A Discourse of ‘Othering’ in E. M. Forster’s "A Passage to India"

Abstract

Due to industrialization and mechanization in Europe, there was the need to sell overproduction, find new markets and buy larger amounts of raw materials at cheapest price. For these reasons, in terms of colonialism, most developed European countries occupied territories especially in areas with no political and economic structures from the 16th century to the 20th century. In addition to economic and political reasons for Western colonialism, there was the so-called ‘civilizing mission’ because Western people believed in superiority of their civilization. The Western ideology has produced arbitrary geographic separation through drawing boundaries between itself and ‘other’, and referred to ‘other’s land as the ‘Orient’ and ‘the land of barbarians’. In this sense, a discourse of the ‘othering’ has been produced especially in the colonial period and in literature. In this context, E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India (1924) allows readers to analyse how colonialism impacts on gender, class, culture and race. It concerns the relations between the English and the native population of India during the colonial period in which Britain ruled India. In the novel, A Passage to India, one of the major characters named Dr Aziz, like many of the other Indians, struggles with the problem of the English in India. On the one hand, he appreciates some of the modernizing influences that the West has brought to India; on the other hand, he feels that the presence of the English degrades and oppresses his people. The British Empire is portrayed as a fundamentally racist institution that excludes and subjugates others. There are racial lines, with the white Europeans on one side, and everyone else on the other. Indians are referred to as the ‘Oriental’ and ‘Other’ who are stereotypically considered to be undeveloped, ignorant and wild as opposed to the intellectual, civilized, and progressive Westerner. Indians are considered unable to rule themselves, essentially needing the British Empire to help them toward civilization.