Many scenes in A Passage to India evoke the futility of human connection. In Part 1, Chapter 4, the narrator speculates about the true nature of such connection:
All invitations must proceed from heaven perhaps; perhaps it is futile for men to initiate their own unity, they do but widen the gulfs between them by the attempt.
Here, a paradox arises: the more that people try to connect with one another, the less they succeed. Relational "invitations" must proceed from some unknown source that lies beyond human control. Mrs. Moore has a similar thought while in the Marabar Caves and feels "despair creeping over her" as "she realize[s] that she [doesn't] want to write to her children, [doesn't] want to communicate with anyone, not even with God." This prompts an existential crisis because, until this moment, Mrs. Moore has defined herself in relation to God and other people.
This motif again appears in Part 1, Chapter 9, when the narrator describes the interactions among various kingdoms:
And the sister kingdoms of the north—Arabia, Persia, Ferghana, Turkestan— stretched out their hands as he sang, sadly, because all beauty is sad, and greeted ridiculous Chandrapore, where every street and house was divided against itself, and told her that she was a continent and a unity.
This passage suggests that the same problem that plagues personal relationships also plagues entire countries. India remains disunited, not only because of the English colonizers but also because of the rift between Hindu sects, which Aziz observes when he begins working in Mau. The following questions arise: if people cannot manage to connect with each other on an individual level, how can a country manage to stay united? What is a country but a collection of individuals? Forster lets these questions simmer in the storyline of A Passage to India without solving them. He makes a motif of people's futile attempts at connection and displays a very weak optimism about their future potential to cultivate meaningful relationships. This interest in disconnection and solitude pervades modernist literature and should be kept in mind while reading not only Forster but also his counterparts (Woolf, Joyce, Lawrence, etc.). Forster's epigraph to Howards End is "Only connect"—a phrase that evokes a similar longing for unity as the one expressed in A Passage to India.
Godbole's song, which repeats the phrase "Come! Come," becomes a refrain that represents the eventual redemption of India. This Hindu song tells the story of a milkmaid who pleads for the presence of God (who never actually appears). The song appears in Part 1, Chapter 7 when Adela wishes to hear Godbole sing, and he assents:
“I may sing now,” he replied, and did. His thin voice rose, and gave out one sound after another. At times there seemed rhythm, at times there was the illusion of a Western melody. But the ear, baffled repeatedly, soon lost any clue, and wandered in a maze of noises, none harsh or unpleasant, none intelligible. It was the song of an unknown bird.
At first, the English visitors cannot understand the song. They are "baffled" by it and "wandered in a maze of noises." Godbole finishes his performance and then explains the story of the desperate milkmaid. In later chapters, Mrs. Moore expresses a similar hope that God will be more present in their own lives, but Godbole simply reiterates the story behind his song.
The song also appears in the climactic scene in Part 3, Chapter 33 during the ceremonial birth of Krishna:
Professor Godbole had once more developed the life of his spirit. He had, with increasing vividness, again seen Mrs. Moore, and round her faintly clinging forms of trouble. He was a Brahman, she Christian, but it made no difference, it made no difference whether she was a trick of his memory or a telepathic appeal. It was his duty, as it was his desire, to place himself in the position of the God and to love her and to place himself in her position and to say to the God, “Come, come, come, come.” This was all he could do. How inadequate!
Here, Godbole recognizes two things. Firstly, he considers the inadequacy of attempting to love or connect with other people. Secondly, he notes the ultimate victory and beauty of being able to love everyone equally, even if one's own love will never approach that of a God. His own name—Godbole—matches his intense interest in human approximations of God. His participation in Hindu ceremonies inspires him to place himself in God's position, but also to place himself in Mrs. Moore's position in order to visualize some kind of harmony or understanding between them. Godbole's name also derives from a Marathi name that means sweet-tongued, which makes sense given that he sings such a mysterious song.
On a much larger scale, his song expresses hope that spiritual forces can redeem a seemingly hopeless world. Although God does not appear in the song, he has the potential to bring the world together and diminish people's differences. Godbole continues to sing in a neutral (not despairing) tone, despite the message behind his song. The song seems more like a mystery than a lament, and its appearance throughout the story serves as another reminder of the impenetrability of people's motives and the difficulty of human connection.
The passage from England to India requires boats, which become a prominent motif in the novel. Boats primarily symbolize colonization. In Part 1, Chapter 7, Fielding remarks:
“Even mangoes can be got in England now [...]. They ship them in ice-cold rooms. You can make India in England apparently, just as you can make England in India.”
This lighthearted quip belies a dark truth about Anglo-Indian relations. Boats and ships create portals between the nations, but contact is rarely positive. England uses its naval power to dominate India, and the question of passage represents a small issue in a much wider political landscape. Furthermore, the English tend to appropriate Indian products and customs, labeling them "exotic" and determining their value by how difficult they were to obtain or learn about. When Adela resists Fielding's remark by claiming that mangoes are far too expensive, the reader should realize that the cost of goods is the least of their concerns. The true cost of colonization lay in the sacrifice of human labor and lives, and most of Forster's English characters fail to understand this fact.
The boat motif takes a darker turn when Mrs. Moore dies on the passage back to England in Part 2, Chapter 28:
Dead she was—committed to the deep while still on the southward track, for the boats from Bombay cannot point towards Europe until Arabia has been rounded; she was further in the tropics than ever achieved while on shore, when the sun touched her for the last time and her body was lowered into yet another India—the Indian Ocean. She left behind her sore discomfort, for a death gives a ship a bad name. Who was this Mrs. Moore?
Dying on a boat—and being buried in the ocean—makes Mrs. Moore anonymous. When she becomes "committed to the deep," she becomes one with the ocean, drifting into the very silent eternity that she feared while in the Marabar Caves. For the rest of the passengers, death is bad luck and "gives a ship a bad name." This occurrence gives some weight and significance to the passage between England and India, which was previously treated by other characters as a trip, a treat, or a privilege for those who knew certain English officials. It also gives the motif of boats a bit more prominence in the story, as it reveals the depth of her "sore discomfort," which does not fade even when she leaves India (where her existential crisis began). The neutral or even positive title of A Passage to India takes on a negative connotation when readers discover what the passage entails: death, destruction, and inhumane colonization.
The motif of birds recurs throughout A Passage to India and comes to represent the ungraspable nature of India. For example, in Part 1, Chapter 8, Ronny and Adela fail to identify a strange green bird:
“Do you know what the name of that green bird up above us is?” she asked, putting her shoulder rather nearer to his. “Bee-eater.” “Oh no, Ronny, it has red bars on its wings.” “Parrot,” he hazarded. “Good gracious no.” The bird in question dived into the dome of the tree. It was of no importance, yet they would have liked to identify it, it would somehow have solaced their hearts. But nothing in India is identifiable, the mere asking of a question causes it to disappear or to merge in something else.
In this passage, Ronny "hazard[s]" a few guesses about the species of this bird. He displays the same brash confidence in his own abilities here as he does working for the British Empire. However, he repeatedly gets it wrong. This bird symbolizes the elusive nature of India; it cannot be put into any single category. Categorization is the sestern, not the eastern, approach to understanding. In the case of India, "nothing is identifiable, the mere asking of a question causes it to disappear or to merge in something else." Thus, India always baffles the Westerners who seek to understand it. The Indians have a different—more intuitive—attitude toward understanding, and they define it in terms of feeling rather than intellect. No matter how intelligent Ronny believes himself to be, he will never grasp the true nature of India, nor will he be able to offhandedly identify its native animals.
Birds appear again at the beginning of Part 1, Chapter 10 as one of the "lower animals" who "do not mind how India is governed." These lower animals represent a majority of the country's population, and yet their opinions remain unknown and unimportant to its human inhabitants. Here, the presence of birds subtly echoes the English sentiments of superiority toward the Indians; the English settlers remain a minority even though their colonial power permits them to have outsized influence. Each time a bird appears in the story, it serves as a reminder of either the elusive nature of India's identity or the subordination of Indians to the English.
Many scenes in A Passage to India evoke the futility of human connection. In Part 1, Chapter 4, the narrator speculates about the true nature of such connection:
All invitations must proceed from heaven perhaps; perhaps it is futile for men to initiate their own unity, they do but widen the gulfs between them by the attempt.
Here, a paradox arises: the more that people try to connect with one another, the less they succeed. Relational "invitations" must proceed from some unknown source that lies beyond human control. Mrs. Moore has a similar thought while in the Marabar Caves and feels "despair creeping over her" as "she realize[s] that she [doesn't] want to write to her children, [doesn't] want to communicate with anyone, not even with God." This prompts an existential crisis because, until this moment, Mrs. Moore has defined herself in relation to God and other people.
This motif again appears in Part 1, Chapter 9, when the narrator describes the interactions among various kingdoms:
And the sister kingdoms of the north—Arabia, Persia, Ferghana, Turkestan— stretched out their hands as he sang, sadly, because all beauty is sad, and greeted ridiculous Chandrapore, where every street and house was divided against itself, and told her that she was a continent and a unity.
This passage suggests that the same problem that plagues personal relationships also plagues entire countries. India remains disunited, not only because of the English colonizers but also because of the rift between Hindu sects, which Aziz observes when he begins working in Mau. The following questions arise: if people cannot manage to connect with each other on an individual level, how can a country manage to stay united? What is a country but a collection of individuals? Forster lets these questions simmer in the storyline of A Passage to India without solving them. He makes a motif of people's futile attempts at connection and displays a very weak optimism about their future potential to cultivate meaningful relationships. This interest in disconnection and solitude pervades modernist literature and should be kept in mind while reading not only Forster but also his counterparts (Woolf, Joyce, Lawrence, etc.). Forster's epigraph to Howards End is "Only connect"—a phrase that evokes a similar longing for unity as the one expressed in A Passage to India.
The motif of silence recurs throughout A Passage to India. It often represents the futility and emptiness of life, but it sometimes stands for peace. In Part 1, Chapter 5, Mrs. Moore becomes intrigued by the silence that seems to exist beyond the echoes of the Marabar Caves:
Mrs. Moore felt that she had made a mistake in mentioning God, but she found him increasingly difficult to avoid as she grew older, and he had been constantly in her thoughts since she entered India, though oddly enough he satisfied her less. She must pronounce his name frequently, as the greatest she knew, yet she had never found it less efficacious. Outside the arch there seemed always an arch, beyond the remotest echo a silence.
Here, Mrs. Moore thinks that silence signifies emptiness. The echoes of her prayers meet an endless series of caves, empty structures beyond which exists nothing. Pronouncing God's name seems to have some kind of power; however, it does not effectively bring her closer to God. She begins to believe that her prayers are going nowhere and that "beyond the remotest echo" is only silence, which in this case represents the absence of God.
Later in the story, Adela and Mrs. Moore contemplate the dull quietude of most days in India. In Part 2, Chapter 14, the narrator writes:
Most of life is so dull that there is nothing to be said about it [...]. Inside its cocoon of work or social obligation, the human spirit slumbers for the most part, registering the distinction between pleasure and pain, but not nearly as alert as we pretend. There are periods in the most thrilling day during which nothing happens, and though we continue to exclaim, “I do enjoy myself,” or, “I am horrified,” we are insincere. “As far as I feel anything, it is enjoyment, horror”—it’s no more than that really, and a perfectly adjusted organism would be silent.
In this passage, the narrator discusses the dullness of life. Most spirits "slumber," and most people are not nearly as alert as they pretend. They exclaim excitedly about their circumstances. By contrast, "a perfectly adjusted organism would be silent." The idea here is that well-adjusted people would not need to make grand claims about their emotional states. They would be and feel rather than simply talking about their state of being. Silence, then, comes to signify peace, which obviates the need for explanation.
This scene stands in stark contrast to the one described above, because, initially, the idea of silence makes Mrs. Moore uncomfortable. Later, though, the narrator reveals that constant chatter and requests for God's appearance simply show how agitated and unsettled Mrs. Moore is in her own life. Most often in the story, silence serves as a reminder of the emptiness of life and the futility of trying to connect with people.
The passage from England to India requires boats, which become a prominent motif in the novel. Boats primarily symbolize colonization. In Part 1, Chapter 7, Fielding remarks:
“Even mangoes can be got in England now [...]. They ship them in ice-cold rooms. You can make India in England apparently, just as you can make England in India.”
This lighthearted quip belies a dark truth about Anglo-Indian relations. Boats and ships create portals between the nations, but contact is rarely positive. England uses its naval power to dominate India, and the question of passage represents a small issue in a much wider political landscape. Furthermore, the English tend to appropriate Indian products and customs, labeling them "exotic" and determining their value by how difficult they were to obtain or learn about. When Adela resists Fielding's remark by claiming that mangoes are far too expensive, the reader should realize that the cost of goods is the least of their concerns. The true cost of colonization lay in the sacrifice of human labor and lives, and most of Forster's English characters fail to understand this fact.
The boat motif takes a darker turn when Mrs. Moore dies on the passage back to England in Part 2, Chapter 28:
Dead she was—committed to the deep while still on the southward track, for the boats from Bombay cannot point towards Europe until Arabia has been rounded; she was further in the tropics than ever achieved while on shore, when the sun touched her for the last time and her body was lowered into yet another India—the Indian Ocean. She left behind her sore discomfort, for a death gives a ship a bad name. Who was this Mrs. Moore?
Dying on a boat—and being buried in the ocean—makes Mrs. Moore anonymous. When she becomes "committed to the deep," she becomes one with the ocean, drifting into the very silent eternity that she feared while in the Marabar Caves. For the rest of the passengers, death is bad luck and "gives a ship a bad name." This occurrence gives some weight and significance to the passage between England and India, which was previously treated by other characters as a trip, a treat, or a privilege for those who knew certain English officials. It also gives the motif of boats a bit more prominence in the story, as it reveals the depth of her "sore discomfort," which does not fade even when she leaves India (where her existential crisis began). The neutral or even positive title of A Passage to India takes on a negative connotation when readers discover what the passage entails: death, destruction, and inhumane colonization.
Godbole's song, which repeats the phrase "Come! Come," becomes a refrain that represents the eventual redemption of India. This Hindu song tells the story of a milkmaid who pleads for the presence of God (who never actually appears). The song appears in Part 1, Chapter 7 when Adela wishes to hear Godbole sing, and he assents:
“I may sing now,” he replied, and did. His thin voice rose, and gave out one sound after another. At times there seemed rhythm, at times there was the illusion of a Western melody. But the ear, baffled repeatedly, soon lost any clue, and wandered in a maze of noises, none harsh or unpleasant, none intelligible. It was the song of an unknown bird.
At first, the English visitors cannot understand the song. They are "baffled" by it and "wandered in a maze of noises." Godbole finishes his performance and then explains the story of the desperate milkmaid. In later chapters, Mrs. Moore expresses a similar hope that God will be more present in their own lives, but Godbole simply reiterates the story behind his song.
The song also appears in the climactic scene in Part 3, Chapter 33 during the ceremonial birth of Krishna:
Professor Godbole had once more developed the life of his spirit. He had, with increasing vividness, again seen Mrs. Moore, and round her faintly clinging forms of trouble. He was a Brahman, she Christian, but it made no difference, it made no difference whether she was a trick of his memory or a telepathic appeal. It was his duty, as it was his desire, to place himself in the position of the God and to love her and to place himself in her position and to say to the God, “Come, come, come, come.” This was all he could do. How inadequate!
Here, Godbole recognizes two things. Firstly, he considers the inadequacy of attempting to love or connect with other people. Secondly, he notes the ultimate victory and beauty of being able to love everyone equally, even if one's own love will never approach that of a God. His own name—Godbole—matches his intense interest in human approximations of God. His participation in Hindu ceremonies inspires him to place himself in God's position, but also to place himself in Mrs. Moore's position in order to visualize some kind of harmony or understanding between them. Godbole's name also derives from a Marathi name that means sweet-tongued, which makes sense given that he sings such a mysterious song.
On a much larger scale, his song expresses hope that spiritual forces can redeem a seemingly hopeless world. Although God does not appear in the song, he has the potential to bring the world together and diminish people's differences. Godbole continues to sing in a neutral (not despairing) tone, despite the message behind his song. The song seems more like a mystery than a lament, and its appearance throughout the story serves as another reminder of the impenetrability of people's motives and the difficulty of human connection.
