A Passage to India

As the English-born protagonist of the novel, Fielding is a pleasant, compassionate, and racially sensitive Principle of the Government College in Chandrapore. He is not fully accepted by the English society of Chandrapore as he holds too much respect and friendship for the Indians. The English women do not appreciate his company and consider him a “disruptive force” because he does not allow race to impede his judgements of a character. Either Fielding “keep in with Englishwomen [or] drop the Indians” (66).

When the events of Aziz’s trial force him to choose between English and Indian, Fielding chooses to support Aziz over blindly following the expectations of his race. He knows Aziz to be innocent and resents the English desire to prosecute a man without sufficient evidence. He helps to coordinate Aziz’s defense and severs all social ties with the other English.

After Aziz’s trial, Fielding becomes closer with Adela as she, too, is ostracized for her part in the trial. Fielding determines to return to England and pursue work there. His friendship with Aziz begins to falter; by the time Fielding leaves India, he is relieved to see the familiar buildings, landscape, and people of Europe. When he meets with Aziz two years later, Fielding is a husband and father touring India to evaluate the educational systems of its remoter regions; for the sake of providing for his family, he has chosen to pursue a career in the officialdom and nationality that he condemned during Aziz’s trial.

The female protagonist “who always said exactly what was in her mind” (24) and shows enthusiasm for experiencing the culture and landscape of India, Adela comes to Chandrapore with Mrs. Moore as Ronny’s potential wife. Adela prefers plans, talking out issues thoroughly, and understanding completely the emotional situation around her; as such, she desires to experience Ronny’s life in India before marriage to make a fully informed decision.

At the beginning of the novel, Adela is enthusiastic about meeting Indian people and seeing the city of Chandrapore from a local perspective. All her desires seem to become manifest in Aziz’s offer to show herself and Mrs. Moore the Marabar Caves.

Adela is disenchanted with the Ronny she finds in Chandrapore. Though they once got along well in England, his pedantry, prejudice, and lack of professional training, as well as the mundanity of life behind the civil lines, prompt her to break off her engagement. However, she changes her mind that same night, and becomes Ronny’s fiancé. This engagement saps her of her desire to see India; when it comes time to visit the Caves with Aziz, she is putting on an act of her old self. Her mind is full of marriage and its implications, which prompts her to ask Aziz if he has more than one wife.

Marriage, a life in India, and the caves become intertwined in Adela’s mind. Though the narrative remains ambiguous as to what she experienced in the Caves, metaphorically, Adela has an encounter separate from the English colonial apparatus in India at the same time she realizes how much of Ronny’s imperialistic values will continue to assault her for the remainder of her life. Her decision to speak truthfully at the trial signals the return to her authentic self. She accepts her ostracization from the English as a matter of course and returns to England after Ronny’s cessation of their engagement without complaint or regret.

Mrs. Moore is the spiritual and moral touchpoint that both the English and Indians refer to during times of extreme stress. She supports Adela’s character development and acts as her guide throughout the novel. As a mother and woman, Mrs. Moore assumes the expected role of self-sacrifice to the family, “her function was to help others, her reward to be informed that she was sympathetic” (102). However, the longer she is kept in India and away from her other two children in India, the more Mrs. Moore comes to resent her role. Solitude and spiritual contemplation consume her. After her death, Mrs. Moore remains in the narrative as a spiritual impetus carrying the theme of transcendence to Aziz, Fielding, Godbole, and her children Ralph and Stella.