A Passage to India

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1924

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-3

Part 1, Chapters 4-6

Part 1, Chapters 7-11

Part 2, Chapters 12-14

Part 2, Chapters 15-18

Part 2, Chapters 19-22

Part 2, Chapters 23-25

Part 2, Chapters 26-29

Part 2, Chapters 30-32

Part 3, Chapters 33-37

Character Analysis

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Part 2, Chapters 30-32Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “Caves”

Part 2, Chapter 30 Summary

Following the trial, the previously opposing Hindu and Muslim Chandrapore population reach a cooperative peacefulness. Aziz receives the Hindu Magistrate Das as a patient and is commissioned to write an Islamic poem for Das’s brother-in-law. They discuss how long this amity will last, with Das commenting on the need for brotherhood: “Excuse my mistakes, realize my limitations. Life is not easy as we know it on the earth” (297).

That evening, Aziz attempts to write a poem with an Indian universal appeal. Though he doesn’t succeed in writing the poem, the act of contemplating a unified “mother-land” leads him to conclude a necessity for a king or independently Indian ruling body. He informs Hamidullah of his resolve to move out of British India, preferably to a quiet job or writing poetry. Hamidullah complains of Aziz’s decision to not sue Adela, as he could have been living as a rich man and not contemplating a future of remote poverty for himself and his three children.

Hamidullah relates to Aziz a piece of gossip circulating through the city that Adela and Fielding had an affair during her time living at the College. Aziz does not consider the gossip of much importance; he is too distracted by the prospect of a life writing poetry.

Part 2, Chapter 31 Summary

Over time, Aziz and Fielding begin to disagree more frequently about emotion, proper social behavior, and loyalty to each other. Aziz begins to worry that the rumor about Adela and Fielding is true, becoming deeply hurt that his friend potentially betrayed him and persuaded him against suing because of his own self-interest. Aziz brings up the latest gossip in Chandrapore that Miss Derek is having an affair with McBryde and that Mrs. McBryde is divorcing her husband. Fielding is nonplussed until Aziz directly suggests that he and Adela were involved.

Fielding doesn’t outright dismiss these claims, saying “A pity there is this rumour, but such a very small pity—so small that we may as well talk of something else” (303). Aziz takes this to mean that Fielding is protecting Adela. Their conversation devolves into a racial argument, with Aziz hurt over Fielding’s assumptions about an “Oriental imagination” that puts too much emphasis on emotion.

Despite their argument, Fielding demands that Aziz have dinner with him that evening. They part and Fielding runs into Turton, who requires Fielding to attend the club that evening. Fielding attends, but it unimpressed with the new men brought in to administer Chandrapore after a restructuring of positions following the English failure at the trial. He contemplates the idea of an echo: “Everything echoes now; there’s no stopping the echo. The original sound may be harmless, but the echo is always evil” (307).

At dinner, Fielding tells Aziz that he is leaving for England soon. They attempt to discuss poetry and then religion but fail to find a common ground: “They were affectionate and intimate, but nothing clicked tight” (309). Aziz leaves more convinced that Fielding and Adela manipulated him than before. He plans to take his children back to their grandmother’s and to avoid seeing Fielding again before he leaves for England.

Part 2, Chapter 32 Summary

Fielding travels through the Middle East, Egypt, and the Mediterranean on his way back to England. The further he travels from India, the more struck he is by the natural and manmade beauties of Europe: “He had forgotten the beauty of form among idol temples and lumpy hills; indeed, without form, how can there be beauty?” (313). To him, the mosques in India do not compare to the Italian churches he sees, and he revels in being back in a place he considers to be out of the “muddle.”

As he approaches England, Fielding becomes so taken by the harmonious form of things around him that it is difficult to write emotionally to his Indian friends about what he sees. Fielding considers that “the Mediterranean is the human norm” (314) and is grateful to have left a place that demanded more of his emotional body than the West does, which demands more of his mind. This allows him to return to England in June with fantasies of romance and nature-appreciation firmly reestablished within him.

Part 2, Chapters 30-32 Analysis

The concepts of an echo and echoing surfaces in these chapters as a metaphor for an unstoppable chain of events, particularly events related to evil, criminality, or subjugation. Fielding thinks of the echoing in terms of civilization, progress, and social evil: “Everything echoes now; there’s no stopping the echo. The original sound may be harmless, but the echo is always evil” (307). This passage provides fresh insight into Adela’s struggle with an echoing in her ears between the time of her accusation of Aziz and the trial. As she was being encouraged to condemn Aziz by her fellow Anglo-Indians to achieve their desired end of a racist social disruption in Chandrapore, Adela continued to hear an echo in her ears. Based on the development of echoes and echoing in Chapters 30-32, Adela’s echoing both represents the cycles of prejudice and colonialism perpetuated by the Anglo-Indians in Chandrapore, as well as the larger global issue of imperialism.

This is supported by Fielding consideration of the echoing present day with that of the eighteenth century, in which he believes “an invisible power repaired their ravages” (307), or an “invisible power” was at work rectifying wrongs and resolving isolated occurrences of evil or criminality. In Fielding’s historical context, the global capitalist economy and imperialism have created an interdependency of nations that creates an inescapable echoing. One act of colonialism in a distant town in India is intricately worked upon by forces of race, culture, and class that perpetuate the same forms of evil (e.g., racism, subjugation, exploitation).

These chapters are further characterized by their focus on religion, poetry, and the characters actively discussing plans for the next stages of their lives. After the trauma of imprisonment, Aziz searches for a way to live more spiritually and artistically far from the influence of any English person. Though Aziz once strove to meet the ideals of a Westernized Indian gentleman, he no longer desires to practice medicine on colonial terms or continue to sacrifice his time for anything but his own self-expression.