost doesn’t believe himself as one and we can see his perspective in his poems but especially in “Mowing,” “After Apple-Picking,” and “The Road Not Taken.” Frost actually uses nature as an analogy to human life experiences or the troubles that people go through. He reflects these poems back to his personal life and the struggles he has been through also. After researching and reading about Robert Frost I have became very fond his work and enjoy looking deeper into his work trying to picture what he truly meant. While Frost uses a simple idea like nature, he relates it back to human nature.