Justify the title A Passage to India

Forster takes the care to justify the title of A Passage to India by focusing on the
meaning of a “passage to India” which is characterized by mystery and which is “a
passage not easy, not now, not here, not to be apprehended, except when it is
unattainable.” The titles of the three sections of the novel is ‘Mosque’, ‘Caves’ and
‘Temple’ which symbolizes three great religions present in India which is Islam,
Christianity and Hinduism. Besides, as mentioned in the novel, “India is part of the
earth. And God has put us on the earth in order to be pleasant to each other. God is
love.”

Readers soon notice that Forster employed a conventional plot in which Adela’s arrival
to India, her desire to see the ‘real India’, the expedition to the Marabar Caves, her
accusation and the outcome at the trial follow a conventional pattern of setting building
the plot. Complications lead to catastrophes which finally calls for a denouement or
resolution. Forster even makes proper use of rhythm by including repeated images such
as ‘nothing’, ‘extraordinary’, ‘mystery’, ‘muddle’ along with phrases and plot motifs to
give the novel its intensity.

The story also takes into consideration the notion of time and the notion of values. For
example, the novel deals with three seasons of the Indian year which covers
approximately two and a half years. It seems that Forster follows writing etiquettes and
also instills important values in his characters. Fielding, Aziz, Mrs. Moore and later
Adela Quested lead their lives according to values such as honesty and kindness.
Forster’s philosophic approach of life can be noted in his novels when he attempts to
show that no matter what we do, if we are not aware of the laws around which life
evolves, lasting peace and joy will not be experienced.
“Passage to India!
Lo, Soul; sees’t thou God’s purpose from the first?
………….
Passage O soul to India,
Eclaircise the myths Asiatic, the primitive fables.
………….
https://ardhendude.blogspot.in/2011/02/interview-tips-for-school-service.html
Passage indeed O soul to primal thought…….”-- Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman in his poem Passage to India wants the soul to take a journey to India for
further advance. The ‘passage’ that Forster explores is also a similar journey. Like
Whitman’s cry: “Passage to more than India”, Forster’s novel is more than a historical
novel about India; it is a prophetic work in which Forster is concerned not only with the
path to greater understanding of India but also with man’s quest for truth and
understanding about the universe he lives in.
The three levels of Meanings: In the little word, ‘passage’ has three levels of meaning
explored through three successive levels of the story – political and racial tension,
symbolic landscape and religious festivals. At a purely narrative level the novel tries to
build a passage between two countries, which are divided not only geographically but
also racially and politically. Unity can be achieved if people of both the races practice
the principles of tolerance, understanding and kindness. At this level the theme of the
novel is friendship and love.

A Passage Vs Link: At a deeper level, the novel builds a passage between the
achievements of the west with the wisdom of India, between the physical and the
spiritual. The ideals of the West – normality, rationality, personality, exclusion – and the
ideals of India – impersonality, inclusiveness and love – are juxtaposed. India is the
home of rich spiritual heritage. India is a spirit; she is a mystery. The foreigner feel
baffled and lost when they encounter this real India who manifests herself in the form of
a shame, a mysterious wild animal, and the cave. Even the best representative of the
highly cherished ideals of Western Culture, Fielding, feels that India is a muddle. In the
face of this general opinion of the Westerners, Forster stresses that India is a spirit and
to understand her one should regard her spirituality.

M. Magalaner says that the word ‘passage’ is the fictional attempt to connect to find the
key, the link, between one way of life and another. In the attempt to blend human reality
with transcendent reality Forster takes a leap from story telling to mystical philosophy, to
contemplation on the ultimate truth of life and universe. It is a passage to the mystery
and the muddle India is, and the mystery and the muddle the whole life, the whole
universe is.

A critical survey: In fact, the title of this novel has received various critical
interpretations and the exact meaning is still being debated. According to Benita Parry,
the book is an interpretation of India, traditionally a land of mysteries and muddle, and
an interpretation of its impact on those who live in it and on the aliens who come to it.
On the historical level, the novel traces the passage undertaken by two sympathetic
British ladies to ‘see the real India’, to bridge the gap between the East and the West.

Separation of race, sex, and culture religion exist and disturb mutual unity and
understanding of humans. Yet, ultimately, human, racial, cultural, religious, political
 relations can be improved by giving up prejudice, arrogance, pride, and feelings of
superiority or inferiority.

Conclusion: The world and human life can be bettered by mutual understanding,
harmony and love. Church, mosque or temple alone is not the way to salvation. What
are needed are a large heart and a broad perspective. Salvation can be attained;
problems can be solved by uniting and fusing the three ways – the karmayoga of the
Geeta, the path of love and devotion, and the path of knowledge. Emotion and intellect,
head and heart must function harmoniously. Man must follow the Gyan Marga, the
karma yoga and the Bhakti Marga. That seems to be the final message and central
forces of the novelist in A Passage to India. The novel is, indeed, more than a passage
to India – a spiritual search of one’s self and beyond.

A Passage to India (1924) is a novel by English author E. M. Forster set against the
backdrop of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s. It was
selected as one of the 100 great works of 20th century English literature by the Modern
Library[1] and won the 1924 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for
fiction.[2] Timemagazine included the novel in its "All Time 100 Novels" list. [3] The novel
is based on Forster's experiences in India, deriving the title from Walt Whitman's 1870
poem "Passage to India" in Leaves of Grass.[4][5]
The story revolves around four characters: Dr. Aziz, his British friend Mr. Cyril Fielding,
Mrs. Moore, and Miss Adela Quested. During a trip to the fictitious Marabar
Caves(modeled on the Barabar Caves of Bihar),[6] Adela thinks she finds herself alone
with Dr. Aziz in one of the caves (when in fact he is in an entirely different cave), and
subsequently panics and flees; it is assumed that Dr. Aziz has attempted to assault her.
Aziz's trial, and its run-up and aftermath, bring to a boil the common racial tensions and
prejudices between Indians and the British who rule India.

Contents

 1Plot summary
o 1.1Arrival
o 1.2Bridge Party
o 1.3Fielding's tea party
o 1.4Marabar Caves
o 1.5Adela's illusion
o 1.6Aziz's arrest
o 1.7Moore mystery
o 1.8Trial scene
o 1.9Aftermath
o 1.10At Mau

Plot summary
Arrival[
A young British schoolmistress, Adela Quested, and her elderly friend, Mrs. Moore, visit
the fictional city of Chandrapore, British India. Adela is to decide if she wants to marry
Mrs. Moore's son, Ronny Heaslop, the city magistrate.
Meanwhile, Dr. Aziz, a young Indian Muslim physician, is dining with two of his Indian
friends and conversing about whether it is possible to be a friend of an Englishman.
During the meal, a summons arrives from Major Callendar, Aziz's unpleasant superior at
the hospital. Aziz hastens to Callendar's bungalow as ordered but is delayed by a flat
tyre and difficulty in finding a tonga and the major has already left in a huff.
Disconsolate, Aziz walks down the road toward the railway station. When he sees his
favourite mosque, he enters on impulse. He sees a strange Englishwoman there and
yells at her not to profane this sacred place. The woman, Mrs. Moore, has respect for
native customs. This disarms Aziz, and the two chat and part as friends.
Mrs. Moore returns to the British club down the road and relates her experience at the
mosque. Ronny Heaslop, her son, initially thinks she is talking about an Englishman and
becomes indignant when he learns the facts. Adela, however, is intrigued.
Bridge Party[edit]
Because the newcomers had expressed a desire to see Indians, Mr. Turton, the city tax
collector, invites numerous Indian gentlemen to a party at his house. The party turns out
to be an awkward business, thanks to the Indians' timidity and the Britons' bigotry, but
Adela meets Cyril Fielding, principal of Chandrapore's government-run college for
Indians. Fielding invites Adela and Mrs. Moore to a tea party with him and a Hindu-
Brahminprofessor named Narayan Godbole. At Adela's request, he extends his
invitation to Dr. Aziz.
Fielding's tea party[edit]
At Fielding's tea party, everyone has a good time conversing about India, and Fielding
and Aziz become friends. Aziz promises to take Mrs. Moore and Adela to see the
Marabar Caves, a distant cave complex. Ronny Heaslop arrives, and finding Adela
"unaccompanied" with Dr. Aziz and Professor Godbole, rudely breaks up the party.
Aziz mistakenly believes that the women are offended that he has not followed through
on his promise and arranges an outing to the caves at great expense to himself.
Fielding and Godbole were supposed to accompany the expedition, but they miss the
train.
Marabar Caves[edit]
Aziz and the women explore the caves. In the first cave, Mrs. Moore is overcome
with claustrophobia. But worse than the claustrophobia is the echo. Disturbed by the
sound, Mrs. Moore declines to continue exploring. Adela and Aziz, accompanied by a
guide, climb to the next caves.
Adela's illusion[edit]
As Aziz helps Adela up the hill, she asks whether he has more than one wife.
Disconcerted by the bluntness of the remark, he ducks into a cave to compose himself.
When he comes out, he finds the guide alone outside the caves. The guide says Adela
has gone into a cave by herself. Aziz looks for her in vain. Deciding she is lost, he
strikes the guide, who runs away. Aziz looks around and discovers Adela's field
glasses lying broken on the ground. He puts them in his pocket.
Then Aziz looks down the hill and sees Adela speaking to another young
Englishwoman, Miss Derek, who has arrived with Fielding in a car. Aziz runs down the
hill and greets Fielding, but Miss Derek and Adela drive off without explanation.
Fielding, Mrs. Moore, and Aziz return to Chandrapore on the train. Adela has injured
herself while descending from the caves.
Aziz's arrest[edit]
At the train station, Aziz is arrested and charged with sexually assaulting Adela in a
cave. The run-up to his trial releases the racial tensions between the British and the
Indians. Adela says that Aziz followed her into the cave and tried to grab her, and that
she fended him off by swinging her field glasses at him. The only evidence the British
have is the field glasses in the possession of Aziz. Despite this, the British colonists
believe that Aziz is guilty. They are stunned when Fielding proclaims his belief in Aziz's
innocence. Fielding is ostracised and condemned as a blood-traitor. But the Indians,
who consider the assault allegation a fraud, welcome him.
Moore mystery[edit]
During the weeks before the trial, Mrs. Moore is apathetic and irritable. Although she
professes her belief in Aziz's innocence, she does nothing to help him. Ronny, alarmed
by his mother's assertion that Aziz is innocent, arranges for her return by ship to
England before she can testify at the trial. Mrs. Moore dies during the voyage. Her
absence from India becomes a major issue at the trial, where Aziz's legal defenders
assert that her testimony would have proven the accused's innocence.

Mrs. Moore becomes more concerned with her own end of life issues as she feels her
health failing. Her relationship with her son allows her to be distracted and less
sympathetic to Aziz's situation.

[7]

Trial scene[edit]
Adela becomes confused as to Aziz's guilt. At the trial, she is asked whether Aziz
sexually assaulted her. She has a vision of the cave, and it turns out that Adela had,
while in the cave, received a shock similar to Mrs. Moore's. The echo had disconcerted
her so much that she became unhinged. At the time, Adela mistakenly interpreted her
shock as an assault by Aziz. She admits that she was mistaken, and the case is
dismissed.
In the 1913 draft of the novel, E. M. Forster had Aziz guilty of the assault and found
guilty in the court; he changed this in the 1924 draft to create a more ambiguous ending.
Aftermath[edit]
Ronny Heaslop breaks off his engagement to Adela and she stays at Fielding's house
until her passage on a boat to England is arranged. After explaining to Fielding that the
echo was the cause of the whole business, she departs India, never to return.
Although he is vindicated, Aziz is angry that Fielding befriended Adela after she nearly
ruined his life. Believing it to be the gentlemanly thing to do, Fielding convinces Aziz not
to seek monetary redress from her. The men's friendship suffers, and Fielding departs
for England. Aziz believes that he is leaving to marry Adela for her money. Bitter at his
friend's perceived betrayal, he vows never again to befriend a white person. Aziz moves
to the Hindu-ruled state of Mau and begins a new life.
At Mau[edit]
Two years later, Fielding returns to India. His wife is Stella, Mrs. Moore's daughter from
a second marriage. Aziz, now the Raja's chief physician, comes to respect and love
Fielding again. However, he does not give up his dream of a free and united India. In
the novel's last sentences, he explains that he and Fielding cannot be friends until India
is free of the British Raj.
Other postcolonial scholars have examined the book with a critical postcolonial and
feminist lens. Maryam Wasif Khan's reading of the book suggests A Passage to India is
also a commentary on gender, and a British woman's place within the colonial project.
She argues that the female characters coming to "the Orient" to break free of their
social roles in Britain represent the discord between Englishwomen and their social
roles at home, and tells the narrative of "pioneering Englishwomen whose emergent
feminism found form and voice in the colony".[14]
Sara Suleri has also critiqued the book's Orientalist tendencies and its use of radicalized
bodies, especially in the case of Aziz, as sexual objects rather than individuals. [15]
Key Facts
Full Title · A Passage to India
Author · E.M. Forster
Type Of Work · Novel
Genre · Modernist novel; psychological novel
Language · English
Time And Place Written · 1912–1924; India, England
Date Of First Publication · 1924
Publisher · Edward Arnold
Narrator · Forster uses an unnamed third-person narrator
Point Of View · The third-person narrator is omniscient, attuned both to the physical
world and the inner states of the characters
Tone · Forster’s tone is often poetic and sometimes ironic or philosophical
Tense · Immediate past
Setting (Time) · 1910s or 1920s
Setting (Place) · India, specifically the cities of Chandrapore and Mau
Protagonist · Dr. Aziz
Major Conflict · Adela Quested accuses Dr. Aziz of attempting to sexually assault her
in one of the Marabar Caves. Aziz suspects Fielding has plotted against him with the
English.
Rising Action · Adela Quested and Mrs. Moore’s arrival in India; the women’s
befriending of Aziz; Adela’s reluctant engagement to Ronny Heaslop; Ronny and the
other Englishmen’s disapproval of the women’s interaction with Indians; Aziz’s
organization of an outing to the Marabar Caves for his English friends; Adela’s and Mrs.
Moore’s harrowing experiences in the caves; Adela’s public insinuation that Aziz
assaulted her in the caves; the inflammation of racial tensions between the Indians and
English in Chandrapore
Climax · Aziz’s trial; Adela’s final admission that she is mistaken in her accusations
and that Aziz is innocent; the courtroom’s eruption; Aziz’s release; the English
community’s rejection of Adela
Falling Action · Fielding’s conversations with Adela; Fielding and Aziz’s bickering over
Aziz’s desire for reparations from Adela; Aziz’s assumption that Fielding has betrayed
him and will marry Adela; Aziz’s increasingly anti-British sentiment; Fielding’s visit to
Aziz with his new wife, Stella; Aziz’s befriending of Ralph and forgiveness of Fielding
Themes · The difficulty of English-Indian friendship; the unity of all living things; the
“muddle” of India; the negligence of British colonial government
Motifs · The echo; Eastern and Western architecture; Godbole’s song
Symbols · The Marabar Caves; the green bird; the wasp
Foreshadowing · Adela’s concern about breaking down during the trial; Fielding’s
interest in Hinduism at the end of Part II
Plot Overview
Two englishwomen, the young Miss Adela Quested and the elderly Mrs. Moore, travel
to India. Adela expects to become engaged to Mrs. Moore’s son, Ronny, a British
magistrate in the Indian city of Chandrapore. Adela and Mrs. Moore each hope to see
the real India during their visit, rather than cultural institutions imported by the British.
At the same time, Aziz, a young Muslim doctor in India, is increasingly frustrated by the
poor treatment he receives at the hands of the English. Aziz is especially annoyed with
Major Callendar, the civil surgeon, who has a tendency to summon Aziz for frivolous
reasons in the middle of dinner. Aziz and two of his educated friends, Hamidullah and
Mahmoud Ali, hold a lively conversation about whether or not an Indian can be friends
with an Englishman in India. That night, Mrs. Moore and Aziz happen to run into each
other while exploring a local mosque, and the two become friendly. Aziz is moved and
surprised that an English person would treat him like a friend.
Mr. Turton, the collector who governs Chandrapore, hosts a party so that Adela and
Mrs. Moore may have the opportunity to meet some of the more prominent and wealthy
Indians in the city. At the event, which proves to be rather awkward, Adela meets Cyril
Fielding, the principal of the government college in Chandrapore. Fielding, impressed
with Adela’s open friendliness to the Indians, invites her and Mrs. Moore to tea with him
and the Hindu professor Godbole. At Adela’s request, Fielding invites Aziz to tea as
well.
At the tea, Aziz and Fielding immediately become friendly, and the afternoon is
overwhelmingly pleasant until Ronny Heaslop arrives and rudely interrupts the party.
Later that evening, Adela tells Ronny that she has decided not to marry him. But that
night, the two are in a car accident together, and the excitement of the event causes
Adela to change her mind about the marriage.
Not long afterward, Aziz organizes an expedition to the nearby Marabar Caves for those
who attended Fielding’s tea. Fielding and Professor Godbole miss the train to Marabar,
so Aziz continues on alone with the two ladies, Adela and Mrs. Moore. Inside one of the
caves, Mrs. Moore is unnerved by the enclosed space, which is crowded with Aziz’s
retinue, and by the uncanny echo that seems to translate every sound she makes into
the noise “boum.”
Aziz, Adela, and a guide go on to the higher caves while Mrs. Moore waits below.
Adela, suddenly realizing that she does not love Ronny, asks Aziz whether he has more
than one wife—a question he considers offensive. Aziz storms off into a cave, and when
he returns, Adela is gone. Aziz scolds the guide for losing Adela, and the guide runs
away. Aziz finds Adela’s broken field-glasses and heads down the hill. Back at the
picnic site, Aziz finds Fielding waiting for him. Aziz is unconcerned to learn that Adela
has hastily taken a car back to Chandrapore, as he is overjoyed to see Fielding. Back in
Chandrapore, however, Aziz is unexpectedly arrested. He is charged with attempting to
rape Adela Quested while she was in the caves, a charge based on a claim Adela
herself has made.
Fielding, believing Aziz to be innocent, angers all of British India by joining the Indians in
Aziz’s defense. In the weeks before the trial, the racial tensions between the Indians
and the English flare up considerably. Mrs. Moore is distracted and miserable because
of her memory of the echo in the cave and because of her impatience with the
upcoming trial. Adela is emotional and ill; she too seems to suffer from an echo in her
mind. Ronny is fed up with Mrs. Moore’s lack of support for Adela, and it is agreed that
Mrs. Moore will return to England earlier than planned. Mrs. Moore dies on the voyage
back to England, but not before she realizes that there is no “real India”—but rather a
complex multitude of different Indias.
At Aziz’s trial, Adela, under oath, is questioned about what happened in the caves.
Shockingly, she declares that she has made a mistake: Aziz is not the person or thing
that attacked her in the cave. Aziz is set free, and Fielding escorts Adela to the
Government College, where she spends the next several weeks. Fielding begins to
respect Adela, recognizing her bravery in standing against her peers to pronounce Aziz
innocent. Ronny breaks off his engagement to Adela, and she returns to England.
Aziz, however, is angry that Fielding would befriend Adela after she nearly ruined Aziz’s
life, and the friendship between the two men suffers as a consequence. Then Fielding
sails for a visit to England. Aziz declares that he is done with the English and that he
intends to move to a place where he will not have to encounter them.
Two years later, Aziz has become the chief doctor to the Rajah of Mau, a Hindu region
several hundred miles from Chandrapore. He has heard that Fielding married Adela
shortly after returning to England. Aziz now virulently hates all English people. One day,
walking through an old temple with his three children, he encounters Fielding and his
brother-in-law. Aziz is surprised to learn that the brother-in-law’s name is Ralph Moore;
it turns out that Fielding married not Adela Quested, but Stella Moore, Mrs. Moore’s
daughter from her second marriage.
Aziz befriends Ralph. After he accidentally runs his rowboat into Fielding’s, Aziz renews
his friendship with Fielding as well. The two men go for a final ride together before
Fielding leaves, during which Aziz tells Fielding that once the English are out of India,
the two will be able to be friends. Fielding asks why they cannot be friends now, when
they both want to be, but the sky and the earth seem to say “No, not yet. . . . No, not
there.”
Dr. Aziz
Aziz seems to be a mess of extremes and contradictions, an embodiment of Forster’s
notion of the “muddle” of India. Aziz is impetuous and flighty, changing opinions and
preoccupations quickly and without warning, from one moment to the next. His moods
swing back and forth between extremes, from childlike elation one minute to utter
despair the next. Aziz even seems capable of shifting careers and talents, serving as
both physician and poet during the course of A Passage to India. Aziz’s somewhat
youthful qualities, as evidenced by a sense of humor that leans toward practical joking,
are offset by his attitude of irony toward his English superiors.
Forster, though not blatantly stereotyping, encourages us to see many of Aziz’s
characteristics as characteristics of Indians in general. Aziz, like many of his friends,
dislikes blunt honesty and directness, preferring to communicate through confidences,
feelings underlying words, and indirect speech. Aziz has a sense that much of morality
is really social code. He therefore feels no moral compunction about visiting prostitutes
or reading Fielding’s private mail—both because his intentions are good and because
he knows he will not be caught. Instead of living by merely social codes, Aziz guides his
action through a code that is nearly religious, such as we see in his extreme hospitality.
Moreover, 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, he feels that the presence of the English
degrades and oppresses his people.
Despite his contradictions, Aziz is a genuinely affectionate character, and his affection is
often based on intuited connections, as with Mrs. Moore and Fielding. Though Forster
holds up Aziz’s capacity for imaginative sympathy as a good trait, we see that this
imaginativeness can also betray Aziz. The deep offense Aziz feels toward Fielding in
the aftermath of his trial stems from fiction and misinterpreted intuition. Aziz does not
stop to evaluate facts, but rather follows his heart to the exclusion of all other
methods—an approach that is sometimes wrong.
Many critics have contended that Forster portrays Aziz and many of the other Indian
characters unflatteringly. Indeed, though the author is certainly sympathetic to the
Indians, he does sometimes present them as incompetent, subservient, or childish.
These somewhat valid critiques call into question the realism of Forster’s novel, but they
do not, on the whole, corrupt his exploration of the possibility of friendly relations
between Indians and Englishmen—arguably the central concern of the novel.
Cyril Fielding
Of all the characters in the novel, Fielding is clearly the most associated with Forster
himself. Among the Englishmen in Chandrapore, Fielding is far and away most the
successful at developing and sustaining relationships with native Indians. Though he is
an educator, he is less comfortable in teacher-student interaction than he is in one-on-
one conversation with another individual. This latter style serves as Forster’s model of
liberal humanism—Forster and Fielding treat the world as a group of individuals who
can connect through mutual respect, courtesy, and intelligence.
Fielding, in these viewpoints, presents the main threat to the mentality of the English in
India. He educates Indians as individuals, engendering a movement of free thought that
has the potential to destabilize English colonial power. Furthermore, Fielding has little
patience for the racial categorization that is so central to the English grip on India. He
honors his friendship with Aziz over any alliance with members of his own race—a
reshuffling of allegiances that threatens the solidarity of the English. Finally, Fielding
“travels light,” as he puts it: he does not believe in marriage, but favors friendship
instead. As such, Fielding implicitly questions the domestic conventions upon which the
Englishmen’s sense of “Englishness” is founded. Fielding refuses to sentimentalize
domestic England or to venerate the role of the wife or mother—a far cry from the other
Englishmen, who put Adela on a pedestal after the incident at the caves.
Fielding’s character changes in the aftermath of Aziz’s trial. He becomes jaded about
the Indians as well as the English. His English sensibilities, such as his need for
proportion and reason, become more prominent and begin to grate against Aziz’s Indian
sensibilities. By the end of A Passage to India,Forster seems to identify with Fielding
less. Whereas Aziz remains a likable, if flawed, character until the end of the novel,
Fielding becomes less likable in his increasing identification and sameness with the
English.
Adela Quested
Adela arrives in India with Mrs. Moore, and, fittingly, her character develops in parallel
to Mrs. Moore’s. Adela, like the elder Englishwoman, is an individualist and an educated
free thinker. These tendencies lead her, just as they lead Mrs. Moore, to question the
standard behaviors of the English toward the Indians. Adela’s tendency to question
standard practices with frankness makes her resistant to being labeled—and therefore
resistant to marrying Ronny and being labeled a typical colonial English wife. Both Mrs.
Moore and Adela hope to see the “real India” rather than an arranged tourist version.
However, whereas Mrs. Moore’s desire is bolstered by a genuine interest in and
affection for Indians, Adela appears to want to see the “real India” simply on intellectual
grounds. She puts her mind to the task, but not her heart—and therefore never
connects with Indians.
Adela’s experience at the Marabar Caves causes her to undergo a crisis of rationalism
against spiritualism. While Adela’s character changes greatly in the several days after
her alleged assault, her testimony at the trial represents a return of the old Adela, with
the sole difference that she is plagued by doubt in a way she was not originally. Adela
begins to sense that her assault, and the echo that haunts her afterward, are
representative of something outside the scope of her normal rational comprehension.
She is pained by her inability to articulate her experience. She finds she has no purpose
in—nor love for—India, and suddenly fears that she is unable to love anyone. Adela is
filled with the realization of the damage she has done to Aziz and others, yet she feels
paralyzed, unable to remedy the wrongs she has done. Nonetheless, Adela selflessly
endures her difficult fate after the trial—a course of action that wins her a friend in
Fielding, who sees her as a brave woman rather than a traitor to her race.
Mrs. Moore
As a character, Mrs. Moore serves a double function in A Passage to India,operating on
two different planes. She is initially a literal character, but as the novel progresses she
becomes more a symbolic presence. On the literal level, Mrs. Moore is a good-hearted,
religious, elderly woman with mystical leanings. The initial days of her visit to India are
successful, as she connects with India and Indians on an intuitive level. Whereas Adela
is overly cerebral, Mrs. Moore relies successfully on her heart to make connections
during her visit. Furthermore, on the literal level, Mrs. Moore’s character has human
limitations: her experience at Marabar renders her apathetic and even somewhat mean,
to the degree that she simply leaves India without bothering to testify to Aziz’s
innocence or to oversee Ronny and Adela’s wedding.
After her departure, however, Mrs. Moore exists largely on a symbolic level. Though she
herself has human flaws, she comes to symbolize an ideally spiritual and race-blind
openness that Forster sees as a solution to the problems in India. Mrs. Moore’s name
becomes closely associated with Hinduism, especially the Hindu tenet of the oneness
and unity of all living things. This symbolic side to Mrs. Moore might even make her the
heroine of the novel, the only English person able to closely connect with the Hindu
vision of unity. Nonetheless, Mrs. Moore’s literal actions—her sudden abandonment of
India—make her less than heroic.
Ronny Heaslop
Ronny’s character does not change much over the course of the novel; instead,
Forster’s emphasis is on the change that happened before the novel begins, when
Ronny first arrived in India. Both Mrs. Moore and Adela note the difference between the
Ronny they knew in England and the Ronny of British India. Forster uses Ronny’s
character and the changes he has undergone as a sort of case study, an exploration of
the restrictions that the English colonials’ herd mentality imposes on individual
personalities. All of Ronny’s previously individual tastes are effectively dumbed down to
meet group standards. He devalues his intelligence and learning from England in favor
of the “wisdom” gained by years of experience in India. The open-minded attitude with
which he has been brought up has been replaced by a suspicion of Indians. In short,
Ronny’s tastes, opinions, and even his manner of speaking are no longer his own, but
those of older, ostensibly wiser British Indian officials. This kind of group thinking is what
ultimately causes Ronny to clash with both Adela and his mother, Mrs. Moore.
Nonetheless, Ronny is not the worst of the English in India, and Forster is somewhat
sympathetic in his portrayal of him. Ronny’s ambition to rise in the ranks of British India
has not completely destroyed his natural goodness, but merely perverted it. Ronny
cares about his job and the Indians with whom he works, if only to the extent that they,
in turn, reflect upon him. Forster presents Ronny’s failing as the fault of the colonial
system, not his own.
Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

The Difficulty of English-Indian Friendship

A Passage to India begins and ends by posing the question of whether it is possible for
an Englishman and an Indian to ever be friends, at least within the context of British
colonialism. Forster uses this question as a framework to explore the general issue of
Britain’s political control of India on a more personal level, through the friendship
between Aziz and Fielding. At the beginning of the novel, Aziz is scornful of the English,
wishing only to consider them comically or ignore them completely. Yet the intuitive
connection Aziz feels with Mrs. Moore in the mosque opens him to the possibility of
friendship with Fielding. Through the first half of the novel, Fielding and Aziz represent a
positive model of liberal humanism: Forster suggests that British rule in India could be
successful and respectful if only English and Indians treated each other as Fielding and
Aziz treat each other—as worthy individuals who connect through frankness,
intelligence, and good will.
Yet in the aftermath of the novel’s climax—Adela’s accusation that Aziz attempted to
assault her and her subsequent disavowal of this accusation at the trial—Aziz and
Fielding’s friendship falls apart. The strains on their relationship are external in nature,
as Aziz and Fielding both suffer from the tendencies of their cultures. Aziz tends to let
his imagination run away with him and to let suspicion harden into a grudge. Fielding
suffers from an English literalism and rationalism that blind him to Aziz’s true feelings
and make Fielding too stilted to reach out to Aziz through conversations or letters.
Furthermore, their respective Indian and English communities pull them apart through
their mutual stereotyping. As we see at the end of the novel, even the landscape of
India seems to oppress their friendship. Forster’s final vision of the possibility of English-
Indian friendship is a pessimistic one, yet it is qualified by the possibility of friendship on
English soil, or after the liberation of India. As the landscape itself seems to imply at the
end of the novel, such a friendship may be possible eventually, but “not yet.”
The Unity of All Living Things
Though the main characters of A Passage to India are generally Christian or Muslim,
Hinduism also plays a large thematic role in the novel. The aspect of Hinduism with
which Forster is particularly concerned is the religion’s ideal of all living things, from the
lowliest to the highest, united in love as one. This vision of the universe appears to offer
redemption to India through mysticism, as individual differences disappear into a
peaceful collectivity that does not recognize hierarchies. Individual blame and intrigue is
forgone in favor of attention to higher, spiritual matters. Professor Godbole, the most
visible Hindu in the novel, is Forster’s mouthpiece for this idea of the unity of all living
things. Godbole alone remains aloof from the drama of the plot, refraining from taking
sides by recognizing that all are implicated in the evil of Marabar. Mrs. Moore, also,
shows openness to this aspect of Hinduism. Though she is a Christian, her experience
of India has made her dissatisfied with what she perceives as the smallness of
Christianity. Mrs. Moore appears to feel a great sense of connection with all living
creatures, as evidenced by her respect for the wasp in her bedroom.
Yet, through Mrs. Moore, Forster also shows that the vision of the oneness of all living
things can be terrifying. As we see in Mrs. Moore’s experience with the echo that
negates everything into “boum” in Marabar, such oneness provides unity but also
makes all elements of the universe one and the same—a realization that, it is implied,
ultimately kills Mrs. Moore. Godbole is not troubled by the idea that negation is an
inevitable result when all things come together as one. Mrs. Moore, however, loses
interest in the world of relationships after envisioning this lack of distinctions as a horror.
Moreover, though Forster generally endorses the Hindu idea of the oneness of all living
things, he also suggests that there may be inherent problems with it. Even Godbole, for
example, seems to recognize that something—if only a stone—must be left out of the
vision of oneness if the vision is to cohere. This problem of exclusion is, in a sense,
merely another manifestation of the individual difference and hierarchy that Hinduism
promises to overcome.
The “Muddle” of India
Forster takes great care to strike a distinction between the ideas of “muddle” and
“mystery” in A Passage to India. “Muddle” has connotations of dangerous and
disorienting disorder, whereas “mystery” suggests a mystical, orderly plan by a spiritual
force that is greater than man. Fielding, who acts as Forster’s primary mouthpiece in the
novel, admits that India is a “muddle,” while figures such as Mrs. Moore and Godbole
view India as a mystery. The muddle that is India in the novel appears to work from the
ground up: the very landscape and architecture of the countryside is formless, and the
natural life of plants and animals defies identification. This muddled quality to the
environment is mirrored in the makeup of India’s native population, which is mixed into a
muddle of different religious, ethnic, linguistic, and regional groups.
The muddle of India disorients Adela the most; indeed, the events at the Marabar Caves
that trouble her so much can be seen as a manifestation of this muddle. By the end of
the novel, we are still not sure what actually has happened in the caves. Forster
suggests that Adela’s feelings about Ronny become externalized and muddled in the
caves, and that she suddenly experiences these feelings as something outside of her.
The muddle of India also affects Aziz and Fielding’s friendship, as their good intentions
are derailed by the chaos of cross-cultural signals.
depiction of India as a muddle matches the manner in which many Western writers of
his day treated the East in their works. As the noted critic Edward Said has pointed out,
these authors’ “orientalizing” of the East made Western logic and capability appear self-
evident, and, by extension, portrayed the West’s domination of the East as reasonable
or even necessary.
The Negligence of British Colonial Government
Though A Passage to India is in many ways a highly symbolic, or even mystical, text, it
also aims to be a realistic documentation of the attitudes of British colonial officials in
India. Forster spends large sections of the novel characterizing different typical attitudes
the English hold toward the Indians whom they control. Forster’s satire is most harsh
toward Englishwomen, whom the author depicts as overwhelmingly racist, self-
righteous, and viciously condescending to the native population. Some of the
Englishmen in the novel are as nasty as the women, but Forster more often identifies
Englishmen as men who, though condescending and unable to relate to Indians on an
individual level, are largely well-meaning and invested in their jobs. For all Forster’s
criticism of the British manner of governing India, however, he does not appear to
question the right of the British Empire to rule India. He suggests that the British would
be well served by becoming kinder and more sympathetic to the Indians with whom they
live, but he does not suggest that the British should abandon India outright. Even this
lesser critique is never overtly stated in the novel, but implied through biting satire.
Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop
and inform the text’s major themes.

The Echo
The echo begins at the Marabar Caves: first Mrs. Moore and then Adela hear the echo
and are haunted by it in the weeks to come. The echo’s sound is “boum”—a sound it
returns regardless of what noise or utterance is originally made. This negation of
difference embodies the frightening flip side of the seemingly positive Hindu vision of
the oneness and unity of all living things. If all people and things become the same
thing, then no distinction can be made between good and evil. No value system can
exist. The echo plagues Mrs. Moore until her death, causing her to abandon her beliefs
and cease to care about human relationships. Adela, however, ultimately escapes the
echo by using its message of impersonality to help her realize Aziz’s innocence.
Eastern and Western Architecture
Forster spends time detailing both Eastern and Western architecture in A Passage to
India. Three architectural structures—though one is naturally occurring—provide the
outline for the book’s three sections, “Mosque,” “Caves,” and “Temple.” Forster presents
the aesthetics of Eastern and Western structures as indicative of the differences of the
respective cultures as a whole. In India, architecture is confused and formless: interiors
blend into exterior gardens, earth and buildings compete with each other, and structures
appear unfinished or drab. As such, Indian architecture mirrors the muddle of India itself
and what Forster sees as the Indians’ characteristic inattention to form and logic.
Occasionally, however, Forster takes a positive view of Indian architecture. The mosque
in Part I and temple in Part III represent the promise of Indian openness, mysticism, and
friendship. Western architecture, meanwhile, is described during Fielding’s stop in
Venice on his way to England. Venice’s structures, which Fielding sees as
representative of Western architecture in general, honor form and proportion and
complement the earth on which they are built. Fielding reads in this architecture the self-
evident correctness of Western reason—an order that, he laments, his Indian friends
would not recognize or appreciate.
Godbole’s Song
At the end of Fielding’s tea party, Godbole sings for the English visitors a Hindu song, in
which a milkmaid pleads for God to come to her or to her people. The song’s refrain of
“Come! come” recurs throughout A Passage to India, mirroring the appeal for the entire
country of salvation from something greater than itself. After the song, Godbole admits
that God never comes to the milkmaid. The song greatly disheartens Mrs. Moore,
setting the stage for her later spiritual apathy, her simultaneous awareness of a spiritual
presence and lack of confidence in spiritualism as a redeeming force. Godbole
seemingly intends his song as a message or lesson that recognition of the potential
existence of a God figure can bring the world together and erode differences—after all,
Godbole himself sings the part of a young milkmaid. Forster uses the refrain of
Godbole’s song, “Come! come,” to suggest that India’s redemption is yet to come.
Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or
concepts.

The Marabar Caves

The Marabar Caves represent all that is alien about nature. The caves are older than
anything else on the earth and embody nothingness and emptiness—a literal void in the
earth. They defy both English and Indians to act as guides to them, and their strange
beauty and menace unsettles visitors. The caves’ alien quality also has the power to
make visitors such as Mrs. Moore and Adela confront parts of themselves or the
universe that they have not previously recognized. The all-reducing echo of the caves
causes Mrs. Moore to see the darker side of her spirituality—a waning commitment to
the world of relationships and a growing ambivalence about God. Adela confronts the
shame and embarrassment of her realization that she and Ronny are not actually
attracted to each other, and that she might be attracted to no one. In this sense, the
caves both destroy meaning, in reducing all utterances to the same sound, and expose
or narrate the unspeakable, the aspects of the universe that the caves’ visitors have not
yet considered.
The Green Bird
Just after Adela and Ronny agree for the first time, in Chapter VII, to break off their
engagement, they notice a green bird sitting in the tree above them. Neither of them can
positively identify the bird. For Adela, the bird symbolizes the unidentifiable quality of all
of India: just when she thinks she can understand any aspect of India, that aspect
changes or disappears. In this sense, the green bird symbolizes the muddle of India. In
another capacity, the bird points to a different tension between the English and Indians.
The English are obsessed with knowledge, literalness, and naming, and they use these
tools as a means of gaining and maintaining power. The Indians, in contrast, are more
attentive to nuance, undertone, and the emotions behind words. While the English insist
on labeling things, the Indians recognize that labels can blind one to important details
and differences. The unidentifiable green bird suggests the incompatibility of the English
obsession with classification and order with the shifting quality of India itself—the land
is, in fact, a “hundred Indias” that defy labeling and understanding.
The Wasp
The wasp appears several times in A Passage to India, usually in conjunction with the
Hindu vision of the oneness of all living things. The wasp is usually depicted as the
lowest creature the Hindus incorporate into their vision of universal unity. Mrs. Moore is
closely associated with the wasp, as she finds one in her room and is gently
appreciative of it. Her peaceful regard for the wasp signifies her own openness to the
Hindu idea of collectivity, and to the mysticism and indefinable quality of India in
general. However, as the wasp is the lowest creature that the Hindus visualize, it also
represents the limits of the Hindu vision. The vision is not a panacea, but merely a
possibility for unity and understanding in India.

1.On one level, A Passage to India is an in-depth description of daily life in India under
British rule. The British “Raj” (its colonial empire in India) lasted from 1858 to 1947. The
prevailing attitude behind colonialism was that of the “white man’s burden” (in Rudyard
Kipling’s phrase)—that it was the moral duty of Europeans to “civilize” other nations.
Thus the British saw their colonial rule over India as being for the Indians’ own good.
Forster himself was British, but in the novel he is very critical of colonialism. He never
goes so far as to advocate outright Indian rebellion, but he does show how the colonial
system is inherently flawed. Forster portrays most of the British men working in India as
at least well-meaning, although condescending and unoriginal, but their positions in the
colonial system almost always push them towards becoming racist and harmful figures.
This is played out most explicitly in the development of Ronny’s character. The British
women, apart from Mrs. Moore and Adela, often seem less sympathetic than the men,
to the point that even Turton blames their presence for the tensions with the Indians.
The women don’t have the daily labor and interactions with Indians that the men do, but
they are generally more racially hateful and condescending (and perhaps this is
because they are usually so isolated from actual Indian society).
Forster also shows how the colonial system makes the Indians hate and sometimes
condescend to the British. The colonialists are by necessity in the role of “oppressor,”
no matter how individually kind or open-minded they might be. This is best shown in the
changes to Aziz’s character throughout the novel, as he goes from laughing at and
befriending the English to actively hating them. Although Forster ultimately offers no
concrete alternative to British colonialism, his overall message is that colonialism in
India is a harmful system for both the British and the Indians. Friendships like that
between Aziz and Fielding are a rare exception, not the rule, and even such friendships
are all but destroyed or thwarted by the problems and tensions of colonialism.

2.Throughout the novel Forster uses the words “muddle” and “mystery” as distinctive
terms to describe India. A “muddle” implies chaos and meaningless mess, while a
“mystery” suggests something confusing but with an underlying purpose or mystical
plan. On the English side, Fielding sees India as a muddle, though a sympathetic one,
while Mrs. Moore and Adela approach the country with a sense of mystery. Forster
himself often uses “orientalizing” terms to describe India, portraying it as a muddle that
is unable to be understood or properly described by Westerners. For example, he
describes India’s architecture and natural landscape as formless and primitive, while he
sees European architecture and landscape as aesthetically pleasing and comforting. In
this way Forster and his British characters, as outsiders, cannot help but view India as a
muddle they can never comprehend, and one that—despite Forster’s critiques of
colonialism—might benefit from Western “civilization” and reasoning.
But Forster also shows that even the Indians themselves are unable to describe India’s
essence, and they too are divided in their ideas of muddles and mysteries. The
Muslim Aziz regards Hindu India as a primitive muddle of chaos, while he is comforted
by the elegant mysteries of his own religion. Professor Godbole, on the other hand, is a
Hindu, and the main figure standing for the view of India as mystery. Hinduism is
portrayed as a muddle of many gods and strange ceremonies, but there is also a
mystery and plan behind it all—the meaning is in the chaos of life itself, and the unity of
all things.
These muddles and mysteries ultimately become externalized and symbolized in the
scene at the Marabar Caves. Forster never clearly explains what happened to Adela,
and so the whole incident is a kind of horrible muddle. Also in the caves, Adela and Mrs.
Moore’s “mysterious” India is reduced to terrifying chaos in the echoing “boum” of the
caves. A similar effect, though a more positive one, is achieved in the final scene, where
Aziz and Fielding’s boats crash into each other near the Hindu festival. Ultimately
Forster finds both muddles and mysteries necessary to properly encompass and
comprehend India, as well as the universe itself.

3.Despite its strong political overtones, A Passage to India is also a deep psychological
portrayal of different individuals. As Forster describes his characters’ inner lives and
their interactions with each other, the subject of friendship becomes very important, as it
is shown as the most powerful connection between two individuals apart from romantic
love. This subject relates to Forster’s humanistic philosophy—which says that
friendship, interpersonal kindness, and respect can be the greatest forces for good in
the world—but in the novel, friendship must always struggle with cultural divides and the
imbalance in power enforced by the colonial system. The book begins and ends with the
subject of friendship between an Englishman and an Indian, and in both cases it
concludes that such a friendship is almost impossible. Forster shows all the obstacles—
race, culture, class, religion, and language—that stand in the way of meaningful
friendships between Indians and the English, no matter an individual’s best intentions.
The English view the Indians as inferior, while the Indians (including Aziz) view the
English as both cruel oppressors and foolish foreigners.
Towards the middle of the novel, however, Aziz’s growing friendships with both Mrs.
Moore and Fielding seem to be an example of successful humanism, implying that if
both parties can treat each other with respect, kindness, and openmindedness, then
even Englishmen and Indians can be friends, and British colonialism could become a
beneficial system. After the experience in the Marabar Caves, however, Mrs. Moore
ends up going mad and dying, and Fielding and Aziz’s friendship starts to fall apart.
After Aziz’s trial, each man ends up returning to his own cultural circle. Fielding feels
sympathetic to Adela, while Aziz lets his suspicions harden into a hatred of all the
English. In the novel’s final scene the two men become reconciled just as they are
about to part forever. They embrace while riding together, but then their horses
separate and they are divided by the landscape itself, which seems to say “not yet.”
Such friendship might be possible once India is free, but not yet in the colonial system.
Thus Forster doesn’t let go of his humanistic ideals, but he does show how such ideals
can be hindered by social systems and cultural divides.
4.Ideas of division and unity are important in A Passage to India in both a social and
spiritual sense. The social and cultural divisions between English and Indians are clear,
but India itself is also internally divided. The phrase “a hundred Indias” is used several
times to describe the “muddle” of the country, where Hindus and Muslims are divided
against each other and even among themselves. The best hope Forster proposes for
this chaotic division lies in the idea of unity, particularly of the spiritual kind. Most of the
novel’s main characters are Muslims or Christians, but the book’s final section focuses
on the Hindu side of India, as introduced by the character of Professor Godbole.
Hinduism has many gods and rituals, but certain aspects of it incline towards
pantheism, which is the belief that all things are essentially one, and of a divine nature.
Forster shows this sense of spiritual unity in several places, like the “liberal” Christians
willing to accept monkeys into heaven, and Hindus like Godbole who try to accept even
a wasp as divine. Mrs. Moore starts to feel dissatisfied with the “small-mindedness” of
Christianity when she reaches India, and her character leans towards a Hindu kind of
unity as she too feels connected to a wasp in her room. This kind of empathy and unity
between living things is a positive force for Forster, and he implies that it may be the
best hope for both friendship between individuals and peace between cultures. But he
also shows how this oneness can be terrifying. This is best represented by the “boum”
of the Marabar Caves. All sounds, whether spoken language or not, are reduced to
“boum” in the caves’ echo. This lack of distinction between things terrifies Adela and
ultimately drives Mrs. Moore mad, and even Godbole is unable to accept non-living
things (like a stone) into his vision of universal oneness. The perfect realization of unity
may be the chaos and void of the Marabar Caves, or it may be the love of God as in
Hinduism—but either way Forster advocates for the constant striving for greater unity
and empathy.
5. Many observations about race and culture in colonial India are threaded throughout
the novel. A Passage to India is in some ways a sort of ethnography, or an examination
of the customs of different cultures. On the English side, many cultural forces affect the
characters. Ronny is naturally goodhearted and sympathetic, but his “public school
mindset” and the influence of his English peers compel him to become hardened and
unkind to Indians. The other English expatriates view Adela as naïve for sympathizing
with the Indians, and they even admit that they too felt the same at first before realizing
the “truth.” Overall the pervading culture of the English in India is that one must adopt a
racist, patronizing attitude to survive and thrive, and that one’s very Englishness makes
one superior to the Indians. Forster also examines the English tendency to be rational
without emotion, and what is perceived as the English lack of imagination.
Forster gives equal time to analyzing Indian culture. On one level he portrays the many
religions and cultures of the country, which are part of the reason India remains so
internally divided. On the individual level, Aziz is the best-developed Indian character,
and he too (like the English) is subject to cultural norms. Forster portrays the Indians as
generally more emotional and imaginative than the English, with a tendency to let stray
notions harden into solid beliefs without evidence. This “ethnography” then informs the
novel’s other themes of division, friendship, and colonialism. Overall Forster shows that
race and culture are forces that cannot be altogether avoided, no matter a person’s
individual intentions. Forster gives the greatest importance to interpersonal human
interaction and friendship, but he also recognizes the pervasive influence of larger
social forces.

A Passage to India Summary

It is the early 1900s in colonial India. Aziz, a young Muslim doctor in the town of
Chandrapore, discusses with his friends whether it is possible for an Englishman and an
Indian to be friends. Aziz finds the English amusing but often condescending and rude.
Meanwhile Adela Quested and the elderly Mrs. Moore arrive from England. Adela plans
to marry Ronny Heaslop, Mrs. Moore’s son and an official in Chandrapore. The two
women arrive at the English-only club and express a desire to see the “real” India. That
night Mrs. Moore and Aziz meet in a local mosque and feel an instant connection
.Mr.Turton, the English collector, hosts a party at the club and invites some Indians to
meet Mrs. Moore and Adela. Cyril Fielding, the principal of the government college, is
impressed by Adela’s friendliness to the Indians, and he invites her and Mrs. Moore to
tea. Adela requests that Aziz be invited as well.
Aziz and Fielding meet before the tea party and get along very well. The
Hindu Professor Godbole, Adela, and Mrs. Moore join them. The party goes well until
Ronny arrives and is rude to the Indians. That evening Adela thinks more about her
feelings and decides not to marry Ronny. The two break up amicably. Later their car
crashes into a mysterious animal, and during the incident Adela changes her mind.
Aziz arranges a day trip to the Marabar Caves for Fielding’s tea party group. Fielding
and Professor Godbole miss the train, so Aziz goes on alone with Adela and Mrs.
Moore. They ride an elephant, have a picnic, and visit some of the caves, which are
ancient and seemingly unfriendly. Mrs. Moore is smothered by people and disturbed by
the caves’ echo, which reduces every noise to “boum.” Depressed, she stays behind
while Aziz, Adela, and a guide go to visit more caves.
As they walk Adela realizes that she doesn’t love Ronny. She discusses marriage with
Aziz, and asks if he has more than one wife. He is offended and ducks into a nearby
cave to recover. When he emerges, Adela is gone. He finds Adela’s broken field-
glasses and then sees her at the bottom of the hill. Aziz heads back down to the picnic
site, where Fielding has arrived. Adela has hurried back to Chandrapore by car. The
others take the train back, but when they arrive Aziz is arrested and charged with
assaulting Adela in a cave.
The English draw together, feeling patriotic and anti-Indian. Fielding believes Aziz to be
innocent, and he angers the English by joining Aziz’s defense. Mrs. Moore continues to
be haunted by the cave’s echo, and she grows irritable and apathetic. Adela also hears
the echo. Ronny is angered by Mrs. Moore’s attitude, and he arranges for her to return
to England early. Mrs. Moore dies on the journey.
Aziz’s trial is tense and chaotic. When Adela is questioned, she declares that she was
mistaken—Aziz did not attack her in the cave. Aziz is released, the Indians celebrate
wildly, and Fielding escorts Adela to the college. Adela stays there for weeks, and
Fielding comes to respect her bravery. Ronny breaks off the engagement, and Adela
returns to England.
Aziz feels betrayed, and his friendship with Fielding cools. Fielding sails to England, and
Aziz suspects that he will marry Adela there.
Two years later, Aziz lives in Mau, a Hindu area. He has grown more anti-British and
patriotic about a united and independent India. He assumes that Fielding married Adela.
Fielding visits Mau with his wife and brother-in-law. Aziz encounters them and is
surprised to learn that Fielding actually married Stella Moore, Mrs. Moore’s daughter.
Meanwhile an important Hindu festival takes place in town.
Aziz finds himself drawn to Stella’s brother (Fielding’s brother-in-law), Ralph Moore, and
takes him on the lake to see the festival. Aziz’s boat crashes into Fielding’s at the height
of the ceremonies, and after the incident Aziz and Fielding are reconciled. The two men
go for a final ride together. Aziz declares that once the English leave India then he and
Fielding can be friends. They want to be friends now, but the sky and earth seem to
separate them and say “Not yet.”
Themes in A Passage to India—

(List of content AP2I study guide)

Oriental versus Occidental:

What happens when two cultures come close and how they affect, engage or
contradict each other is an important theme in Forster’s novel. Orientalism versus
occidentalism is a central focus in A Passage to India. Forster shows a cultural clash
happening in India where the British are trying to rule India by force giving rise to severe
misunderstandings. Some of these differences are understandable and some are
giving rise to a bitter drift between the two cultures. The oriental way of life differs from
the occidental sharply and even Forster seems to be judging India by European
standards.
Love and loyalty:

This theme is evident in the tussle going on inside Adela and Ronny. Ronny is a
person driven by his loyalty for the British and Adela is trying to find love in him. Ronny
is ready to lose his love to keep his loyalty for the British rule. Between love and loyalty
their half formed relationship fails to bloom. Adela wants that Ronny pay her the
attention and love she wants. Ronny is filled with attitude and Adela floats away from
him. The two know they can never be loyal to each other and think it is better to get
away from each other than remain bound. Fielding is trying to retain a balance between
love and loyalty. His love for his friend is true but he cannot go beyond his limits just to
please Aziz. He has been disloyal to his herd for a short period and that has cost him.
However, later he is appreciated by a senior official for his wisdom and his loyalty to the
British government is different from that showed by Ronny.
Mother Nature versus human nature:

Nature’s special role in A Passage to India is evident right from the outset when
Forster describes the natural settings of Chandrapore. Land, hills, caves, farms and
even the starlit sky play a special role in setting the tale of British ruled India. It is a
distinguishing feature of the Indian settings and without it the Indian picture is never
complete. The picture that Forster paints is that of a nation where people are one with
nature. They live with it, play with it and even worship it. Nature is like a partner and its
role is special starting from Chandrapore to Mau. Even during the time of Krishna
worship, nature adds tune to the existing music. Some see it as chaos, some as rhythm
and some see it as an active partner. Human nature on the other hand can be seen in
sharp contradiction to nature. Ronny and other Britishers are trying to create more
muddle. Fielding is trying to clear it and Aziz is trying to emerge from it. Mrs Moore is
remembered for her angelical nature. She is therefore a Goddess. Moreover, Indian see
things in the context of the cosmic much unlike the Britishers whose true nature is to
rule others by force and demonstrate pretentiousness.
Friendship and distances:

One can feel that there are two types of relationships in A Passage to India. On one
side there is the British Raj and on the other, there are the natives. Aziz and Fielding
are good friends and learn to keep distance later on. Mrs Moore loves her son but the
distance between them grows once she comes to India. There is no love between Adela
and Ronny and when they try to come together, they do not fit and it makes the drift
happen. They drift away and their destinations grow apart. Cyril is feeling distant from
his wife and comes closer when he brings her to India. In this way, India brings people
closer and also takes them apart. There are growing friendships and growing distances
too in the novel. Different characters have balanced their relationships in different ways.
Liberation versus entrapment:

Mrs Moore feels a strange energy trapped inside the caves. When she enters them
she feels something has capped her mouth and she tries to break out. Adela also feels
trapped when she enters the cave. Again Aziz feels trapped when Adela has alleged
that he tried to molest her inside the cave. It reflects the entrapment in which the natives
are caught. India’s pain of being trapped in the British net signifies the worse kind of
entrapment. It wants to liberate itself from the brutal force that has held it bound.
Between liberation and entrapment, its fate hangs in a balance and at last Aziz’s
movement away from his friends shows how hard India is fighting to escape the trap.
Marabar Caves serve a really exceptional significance within the notable humanitarian
novel "A Passage to India". within the Marabar Caves the cross cultural tensions rises
to its climax. In these caves Mrs. Moore, Adela Quested and Aziz square measure
altogether modified. The visit to those cause causes the physical and religious
breakdown of Mrs. Moore, leads Adela Quested to the verge of madness and lads Aziz
to his absolute ruin. The visit to the Marabar Caves shows that a passage to Republic of
India isn't potential. It additionally shows the racial prejudice of the Christians against
Islam. currently we have a tendency to shall see what happens within the Marabar
Caves.

Dr. Aziz invitations Mrs. Moore and Adela Quested to become his guest and visit the
caves. all of them answer the cordial invite of Aziz and he's pleased with it. He says. "I
am sort of a Babur." truly he thinks that one amongst the dreams of his life is
consummated. however the incident goes reverse. Mrs. Moore and Adela lose their
charm of visit or journey even within the train before aiming to the destination. They feel
unwell. however they visit the caves and everything goes reverse.

In the cave Mrs. Moore loses her interest. enigmatically she is totally modified.
Suddenly she thinks relation between man and man is hollow and it doesn't matter, man
is that the matter. within the dark and tiny caves she thinks that everything within the
world is hollow. She loses her interest in her son Ronny Heaslop and even in Dr. Aziz
whom she loves a great deal. He loses the facility of creating distinction between God
and devil, smart and evil. Everything appears to her meritless. Even her existence is to
her price less.

A Passage to India: Theme Analysis

Imperialism
A Passage to India is a critique of British rule of India. The British are not shown as
tyrants, although they do fail to understand Indian religion and culture. They are also
convinced that the British Empire is a civilizing force on the benighted "natives" of India,
and they regard all Indians as their inferiors, incapable of leadership. And yet, in their
own way, the English try to rule in a just way. Ronny, for example, the City Magistrate,
is completely sincere when he says that the British "are out here to do justice and keep
the peace" (chapter 5). And there is no trace of satire in the passage that shortly follows
this, which describes Ronny's daily routine: "Every day he worked hard in the court
trying to decide which of two untrue account was the less untrue, trying to dispense
justice fearlessly, to protect the weak against the less weak, the incoherent against the
plausible, surrounded by lies and flattery." Ronny is also aware of the hostility between
Hindus and Moslems, and believes that a British presence is necessary to prevent
bloodshed. Even Fielding, the most sympathetic of the English characters, does not
argue that the British should leave India. However, the British lack any ability to
question their own basic assumptions about race and Empire, and as such they become
the objects of Forster's biting satire.
The economic consequences of British imperialism are hinted at only briefly in the
novel. This occurs when Fielding mentions to Godbole and Adela that mangoes can
now be purchased in England: "They ship them in ice-cold rooms. You can make India
in England apparently, just as you can make England in India" (chapter 7). This hints at
the economic exploitation of India. The British claim to be in India for the good of the
Indians, whereas in fact, they are there to increase their own wealth by setting up a
system of trade that is entirely beneficial to themselves.
Twenty-three years after the publication of A Passage to India, Aziz's prediction at the
end of the novel came true. He tells Fielding that the next European war will lead to the
liberation of India. That war was World War II, and Britain, economically exhausted and
facing a nonviolent nationalist movement in India led by Gandhi, granted India
independence in 1947. An attempt to pacify the simmering hostility between Moslem
and Hindu resulted in the creation of the mostly Moslem state of Pakistan.
CultureClash
The English, schooled in a fairly simple version of Christianity, are unable to understand
the mysterious spirituality of India. Mrs. Moore shows some interest in the topic when
she first arrives in the country. She likes the idea of "resignation"-being passively
resigned to the will of God-which she associates with Indian thought. She is also
attracted to the unity of everything in the universe, another idea she associates with
India. But the incident in the caves, when she hears the echo, unnerves her. The echo
annihilates all distinctions in the name of the unity of life, and also annihilates
distinctions between good and evil. This is far from the Christian view of life, at least in
Mrs. Moore's view, and leads her into despair and apathy.
But this is merely a Westerner's point of view. Against the negative portrayal of Indian
spirituality implicit in the "echo" incident is a more positive vision that occurs in Part 3 of
the novel. There is no mistaking the joy and affirmative value of the Hindu festival
conducted at Mau, in which the birth of Lord Krishna is enacted. Once again, this is
rendered largely from the outsider's point of view, since neither Aziz nor Fielding
understands it, but it well represents the "mystery" of Indian spirituality that cannot be
penetrated by Westerners.
The clash of cultures can be seen not only in Mrs. Moore's response to India but also in
Fielding's. Fielding does not believe in God and therefore has no interest in the contrast
between Eastern and Western spirituality, but nonetheless, as chapter 32 shows, he
feels far more at home with the forms of Western architecture he encounters in Venice
than with the temples of India. The temples represent to him merely the "muddle" of
India, whereas Western architecture presents him with a view of "the harmony between
the works of man and the earth that upholds them, the civilization that has escaped
muddle, the spirit in a reasonable form, with flesh and blood subsisting."
lot Overview
In the midst of a raging war, a plane evacuating a group of schoolboys from Britain is
shot down over a deserted tropical island. Two of the boys, Ralph and Piggy, discover a
conch shell on the beach, and Piggy realizes it could be used as a horn to summon the
other boys. Once assembled, the boys set about electing a leader and devising a way to
be rescued. They choose Ralph as their leader, and Ralph appoints another boy, Jack,
to be in charge of the boys who will hunt food for the entire group.
Ralph, Jack, and another boy, Simon, set off on an expedition to explore the island.
When they return, Ralph declares that they must light a signal fire to attract the attention
of passing ships. The boys succeed in igniting some dead wood by focusing sunlight
through the lenses of Piggy’s eyeglasses. However, the boys pay more attention to
playing than to monitoring the fire, and the flames quickly engulf the forest. A large
swath of dead wood burns out of control, and one of the youngest boys in the group
disappears, presumably having burned to death.
At first, the boys enjoy their life without grown-ups and spend much of their time
splashing in the water and playing games. Ralph, however, complains that they should
be maintaining the signal fire and building huts for shelter. The hunters fail in their
attempt to catch a wild pig, but their leader, Jack, becomes increasingly preoccupied
with the act of hunting.
When a ship passes by on the horizon one day, Ralph and Piggy notice, to their horror,
that the signal fire—which had been the hunters’ responsibility to maintain—has burned
out. Furious, Ralph accosts Jack, but the hunter has just returned with his first kill, and
all the hunters seem gripped with a strange frenzy, reenacting the chase in a kind of
wild dance. Piggy criticizes Jack, who hits Piggy across the face. Ralph blows the conch
shell and reprimands the boys in a speech intended to restore order. At the meeting, it
quickly becomes clear that some of the boys have started to become afraid. The littlest
boys, known as “littluns,” have been troubled by nightmares from the beginning, and
more and more boys now believe that there is some sort of beast or monster lurking on
the island. The older boys try to convince the others at the meeting to think rationally,
asking where such a monster could possibly hide during the daytime. One of the littluns
suggests that it hides in the sea—a proposition that terrifies the entire group.
Not long after the meeting, some military planes engage in a battle high above the
island. The boys, asleep below, do not notice the flashing lights and explosions in the
clouds. A parachutist drifts to earth on the signal-fire mountain, dead. Sam and Eric, the
twins responsible for watching the fire at night, are asleep and do not see the
parachutist land. When the twins wake up, they see the enormous silhouette of his
parachute and hear the strange flapping noises it makes. Thinking the island beast is at
hand, they rush back to the camp in terror and report that the beast has attacked them.
The boys organize a hunting expedition to search for the monster. Jack and Ralph, who
are increasingly at odds, travel up the mountain. They see the silhouette of the
parachute from a distance and think that it looks like a huge, deformed ape. The group
holds a meeting at which Jack and Ralph tell the others of the sighting. Jack says that
Ralph is a coward and that he should be removed from office, but the other boys refuse
to vote Ralph out of power. Jack angrily runs away down the beach, calling all the
hunters to join him. Ralph rallies the remaining boys to build a new signal fire, this time
on the beach rather than on the mountain. They obey, but before they have finished the
task, most of them have slipped away to join Jack.
Jack declares himself the leader of the new tribe of hunters and organizes a hunt and a
violent, ritual slaughter of a sow to solemnize the occasion. The hunters then decapitate
the sow and place its head on a sharpened stake in the jungle as an offering to the
beast. Later, encountering the bloody, fly-covered head, Simon has a terrible vision,
during which it seems to him that the head is speaking. The voice, which he imagines
as belonging to the Lord of the Flies, says that Simon will never escape him, for he
exists within all men. Simon faints. When he wakes up, he goes to the mountain, where
he sees the dead parachutist. Understanding then that the beast does not exist
externally but rather within each individual boy, Simon travels to the beach to tell the
others what he has seen. But the others are in the midst of a chaotic revelry—even
Ralph and Piggy have joined Jack’s feast—and when they see Simon’s shadowy figure
emerge from the jungle, they fall upon him and kill him with their bare hands and teeth.
The following morning, Ralph and Piggy discuss what they have done. Jack’s hunters
attack them and their few followers and steal Piggy’s glasses in the process. Ralph’s
group travels to Jack’s stronghold in an attempt to make Jack see reason, but Jack
orders Sam and Eric tied up and fights with Ralph. In the ensuing battle, one boy,
Roger, rolls a boulder down the mountain, killing Piggy and shattering the conch shell.
Ralph barely manages to escape a torrent of spears.
Ralph hides for the rest of the night and the following day, while the others hunt him like
an animal. Jack has the other boys ignite the forest in order to smoke Ralph out of his
hiding place. Ralph stays in the forest, where he discovers and destroys the sow’s
head, but eventually, he is forced out onto the beach, where he knows the other boys
will soon arrive to kill him. Ralph collapses in exhaustion, but when he looks up, he sees
a British naval officer standing over him. The officer’s ship noticed the fire raging in the
jungle. The other boys reach the beach and stop in their tracks at the sight of the officer.
Amazed at the spectacle of this group of bloodthirsty, savage children, the officer asks
Ralph to explain. Ralph is overwhelmed by the knowledge that he is safe but, thinking
about what has happened on the island, he begins to weep. The other boys begin to
sob as well. The officer turns his back so that the boys may regain their composure.
1) Who is the Lord of the Flies?
Physically, the Lord of the Flies is the pig head that Jack, Roger, and the hunters mount
on a sharpened stick and leave as an offering for the beast. The head is described as
dripping blood, eerily grinning, and attracting a swarm of buzzing flies. When The Lord
of the Flies “speaks” to Simon, we can assume that his voice is a hallucinatory effect of
Simon’s disintegrating mental state. The Lord of the Flies suggests to Simon that the
boys will be their own undoing. Simon loses consciousness after the episode, and is
killed later that night. Later, when Roger and Jack vow to hunt and kill Ralph, they imply
that they will repeat their offering to the beast, using Ralph’s head this time.
Symbolically, the Lord of the Flies represents the evil inside each one of the boys on the
island.
2) What is the conch and what does it symbolize?
A conch is a type of mollusk with a pink and white shell in the shape of a spiral. Once
the animal inside dies, the shell can be used as a trumpet by blowing into one end.
In Lord of the Flies, the boys use a conch to call meetings and also to designate who is
speaking. In this way, the conch symbolizes democracy and free speech – anyone who
is holding the conch can speak his mind, and everyone else must listen and wait their
turns for the conch. However, the fact that the conch is easily broken, signalling the end
of civil communication, symbolizes the fragility of democracy, which needs protection by
all participants in order to survive.
3) How does Simon die?
After talking to the Lord of the Flies, Simon discovers the body of the paratrooper on the
mountain and realizes the boys have mistaken the corpse for the beast. Meanwhile,
Jack and his boys have been chanting and dancing around the fire, whipping
themselves into a bloodthirsty frenzy. When Simon appears and attempts to explain the
true identity of the beast, the boys mistake him for the beast itself and attack and kill
him. Later, Piggy tries to deny that he and Ralph were involved in Simon’s murder, but
Ralph insists on acknowledging that they participated.
4) Why does Jack start his own tribe?
From the beginning of the novel, Jack and Ralph both want to be leader of the boys,
and disagree not only about who the leader should be, but what style of leadership is
most effective. The tension mounts between Jack and Ralph until Chapter 8, when they
argue openly. After Ralph mocks Jack’s hunters as “boys armed with sticks,” Jack
erupts into an angry diatribe and rails against Ralph and his poor leadership skills. He
insists that Ralph is a coward and that he himself would be a better leader. But after no
one else agrees by vote, Jack leaves the group in tears. Hours later, many of the boys
have left Ralph to join Jack’s tribe, lured by the promise of hunting, eating meat and
having fun. Soon the two tribes are in violent conflict with each other.
5) Do the boys get rescued from the island?
Yes. Although Ralph has insisted throughout the novel on the importance of a fire to
signal passing ships, what ultimately attracts a ship is not Ralph’s fire but the massive
blaze set by Jack in order to kill Ralph. While pursuing Ralph through the forest, Jack
sets a huge fire to scare Ralph into the open. A passing British Navy ship sees the fire
and sends an officer ashore. The officer not only saves Ralph from being murdered by
Jack, he also saves all the boys from the further violence that would surely have
occurred had they stayed on the island.
Ralph
Ralph is the athletic, charismatic protagonist of Lord of the Flies. Elected the leader of
the boys at the beginning of the novel, Ralph is the primary representative of order,
civilization, and productive leadership in the novel. While most of the other boys initially
are concerned with playing, having fun, and avoiding work, Ralph sets about building
huts and thinking of ways to maximize their chances of being rescued. For this reason,
Ralph’s power and influence over the other boys are secure at the beginning of the
novel. However, as the group gradually succumbs to savage instincts over the course of
the novel, Ralph’s position declines precipitously while Jack’s rises. Eventually, most of
the boys except Piggy leave Ralph’s group for Jack’s, and Ralph is left alone to be
hunted by Jack’s tribe. Ralph’s commitment to civilization and morality is strong, and his
main wish is to be rescued and returned to the society of adults. In a sense, this
strength gives Ralph a moral victory at the end of the novel, when he casts the Lord of
the Flies to the ground and takes up the stake it is impaled on to defend himself against
Jack’s hunters.
In the earlier parts of the novel, Ralph is unable to understand why the other boys would
give in to base instincts of bloodlust and barbarism. The sight of the hunters chanting
and dancing is baffling and distasteful to him. As the novel progresses, however, Ralph,
like Simon, comes to understand that savagery exists within all the boys. Ralph remains
determined not to let this savagery -overwhelm him, and only briefly does he consider
joining Jack’s tribe in order to save himself. When Ralph hunts a boar for the first time,
however, he experiences the exhilaration and thrill of bloodlust and violence. When he
attends Jack’s feast, he is swept away by the frenzy, dances on the edge of the group,
and participates in the killing of Simon. This firsthand knowledge of the evil that exists
within him, as within all human beings, is tragic for Ralph, and it plunges him into listless
despair for a time. But this knowledge also enables him to cast down the Lord of the
Flies at the end of the novel. Ralph’s story ends semi-tragically: although he is rescued
and returned to civilization, when he sees the naval officer, he weeps with the burden of
his new knowledge about the human capacity for evil.
Jack
The strong-willed, egomaniacal Jack is the novel’s primary representative of the instinct
of savagery, violence, and the desire for power—in short, the antithesis of Ralph. From
the beginning of the novel, Jack desires power above all other things. He is furious
when he loses the election to Ralph and continually pushes the boundaries of his
subordinate role in the group. Early on, Jack retains the sense of moral propriety and
behavior that society instilled in him—in fact, in school, he was the leader of the
choirboys. The first time he encounters a pig, he is unable to kill it. But Jack soon
becomes obsessed with hunting and devotes himself to the task, painting his face like a
barbarian and giving himself over to bloodlust. The more savage Jack becomes, the
more he is able to control the rest of the group. Indeed, apart from Ralph, Simon, and
Piggy, the group largely follows Jack in casting off moral restraint and embracing
violence and savagery. Jack’s love of authority and violence are intimately connected,
as both enable him to feel powerful and exalted. By the end of the novel, Jack has
learned to use the boys’ fear of the beast to control their behavior—a reminder of how
religion and superstition can be manipulated as instruments of power.
Piggy
Piggy is the first boy Ralph encounters on the island after the crash and remains the
most true and loyal friend throughout Lord of the Flies. An overweight, intellectual, and
talkative boy, Piggy is the brains behind many of Ralph’s successful ideas and
innovations, such as using the conch to call meetings and building shelters for the
group. Piggy represents the scientific and rational side of humanity, supporting Ralph’s
signal fires and helping to problem solve on the island. However, Piggy’s asthma,
weight, and poor eyesight make him physically inferior to the others, making him
vulnerable to scorn and ostracism. Piggy is also the only boy who worries about the
rules of English civilization, namely what the grownups will think when they find the
savage boys. Piggy believes in rules, timeliness, and order, and as the island descends
into brutal chaos, Piggy’s position comes under threat of intense violence.
Piggy’s independence and thoughtfulness prevent him from being fully absorbed by the
group, so he is not as susceptible to the mob mentality that overtakes many of the other
boys. However, like Ralph, Piggy cannot avoid the temptations of savagery on the
island. The morning after the frenzied dance, Piggy and Ralph both admit to taking
some part (although they remain vague) in the attack and murder of Simon. While Piggy
tries to convince himself that Simon’s murder was an accident, his participation
suggests that his willingness to be accepted by the group led him to betray his own
morals and better judgment. Piggy’s death suggests that intellectualism is vulnerable to
brutality. While Simon’s death can be viewed as an accident or an escalation of mob
mentality, Piggy’s murder is the most intentional and inevitable on the island, and the
moment when the group’s last tie to civilization and humanity is severed.
Simon
Whereas Ralph and Jack stand at opposite ends of the spectrum between civilization
and savagery, Simon stands on an entirely different plane from all the other boys.
Simon embodies a kind of innate, spiritual human goodness that is deeply connected
with nature and, in its own way, as primal as Jack’s evil. The other boys abandon moral
behavior as soon as civilization is no longer there to impose it upon them. They are
not innately moral; rather, the adult world—the threat of punishment for misdeeds—has
conditioned them to act morally. To an extent, even the seemingly civilized Ralph and
Piggy are products of social conditioning, as we see when they participate in the hunt-
dance. In Golding’s view, the human impulse toward civilization is not as deeply rooted
as the human impulse toward savagery. Unlike all the other boys on the island, Simon
acts morally not out of guilt or shame but because he believes in the inherent value of
morality. He behaves kindly toward the younger children, and he is the first to realize
the problem posed by the beast and the Lord of the Flies—that is, that the monster on
the island is not a real, physical beast but rather a savagery that lurks within each
human being. The sow’s head on the stake symbolizes this idea, as we see in Simon’s
vision of the head speaking to him. Ultimately, this idea of the inherent evil within each
human being stands as the moral conclusion and central problem of the novel. Against
this idea of evil, Simon represents a contrary idea of essential human goodness.
However, his brutal murder at the hands of the other boys indicates the scarcity of that
good amid an overwhelming abundance of evil.
Roger
Introduced as a quiet and intense older boy, Roger eventually becomes a sadistic and
brutal terrorist over the course of Lord of the Flies. Midway through the book, Roger’s
cruelty begins to surface in an episode where he terrorizes the littlun Henry by throwing
rocks at him. Still beholden to the rules of society, Roger leaves a safe distance
between the rocks and the child, but we see his moral code beginning to crack. As Jack
gains power, Roger quickly understands that Jack’s brutality and willingness to commit
violence will make him a powerful and effective leader. When he learns that Jack plans
to torture Wilfred for no apparent reason, he thinks about “the possibilities of
irresponsible authority,” rather than trying to help Wilfred or find out Jack’s motivation.
Roger gives into the “delirious abandonment” of senseless violence when he releases
the boulder that kills Piggy. He then descends upon the twins, threatening to torture
them. The next day, Samneric tell Ralph “You don’t know Roger. He’s a terror.”

Sam and Eric

Sam and Eric are twin older boys on the island who are often referred to as one entity,
Samneric, and who throughout most of Lord of the Flies, remain loyal supporters of
Ralph. Sam and Eric are easily excited, regularly finish one another’s sentences, and
exist within their own small group of two. Like Ralph and Piggy, Samneric participate in
the death of Simon, but insist that they left the dance early, too ashamed to admit what
really happened. After Jack leaves to start his own tribe, the twins are two of the few
boys who remain with Ralph and Piggy to help maintain the signal fire and look after the
littluns. They bravely go with Ralph and Piggy to get the glasses back from Castle Rock.
But after Piggy’s death, they are coerced and manipulated into joining Jack’s tribe. Sam
and Eric try to warn Ralph about Jack and Roger’s bloodlust, but they are physically
dominated the next day and reveal Ralph’s hiding spot in the underbrush.
Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

Civilization vs. Savagery

The central concern of Lord of the Flies is the conflict between two competing impulses
that exist within all human beings: the instinct to live by rules, act peacefully, follow
moral commands, and value the good of the group against the instinct to gratify one’s
immediate desires, act violently to obtain supremacy over others, and enforce one’s will.
This conflict might be expressed in a number of ways: civilization vs. savagery, order vs.
chaos, reason vs. impulse, law vs. anarchy, or the broader heading of good vs. evil.
Throughout the novel, Golding associates the instinct of civilization with good and the
instinct of savagery with evil.
The conflict between the two instincts is the driving force of the novel, explored through
the dissolution of the young English boys’ civilized, moral, disciplined behavior as they
accustom themselves to a wild, brutal, barbaric life in the jungle. Lord of the Flies is an
allegorical novel, which means that Golding conveys many of his main ideas and
themes through symbolic characters and objects. He represents the conflict between
civilization and savagery in the conflict between the novel’s two main characters: Ralph,
the protagonist, who represents order and leadership; and Jack, the antagonist, who
represents savagery and the desire for power.
As the novel progresses, Golding shows how different people feel the influences of the
instincts of civilization and savagery to different degrees. Piggy, for instance, has no
savage feelings, while Roger seems barely capable of comprehending the rules of
civilization. Generally, however, Golding implies that the instinct of savagery is far more
primal and fundamental to the human psyche than the instinct of civilization. Golding
sees moral behavior, in many cases, as something that civilization forces upon the
individual rather than a natural expression of human individuality. When left to their own
devices, Golding implies, people naturally revert to cruelty, savagery, and barbarism.
This idea of innate human evil is central to Lord of the Flies, and finds expression in
several important symbols, most notably the beast and the sow’s head on the stake.
Among all the characters, only Simon seems to possess anything like a natural, innate
goodness.
Loss of Innocence
As the boys on the island progress from well-behaved, orderly children longing for
rescue to cruel, bloodthirsty hunters who have no desire to return to civilization, they
naturally lose the sense of innocence that they possessed at the beginning of the novel.
The painted savages in Chapter 12 who have hunted, tortured, and killed animals and
human beings are a far cry from the guileless children swimming in the lagoon in
Chapter 3. But Golding does not portray this loss of innocence as something that is
done to the children; rather, it results naturally from their increasing openness to the
innate evil and savagery that has always existed within them. Golding implies that
civilization can mitigate but never wipe out the innate evil that exists within all human
beings. The forest glade in which Simon sits in Chapter 3 symbolizes this loss of
innocence. At first, it is a place of natural beauty and peace, but when Simon returns
later in the novel, he discovers the bloody sow’s head impaled upon a stake in the
middle of the clearing. The bloody offering to the beast has disrupted the paradise that
existed before—a powerful symbol of innate human evil disrupting childhood innocence.
Struggle to build civilization
The struggle to build civilization forms the main conflict of Lord of the Flies. Ralph and
Piggy believe that structure, rules, and maintaining a signal fire are the greatest
priorities, while Jack believes hunting, violence, and fun should be prioritized over
safety, protection, and planning for the future. While initially the boys, including Jack,
agree to abide by Ralph’s rules and democratic decision-making, the slow and
thoughtful process of building an orderly society proves too difficult for many of the
boys. They don’t want to help build the shelters, maintain the signal fire, or take care of
the littluns. The immediate fun and visceral rewards of hunting, chanting, and dancing
around the fire are more attractive than the work of building a sustainable society. Near
the end of the novel, even Ralph is tempted by Jack’s authoritarian regime, regularly
forgetting why the fire and rescue is so important.
Man’s inherent evil
The fact that the main characters in Lord of the Flies are young boys suggests the
potential for evil is inherent even in small children. Jack, for example, is initially keen for
rules and civility, but becomes obsessed with hunting, frightened and empowered by the
promise of violence. Jack’s desire to control and subjugate proves more powerful than
his desire for empathy, intellect, and civilization, and Jack becomes a brutal and leader.
Even Ralph and Piggy, who both strive to maintain their sense of humanity, ultimately
join in on the mass murder of Simon, momentarily surrendering to the thrill of violence
and mass hysteria. While Piggy tries to ignore their participation, Ralph is devastated
when he realizes that he is no better than Jack or Roger, and that he has a darkness
inside as well.
Themes
But the character of Simon suggests humans can resist their inherently violent
tendencies. The only boy who never participates in the island’s savagery, Simon has
the purest moral code and is able to remain an individual throughout Lord of the Flies.
While the others consider him weak and strange, Simon stands up for Piggy and the
littluns, helps Ralph build the shelters, and provides thoughtful and insightful
assessment of their predicament. Simon recognizes that the beast is not a physical
beast, but perhaps the darkness and innate brutality within the boys themselves. After a
terrifying conversation with the Lord of the Flies, Simon recognizes the paratrooper as a
symbol of fear and the boys as agents of evil, and runs to tell the others. But Simon is
never able to properly explain this to the other boys before they beat him to death in a
frenzy of excitement and fear.
Dangers of mob mentality
Lord of the Flies explores the dangers of mob mentality in terrifying scenes of violence
and torture. Early on, the boys sing “Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood,” after a
successful hunt, elevating their shared act of violence into a celebratory chant. By
coming together as a mob, the boys transform the upsetting experience of killing an
animal into a bonding ritual. Acting as one group, the boys are able to commit worse
and worse crimes, deluding one another into believing in the potential danger posed by
the beast justifies their violence. Similarly, the boys use warpaint to hide their identities
as individuals, and avoid personal responsibility. Ralph, Piggy and Samneric both fear
and envy the hunters’ “liberation into savagery.” Their desire to be part of the group
leads to voluntary participation in the ritualistic dance and brutal killing of Simon. The
mob’s shared irrational fear and proclivity toward violence results in a devastating act of
ultimate cruelty.
War and the future of mankind
Set during a global war, Lord of the Flies offers a view of what society might look like
trying to rebuild after a largescale manmade catastrophe. In their attempt to rebuild
society, the boys cannot agree on a new order and eventually fall into savagery. Ralph
comes to realize that social order, fairness and thoughtfulness have little value in a
world where basic survival a struggle, such as after a devastating war. The paratrooper
who lands on the island reminds the reader that while the boys are struggling to survive
peacefully on the island, the world at large is still at war. Even in their isolation and
youth, the boys are unable to avoid violence. In their descent into torture and murder,
they mirror the warring world around them.
Protagonist
The protagonist of Lord of the Flies is Ralph. Ralph’s narrative opens and closes the
novel, while his position as chief makes him a central inciting force. Ralph’s motivation
throughout the book is to maintain order and civility, and to keep a signal fire lit in hopes
of being rescued, but he is regularly thwarted by the antagonist Jack and the potential
for evil inherent in mankind. While Ralph and Jack start the book as friends and near
equals, they devolve into mortal enemies, each one representing an opposing form of
leadership. Jack’s savage nature and embrace of violence clashes with Ralph’s focus
on long-term survival, as represented by his insistence on building shelters and
maintaining the signal fire. While Ralph attempts to appease Jack in the beginning by
allowing him to control his hunters, eventually he grows frustrated by Jack’s
shortsightedness. Ralph’s goal is to maintain order and work towards rescue. Although
Jack appears to agree on this goal, his actions obstruct Ralph from attaining his goal.
Ralph’s decision to challenge Jack proves a crucial plot point, as the tensions between
the two boys result in the formation of two separate, warring tribes.
While Ralph proves in many ways a thoughtful, charismatic, and effective leader, his
leadership is flawed by his indecision and inability to think clearly in crucial moments.
Ralph’s confusion in decisive moments proves too great a weakness for him to maintain
his leadership peacefully. Ralph’s unwillingness to resort to fear tactics and violence to
lead the boys also makes him ultimately ineffective as a leader. As the protagonist,
Ralph represents both the possibilities and limitations of democracy. Ralph is only
effective as a leader as long as the boys voluntarily follow his command. Because they
aren’t afraid of the consequences of rebelling against Ralph, the boys are quick to leave
his tribe and join forces with Jack. In this way, the very qualities that make Ralph a
natural leader in the beginning lead to his downfall. By the end of the book, Ralph has
changed from a confident, charismatic leader to a frightened, hunted outcast.
Antagonist
Jack Merridew is the main antagonist in Lord of the Flies. Throughout the novel he
stands in Ralph’s way as Ralph attempts to create a civilized society on the island. At
the beginning of the novel, Jack is the leader of the choir boys, and believes his status
makes him the obvious choice for leader on the island as well. However, unlike Ralph,
Jack is unable to lead the boys by being sympathetic and likable, so instead resorts to
fear tactics and bullying to get what he wants. Although Jack initially accepts Ralph’s
leadership, he later works actively to thwart Ralph’s attempts to keep the group together
and maintain the signal fire. By starting his own tribe, stealing Piggy’s glasses, and
allowing the hunters to terrorize the littluns, Jack effectively destabilizes Ralph’s
leadership. By the end of the book, Jack has given in completely to his savage nature,
overseeing the violent murder of Simon, the torture of Wilfred, and the killing of Piggy.
Setting
Lord of the Flies takes place on an unnamed, uninhabited tropical island in the Pacific
Ocean during a fictional worldwide war around the year 1950. The boys arrive on the
island when an airplane that was presumably evacuating them crashes. From the
moment of their arrival, the boys begin destroying the natural harmony of the island.
The scorched land where the airplane crashed, ripping up trees, is described as a
“scar.” The boys set a fire that burnt out of control, kill the wild pigs living on the island,
use the beach as a bathroom, and finally burn the entire island, so that is “scorched up
like dead wood.” Although the boys initially rejoice at the adventures they’ll have on the
island, saying it’s “wizard,” the island itself is described as an inhospitable terrain, as
though the land is attempting to reject its new inhabitants. The coconuts are “skull-like,”
the sun’s rays are “invisible arrows,” the sound of the trees rubbing against each other
is “evil.” The natural world is violent and impartial to the civility and order of human life,
as evidenced when the tide reclaims the brutalized bodies of Simon and Piggy.
Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop
and inform the text’s major themes.

Biblical Parallels
Many critics have characterized Lord of the Flies as a retelling of episodes from the
Bible. While that description may be an oversimplification, the novel does echo certain
Christian images and themes. Golding does not make any explicit or direct connections
to Christian symbolism in Lord of the Flies; instead, these biblical parallels function as a
kind of subtle motif in the novel, adding thematic resonance to the main ideas of the
story. The island itself, particularly Simon’s glade in the forest, recalls the Garden of
Eden in its status as an originally pristine place that is corrupted by the introduction of
evil. Similarly, we may see the Lord of the Flies as a representation of the devil, for it
works to promote evil among humankind. Furthermore, many critics have drawn strong
parallels between Simon and Jesus. Among the boys, Simon is the one who arrives at
the moral truth of the novel, and the other boys kill him sacrificially as a consequence of
having discovered this truth. Simon’s conversation with the Lord of the Flies also
parallels the confrontation between Jesus and the devil during Jesus’ forty days in the
wilderness, as told in the Christian Gospels.
However, it is important to remember that the parallels between Simon and Christ are
not complete, and that there are limits to reading Lord of the Flies purely as a Christian
allegory. Save for Simon’s two uncanny predictions of the future, he lacks the
supernatural connection to God that Jesus has in Christian tradition. Although Simon is
wise in many ways, his death does not bring salvation to the island; rather, his death
plunges the island deeper into savagery and moral guilt. Moreover, Simon dies before
he is able to tell the boys the truth he has discovered. Jesus, in contrast, was killed
while spreading his moral philosophy. In this way, Simon—and Lord of the Flies as a
whole—echoes Christian ideas and themes without developing explicit, precise parallels
with them. The novel’s biblical parallels enhance its moral themes but are not
necessarily the primary key to interpreting the story.
Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or
concepts.

The Conch Shell

Ralph and Piggy discover the conch shell on the beach at the start of the novel and use
it to summon the boys together after the crash separates them. Used in this capacity,
the conch shell becomes a powerful symbol of civilization and order in the novel. The
shell effectively governs the boys’ meetings, for the boy who holds the shell holds the
right to speak. In this regard, the shell is more than a symbol—it is an actual vessel of
political legitimacy and democratic power. As the island civilization erodes and the boys
descend into savagery, the conch shell loses its power and influence among them.
Ralph clutches the shell desperately when he talks about his role in murdering Simon.
Later, the other boys ignore Ralph and throw stones at him when he attempts to blow
the conch in Jack’s camp. The boulder that Roger rolls onto Piggy also crushes the
conch shell, signifying the demise of the civilized instinct among almost all the boys on
the island.
Piggy’s Glasses
Piggy is the most intelligent, rational boy in the group, and his glasses represent the
power of science and intellectual endeavor in society. This symbolic significance is clear
from the start of the novel, when the boys use the lenses from Piggy’s glasses to focus
the sunlight and start a fire. When Jack’s hunters raid Ralph’s camp and steal the
glasses, the savages effectively take the power to make fire, leaving Ralph’s group
helpless.
The Signal Fire
The signal fire burns on the mountain, and later on the beach, to attract the notice of
passing ships that might be able to rescue the boys. As a result, the signal fire becomes
a barometer of the boys’ connection to civilization. In the early parts of the novel, the
fact that the boys maintain the fire is a sign that they want to be rescued and return to
society. When the fire burns low or goes out, we realize that the boys have lost sight of
their desire to be rescued and have accepted their savage lives on the island. The
signal fire thus functions as a kind of measurement of the strength of the civilized
instinct remaining on the island. Ironically, at the end of the novel, a fire finally summons
a ship to the island, but not the signal fire. Instead, it is the fire of savagery—the forest
fire Jack’s gang starts as part of his quest to hunt and kill Ralph.
The Beast
The imaginary beast that frightens all the boys stands for the primal instinct of savagery
that exists within all human beings. The boys are afraid of the beast, but only Simon
reaches the realization that they fear the beast because it exists within each of them. As
the boys grow more savage, their belief in the beast grows stronger. By the end of the
novel, the boys are leaving it sacrifices and treating it as a totemic god. The boys’
behavior is what brings the beast into existence, so the more savagely the boys act, the
more real the beast seems to become.
The Lord of the Flies
The Lord of the Flies is the bloody, severed sow’s head that Jack impales on a stake in
the forest glade as an offering to the beast. This complicated symbol becomes the most
important image in the novel when Simon confronts the sow’s head in the glade and it
seems to speak to him, telling him that evil lies within every human heart and promising
to have some “fun” with him. (This “fun” foreshadows Simon’s death in the following
chapter.) In this way, the Lord of the Flies becomes both a physical manifestation of the
beast, a symbol of the power of evil, and a kind of Satan figure who evokes the beast
within each human being. Looking at the novel in the context of biblical parallels, the
Lord of the Flies recalls the devil, just as Simon recalls Jesus. In fact, the name “Lord of
the Flies” is a literal translation of the name of the biblical name Beelzebub, a powerful
demon in hell sometimes thought to be the devil himself.
Ralph, Piggy, Jack, Simon, and Roger
Lord of the Flies is an allegorical novel, and many of its characters signify important
ideas or themes. Ralph represents order, leadership, and civilization. Piggy represents
the scientific and intellectual aspects of civilization. Jack represents unbridled savagery
and the desire for power. Simon represents natural human goodness. Roger represents
brutality and bloodlust at their most extreme. To the extent that the boys’ society
resembles a political state, the littluns might be seen as the common people, while the
older boys represent the ruling classes and political leaders. The relationships that
develop between the older boys and the younger ones emphasize the older boys’
connection to either the civilized or the savage instinct: civilized boys like Ralph and
Simon use their power to protect the younger boys and advance the good of the group;
savage boys like Jack and Roger use their power to gratify their own desires, treating
the littler boys as objects for their own amusement.
Genre
Allegorical Fiction, Dystopian Fiction
Allegorical Fiction
Lord of the Flies is an allegorical novel that employs the realistic situation of a group of
boys stranded on a desert island to embody abstract ideas about human beings’
inherent savagery and the dangers of mob mentality and totalitarian leadership.
Allegorical fiction employs specific images, characters, and settings to represent
intangible emotions or ideas, such as a character named The Lover personifying the
concept of romantic love. In Lord of the Flies, Golding creates a backdrop of global war
for a narrative about boys attempting to build a civil society following the presumed
destruction of civilization. Characters represent different negative and positive aspects
of humanity, such as Piggy, who stands for reason and intellect, and Jack, who stands
for violence, cruelty, and totalitarianism. Objects on the island serve allegorical functions
as well: most significantly, the conch represents communication and the democratic
process. Allegorical fiction as a genre asks readers to the question the concepts
governing human interaction, and explores the way larger forces impact individual lives.
In telling the story of an isolated group of young boys attempting to remake society, the
book asks whether the breakdown of civilizations into war is inevitable, and what forces
within us drive us toward self-destruction.
Lord of the Flies deviates from the genre of allegorical fiction in that the main characters
are fully-developed, conflicted, believable boys. In traditional allegory, characters are
often representative of a single attribute, and the work can feel bombastic in the
author’s insistence on the main idea. Most of the characters in Lord of the Flies, in
contrast, have a degree of ambivalence and are presented as initially sympathetic.
Ralph, who symbolizes fair, progress-minded leadership, is also afflicted by self-doubt
and an inability to articulate his thoughts, or even think clearly, at crucial moments.
Even Jack, rather than being a symbol of pure evil or mindless violence, experiences
moments of weakness, as when the boys vote to keep Ralph chief. Jack is presented
sympathetically in the beginning of the novel, and grows increasingly aggressive as he
is corrupted by the violence he enacts on the pigs and the other boys. Rather than
remaining static, one-dimensional stand-ins for ideas, the characters change over the
course of the novel, making it different than classic works of allegorical fiction.
Dystopian Fiction
Because Lord of the Flies presents the characters as living in a nightmarish, oppressive
society as a result of to their inherently flawed natures, it is also an example of
dystopian fiction. In direct contrast to utopian fiction, which posits that human beings are
perfectible and a society free of suffering is possible, dystopian fiction asserts that
societal injustice is inevitable. The genre became popular during the 20th century, when
works like George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984 presented futuristic worlds beset by
tyranny, violence, and suppressed speech. It is an especially popular genre for
contemporary young adult novels like The Hunger Games. Although the setting of Lord
of the Flies initially appears an Edenic utopia, with abundant fruit, fresh water, and
beautiful beaches, it quickly devolves into a dystopian landscape where the boys are
hungry, dirty, fearful of the unnamed beast, and tyrannized by an increasingly sadistic
leader. Dystopian writers employ fear, suspense, and often violence to warn readers
about the dangers of totalitarianism; the message of their novels is that societies can
never be truly perfect, but can get better if individuals work together in democratic
processes. Ralph, in Lord of the Flies, represents this potential, in his insistence on free
speech, voting, and collaborative labor to provide shelter, gather food, and tend the fire.
Style
Lord of the Flies mixes lyric descriptions of nature with vivid action scenes and
extended passages of dialogue to create a style that grows increasingly foreboding over
the course of the novel, mirroring the boys’ descent into violence and chaos. The book
opens with a description of the island in the aftermath of the plane crash that maroons
the boys: “all round him the long scar smashed into the jungle was a bath of heat…a
bird, a vision of red and yellow, flashed upward with a witch-like cry.” Golding uses
metaphor and generic words like “boy,” “bird,” and “jungle” to create a sense of
dislocation in the reader – where are we? Who is the boy? What is the scar and what
caused it? These stylistic choices align the reader with the boys, who might be asking
similar questions at this point in the narrative. The comparisons of a plane crash to a
scar, and a bird to a witch, create an ominous sense that despite the beauty of the
natural setting, the island is threatening as well, and the boys’ experience on the island
will scar them.
At the same time, Golding holds his characters, and his reader, at arm’s length,
presenting events in a fairly detached, straightforward style, enhancing the characters’
role as symbols as well as individuals, and preventing the reader from identifying with
any one character too closely. When one of the littluns has a nightmare, “the wail rose,
remote and unearthly, and turned to an inarticulate gibbering.” By removing the
humanity and intelligibility from the boy’s cries, Golding creates a distance from the
boy’s suffering. Golding uses more intimate, evocative language to make the island
itself a personification of the evil in the boys, as when the trees “rubbed each other with
an evil speaking,” or in this passage: “revolving masses of gas piled up the static until
the air was ready to explode... Even the air that pushed in from the sea was hot and
held no refreshment. Colors drained from water and trees and pink surfaces of rock,
and the white and brown clouds brooded. Nothing prospered but the flies…” Here, even
an invisible element like the air is filled with menace and danger.
In contrast to his lush descriptions of nature, Golding’s characters speak in terse,
vernacular prose, which both grounds the book in its time and place, and reflects the
breakdown of communication over the course of the book. In the beginning of the novel,
the boys employ a good deal of slang, referring to the island as “wizard” and “wacco,”
British slang words from the 1950s for great or cool. Piggy speaks in ungrammatical
slang, as when he says, “Nobody don’t know we’re here.” Piggy’s speech identifies him
as lower class than the other boys, as does the fact that he has no parents, and was
raised by an aunt who owns a sweet shop. His class status further separates him from
his peers. Ralph and Jack are more articulate, but Ralph finds himself at a loss for
words in times of intense emotion, and resorts to physical displays: “Ralph, faced by the
task of translating this into an explanation, stood on his head and fell over.” As the boys
lose their civilization, their speech becomes less coherent and organized, and by the
end they’ve devolved to a form of pre-speech, ululating, screaming, shouting, moaning,
and, finally, crying, having all but lost the ability to communicate.
Point of View
Golding employs a third-person omniscient narrator in Lord of the Flies, meaning that
the narrator speaks in a voice separate from that of any of the characters and
sometimes narrates what the characters are thinking and feeling as well as what they’re
doing. The narrator only gives us insights into the thoughts of characters sparingly,
however. Most often the narrator describes what the characters are doing and how
they’re interacting as seen from the outside. The narrator’s point of view is sometimes
that of an objective observer of all of the boys, as in the scenes where they’re all
meeting and interacting, but sometimes the narrator will follow the point of view of one
boy by himself. The characters whose point of view we see most frequently are Ralph,
Jack, Simon, and Piggy. The narrator devotes the most time to Ralph, describing not
just his thoughts but his thought process—“Then, at the moment of greatest passion
and conviction, that curtain flapped in his head and he forgot—what he had been driving
at.” The reader also get a sense of Ralph’s home life in an extended reverie where he
remembers “when you went to bed there was a bowl of cornflakes with sugar and
cream.…Everything was alright; everything was good-humored and friendly.”
The narrator reflects Jack’s internal thought the least out of all the major characters, but
still takes the reader inside his head, as after he kills the so “His mind was crowded with
memories; memories of the knowledge that had come the them when they had closed in
on the struggling pig...” We also spend brief amounts of time inside the heads of littluns
in order to show that the impulses ruling the main characters are universal and innate.
We only see these characters briefly, such as Henry, who becomes “absorbed beyond
mere happiness as he felt himself exercising control over living things,” or Maurice, who
still feels “the unease of wrongdoing” when he throws sand in Percival’s eye. Golding
shows that even the youngest boys experience lust for power, or remorse at causing
pain. Yet he mostly shows the littluns from a distanced perspective. This technique
likens them to a generic mob, capable of acting as a single organism, as when they join
Jack’s tribe and unquestioningly participate in the pursuit of Ralph. By switching
between brief interior glimpses into specific littluns and presenting them as a single
character, the narrator shows the way the individual is susceptible to mob mentality.
In utilizing a third person point of view, Golding also lets the reader see action that none
of the boys themselves witness, creating dramatic irony, which is when a reader knows
more than a character does. The reader witnesses the scene of the paratrooper landing
on the island, so when the boys believe they see a looming beast, the reader
understands it’s actually a corpse animated by the wind. When Simon discovers the
truth about the beast, it is knowledge he shares with the reader but is unable to spread
to the other boys, as they kill him in their trance-like frenzy before he can explain. The
beast then slips from the mountain during the storm, preserving the reader as the only
person who knows the beast’s true identity. At the end the reader briefly sees the boys
from the officer’s point of view, as “little boys,” and “tiny tots… with the distended bellies
of small savages.” In this case, the dramatic irony is that the reader knows the horror of
the situation, while the officer believes the boys are playing a harmless game.
Tone
The tone of Lord of the Flies is fairly aloof, creating a sense of removal from the events.
The boys on the island generally treat each other with a lack of sympathy, and, similarly,
the overall tone of the book expresses neither shock nor sympathy toward what
happens. Events such as the deaths of Simon and Piggy are related in matter-of-fact
detail: “Piggy fell forty feet and landed on his back across the square red rock in the
sea. His head opened, and stuff came out and turned red.” The tone here is resigned,
expressing no surprise at the violent death of one of the main characters. The sense is
that the deaths are as inevitable as the tide: “Then the sea breathed again in a long,
slow sigh, the water boiled white and pink over the rock; and when it went, sucking back
again, the body of Piggy was gone.” By focusing on the natural world in the immediate
aftermath of the death, instead of the boys, Golding distances the reader from the
emotion of the scene, but his precise details about what Piggy’s broken body looks like
impart a sense of horror and disgust.
Throughout the novel, Golding’s tone suggests the island itself is as responsible for
what happens as the boys. Golding’s tone when describing nature is anxious and
distrustful. He personifies nature as a violent, vengeful force. The heat becomes “a blow
that (the boys) ducked.” The trees rub together “with an evil speaking.” The tide is a
“sleeping leviathan” and the sea boils “with a roar.” Clouds “squeezed, produced
moment by moment this close, tormenting heat.” Evening comes, “not with calm beauty
but with the threat of violence.” The boys are presented as almost as vulnerable to the
forces of nature as to each other, sustaining the tone of justified fear. Nature is a
destructive force that elicits the boys’ most savage natures. Their growing discomfort
and unease with the effects of nature, as expressed by Ralph’s disgust at his filthy
clothes, overgrown hair, and unbrushed teeth, heighten the tone of anxiety.
Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is an important technique in Lord of the Flies, and Golding employs
several instances of indirect foreshadowing throughout the book. Nearly every plot
event is foreshadowed in the establishing chapters, creating a sense of inevitability to
the events. Both character traits, such as Piggy’s emotional fragility, and plot points,
such as the climactic fire that leads to the boys’ rescue, are foreshadowed heavily in the
novel.
Piggy’s Death
Piggy’s Death is an important plot point in Lord of the Flies, and is foreshadowed from
the first time we see his character; however, the exact nature of his death is an instance
of false foreshadowing, as Golding sets up the reader to believe Piggy will die from his
physical frailty, not violence. Piggy’s death signifies the end of Ralph’s fragile troop, and
a victory by the forces of violence and brutality over the forces of wisdom, kindness, and
civility. The death is foreshadowed in the early pages, when Piggy tells Ralph he has
asthma, can’t swim, needs his glasses to see, and is sick from the fruit. “Sucks to your
ass-mar!” Ralph replies, foreshadowing the boys’ lack of concern about Piggy’s physical
vulnerability. When Jack breaks one of the lenses in Piggy’s glasses, the foreshadowing
of his fragility is repeated, and his dependence on his glasses for survival. Later, he
can’t catch his breath and “blue shadows” creep around his mouth, suggesting he will
suffocate while the boys looks for the beast. That his death comes through an act of
violence, instead of his own physical condition, defies the expectations set up by all the
previous foreshadowing. At the same time, the fact that the boys hunt pigs foreshadows
the violent nature of Piggy’s death, as when Jack says “If only I could get a pig!”
Burning Of The Island
Fire serves as both a life-giving source and a deadly threat in Lord of the Flies, and
Golding foreshadows its critical dual roles to the resolution of the novel throughout the
book. Ralph immediately understands fire’s importance as a source of heat, a way to
cook meat, and, most significantly, a means of signaling passing ships and getting the
boys rescued, saying “The fire’s the most important thing on the island,” several times.
But the first fire the boys set burns out of control, and one of the littluns goes missing,
presumably killed by the flames, foreshadowing the fire Jack sets at the end to flush out
Jack so he can kill him. The importance of keeping the fire lit compared to the necessity
of hunting pigs is the main source of tension between Jack and Ralph, and the final
break comes between the two of them when Jack steals Piggy’s glasses, their means of
lighting the fire. Jack and Ralph’s arguments about the importance of fire foreshadow
fire’s ultimate role as sustainer of life, as fire, not hunting, rescues not only Ralph from
his immediate danger, but all the boys from the island.
The Boys’ Rescue
One source of tension throughout the novel is the question of whether the boys will be
rescued from the island, but several instances of foreshadowing suggest the boys will
eventually be discovered. The anxiety about what will happen to them is established
early in the book, when Piggy repeats “nobody knows where we are,” and says “the
plane was shot down in flames… we may be here a long time.” Shortly after, however,
Ralph insists that “there aren’t any unknown islands left… sooner or later, we shall be
rescued.” At this point, the question is whether there is any civilization left to rescue
them. Soon, though, a ship passes, indicating that the world beyond the island still
exists. The arrival of the paratrooper also links the island to the outside world. Simon
alludes to his faith that the boys will make it home, though his wording – “I just think
you’ll get back all right” – omits himself from the reassurance, suggesting he has a
presentiment of his own death. When the boys are finally discovered, they are on the
brink of destroying Ralph and the island, so although it has been foreshadowed, their
rescue still comes as a surprise.
Key Facts
Full Title · Lord of the Flies
Author · William Golding
Type Of Work · Novel
Genre · Allegory; dystopian fiction
Language · English
Time And Place Written · Early 1950s; Salisbury, England
Date Of First Publication · 1954
Publisher · Faber and Faber
Narrator · The story is told by an anonymous third-person narrator who conveys the
events of the novel without commenting on the action or intruding into the story.
Point Of View · The narrator speaks in the third person, primarily focusing on Ralph’s
point of view but following Jack and Simon in certain episodes. The narrator is
omniscient and gives us access to the characters’ inner thoughts.
Tone · Dark; violent; pessimistic; tragic; unsparing
Tense · Immediate past
Setting (Time) · Near future
Setting (Place) · A deserted tropical island
Protagonist · Ralph
Major Conflict · Free from the rules that adult society formerly imposed on them, the
boys marooned on the island struggle with the conflicting human instincts that exist
within each of them—the instinct to work toward civilization and order and the instinct to
descend into savagery, violence, and chaos.
Rising Action · The boys assemble on the beach. In the election for leader, Ralph
defeats Jack, who is furious when he loses. As the boys explore the island, tension
grows between Jack, who is interested only in hunting, and Ralph, who believes most of
the boys’ efforts should go toward building shelters and maintaining a signal fire. When
rumors surface that there is some sort of beast living on the island, the boys grow
fearful, and the group begins to divide into two camps supporting Ralph and Jack,
respectively. Ultimately, Jack forms a new tribe altogether, fully immersing himself in the
savagery of the hunt.
Climax · Simon encounters the Lord of the Flies in the forest glade and realizes that
the beast is not a physical entity but rather something that exists within each boy on the
island. When Simon tries to approach the other boys and convey this message to them,
they fall on him and kill him savagely.
Falling Action · Virtually all the boys on the island abandon Ralph and Piggy and
descend further into savagery and chaos. When the other boys kill Piggy and destroy
the conch shell, Ralph flees from Jack’s tribe and encounters the naval officer on the
beach.
THE MAINTHEMES OF LORD OF THE FLIES Lord of the Flies (William Golding,
1967), a direct production of the author's experience of the World War II, offers a group
of themes which are the second product of the writer's paramount concern for the future
of civilization, annihilated almost by the brutality of the Second World War. The main
themes of the novel may be categorized as follows: (1) the theme of evil (2) the theme
of childhood (3) the theme of human civilization in the 20th century and (4) the biblical
theme or the theme of sin and expiation.

(1) The theme of evil :The theme of evil Golding believes that the evil nature of man is
curbed only when he is under discipline. Thus Jack's inherent evil nature is repressed
by the disciplined school life and he hesitates for a moment to kill the pig that had been
trapped and has managed to run away. At the beginning of the novel Jack's cruelty and
his going against nature are stated. Jack's narrow mindedness, his material greed, his
eagerness for power are revealed as the basic qualities that led to murder and
destruction. He concentrates on hunting and breaking away from the order created by
Ralph to gratify his pleasure. Golding does not intent to picture Jack as basically evil, as
he states that Jack is a boy of anger, violence, and action and wants to be a leader.
Golding has made this exposition of cruelty in his novel probably to make his readers
aware of what he deemed the real nature of the human mind. He may be believed that
World War II did not present us with issues such as fighting–, nationalism, politics, and
freedom; it corrupted the nature of human beings. Perhaps Golding also believed that
the earth is mangled by men and can be saved only if men become aware of his nature
and changes it. According to the view point of Golding, the most alarming quality of evil
is that it can attract most of 100 Int. J. English Lit. the people towards it, because most
people are attracted to the joys of life and are loath rational thinking. Golding also
relates evil with fear which often causes risky activities (Kermode, 1962: 201). Another
important aspect of evil shown in the novel is that it does not exist outside; only Simon
can feel the truth of evil when he says that the beast might be within us. The other boys
are afraid of the beast. It is displayed to Simon alone that evil in the form of beast is just
an illusion. Golding feels that evil does not emerge out of some political or other
systems; therefore, removal of a particular system does not ensure removal of evil. He
argues against those who think that it is the political or other systems that create evil.
Evil comes from the depths of man himself. Golding is almost obsessed with the
existence of evil in the nature of human being and emphasizes on the recognition of this
nature on the basis of which one may take steps to exterminate it. He is not concerned
with human nature in a particular time or with a particular type of people, though
occasional references are taken from contemporary (mid-twentieth century) world and
the boys in the novel are all British schoolboys. Golding, however, avoids making any
specific quality of British boys and the boys might as well belong to any modern civilized
country.

(2) The theme of childhood: The Theme of Childhood (Potential Savagery of

Children) Lord of the Flies is a novel about the activities of some schoolboys who
ranged between six and twelve and who had been dropped by an aeroplane on an
uninhabited island. The subject matter of the novel shows similarities with the
adventurous stories written in the 19th century. Those stories are romantic tales which
stress on the discovery of the unknown land by the boys who are away from the
Christian notion of original sin. But Lord of the Flies is a reconstruction of Ballantyne's
Coral Island in which three British–school boys find out an uninhabited island which
becomes a paradise for them. Golding does not share the romantic ideas that portray
children the status of innocent angels. According to him, children possess both good
qualities and bad ones as do grown-ups. And in both cases only a few possess good
qualities like love, fellow feeling, sympathy, and pit. In this novel, Simon alone is called
innocent. He is full of love, pity and sympathy for others. He brings ripe fruit for the
littluns, offers his own share of meat to Piggy to whom it was denied and thinks that the
supposed beast might be some ill man who could not even chase the boys that went so
near him. But the other boys, even Ralph and Piggy who are noted for rationality and
intelligence, do not possess the characteristic qualities of Simon. The novel Lord of the
Flies does not however present the views unexamined. Rather, it is the result of the
author's microscopic observation of the changes in the thoughts of the boys and their
ways of life. Even the skilled changes in their behavior do not decamp his eyes. The
investigation by the author of the complex phenomenon called child becomes
interesting because he makes this investigation fair and objective, and detects the
psychological complexity through symbols. For instance, when Ralph threw his school
uniform and felt comfortable in the tropical atmosphere, the gesture expressed his
delight of freedom, as he was sure that there would be no strict discipline on the island
(Bernard, 1965: 481). Golding's hold on child psychology is further disclosed in the way
he depicts the flickers of goodness in evil characters and vice versa. He curiously
observes that Jack, the personification of evil, hesitates to kill a pig during their first
discovery of the island, because he is still unwilling to meet bloodshed. Piggy who is
noted for his intelligence and commonsense becomes deceptive when he explains that
Simon's death is just accident. Unlike the believers in golden childhood theory, Golding
admires the role of discipline and order in developing a child's moral sense. And once
the children have undergone a disciplined life, they take time to forget all about the
moral codes they were taught. Thus, Roger fails to satisfy his agonized pleasure by
throwing stones at Henry. The author is a realist, and he finds that both the grown-up
and the children contained evil qualities as well as good, but evil is always prominent.
As some critics have rightly observed, the island gives the children freedom to find out
themselves and it is given as a testing ground for the inherent goodness or evil. When
the children in the novel are set free from the restriction and control of the adult world,
their natural impulses surface and reveal their lust for power and savagery. This
revelation of brutality is found in human nature. Surely, love and sympathy are
displayed‫ ـــــــــ‬one may remember Simon's love and pity, but these are insufficient. The
death of Simon alone indicates the depravity in the nature of human being as does the
death of Piggy who related to rules and order almost fanatically. The behavior of the
boys as explained is natural. To say that these descriptions are simple is not correct.
The reaction of the boys would be the same anywhere, be it a romantic novel or
realistic. Golding's acute observation of the children's way of life enabled him to put side
by side both the spontaneous joys of life and the intolerance and hostility towards
others. Thus Golding adds an extra dimension to a common, life-like incident enabling it
to interpret his point of view about the power hungry nature of human being. In this way
the theme of the potential savagery of children in Golding's novel reveals a clarity of
sign and intention that offers it a new dimension of interest and oblige the readers to
accept the psychological reality as true to life (Golding 17, 24).

(3)The Theme of Human Civilization: The view point of Golding about the innate evil
in human beings is known; he is often regarded as a pessimist having a negative way of
looking at life, though he repeatedly refuses that he is not a pessimist. His view of
human civilization that appears largely in the background of the children's world on the
island, apparently offers no flicker of hope. The different aspects of the adult's world as
reflected in Lord of the Flies may be discussed in the following way: first, there was the
atomic war that presupposed the school children dropped on an uninhabited island;
secondly, occasional references to bomb, firing and so on, that point at the cruelty of the
grown-up people; thirdly, the fluffy suggestions of the boy's unhappy family life and
lastly, the presentation of chauvinism as the remains of colonial feelings mirrored in the
naval officer's speech at the end (Santwana, 2010: 88). To start with the atomic war that
serves as the setting of the novel, it is horrifying. It is the atomic war in Europe that had
not yet taken place in reality, but is apprehended to break out at any moment. Some
schoolboys projected in the novel were apparently rescued in that nuclear war and they
were dropped on an uninhabited island. This frightening vision at once differentiates
Golding's novel from Coral Island and other books of adventure. When the grown-up
world of is set aflame putting a question mark on the future of mankind, any kind of
adventure or exploration is rendered absurd. The implied irony is that when the adults
are engaged in warfare and destroy cities and towns, how can one expect the children
to establish a paradise on the island? The boys had already learnt about wars, machine
guns, bombs, and so on, from the adults before they are dropped on the island. Wars
and other negative aspects such as deception related to wars smashed the old facts
and values, and thus innocence has already been gone. Memories of these evils remain
with all the children. Ironically, the boys on the deserted island would be rescued by a
naval officer who represents British chauvinism. The arrival of the officer denotes that
Piggy's anticipation may be wrong, that the world of grown-ups is not yet extinct despite
the atomic war and several plane crashes. But it is also evident that the world is not
promoted to some better place. The naval officer is still proud of the British ways of life.
He is unaware that the evil is already inside the boys, that evil remains in the mind of
human beings irrespective of nationality, that the wars were simply the outward
eruptions of that evil (MacCaffrey 1967: 23). Thus Lord of the Flies can be seen a
critique of modern civilization. Golding's view of civilization and the innate evil in heart of
human being might be understood as a token of his pessimism. But a flicker of optimism
is revealed through Ralph who is concerned with the Alnajm 101 fundamental values of
life. Ralph sensed that things are disintegrating and sanity is breaking up, and he tried
in vain to put things in order. In fact, Golding believes that the world needs to be rebuilt.
And the foundation of this rebuilding has to be a blending of system and human
feelings.

(4)The theme of sin and expiation Lord of the Flies, allegorically, depicts the eternal
theme of the conflict between evil and goodness, a conflict in which evil is the winner in
the first round and then, the table is suddenly turned and the goodness that still remains
is saved; sin is also expiated. The children in the novel symbolize good or bad qualities,
though they are at the same time capable of growth. From the beginning good and evil
are demarcated. Simon is still full of human qualities in addition to intellectual and
spiritual qualities. He brought good fruits for the littluns, supported Piggy and undertook
difficult job for the benefit of other; again, he used logic to prove that Piggy had also
contributed to making the fire by lending his glasses. His intuition told him that Ralph
would survive and his spiritual quality is evident in his understanding that there is no
beast outside and that evil lies in the mind of human beings. Simon is contrasted with
Jack, Roger and Maurice who symbolize jealousy, eagerness for power and cruelty.
The wailing of Ralph for the end of innocence shows the theme of sin and expiation. He
had earlier accepted the liability of being a party to Simon's killing. He told Piggy that the
figure that was killed might not be the beast they had witnessed on the mountain top, for
the figure was much smaller. He also heard something uttered by the dying figure that
seemed to tell something about a dead body on the mountain top but his voice was lost
under the war cry of the hunters. The voice of goodness and of spiritual reality had been
drowned by the mad cry of tumult, harshness and superstition when Jesus was
crucified. Later on the people had to expiate for their sin inherent in them in order to be
saved. Simon can be read also as the figure of Christ a in the novel. It is him who
obtained the real knowledge ‫ ــــ‬he found out that the supposed beast on the mountain
top was nothing but the dead body of an airman tied to a parachute, and he also
released the body, yet he did not get opportunity to communicate the knowledge to
others. He was mercilessly killed by the hunters who were in frenzy and who were freed
from logic and understanding. Critics almost accept the point that Simon's death is
sacrifice and he is most likely a reference the Christ figure (Boyd, 1988: 17). In addition
to Simon's sacrifice and the expiation of Ralph for his sin, there also seems to be other
Christian elements in the novel, the most important of which are the image of the
Garden of Eden and the fantasy of the 102 Int. J. English Lit. Lord of the Flies' scene.
The island has all the features of the Garden of Eden. Golding in his novel implies that
when a human being is surrounding by various kinds of comfort and luxury and without
government and parental rules, it will lead to destruction and corruption. For that reason
the boys on the island have begun to foil everything; they have even killed their friends.
Not only this, they have chased the pig and cut its head and put it on a spear. The sow's
head on the stick, which is called lord of the flies, directly refers to Beelzebub who was
also called Lord of the Flies. The head of the pig was actually offered to the supposed
beast (in fact, a dead air-man tied to a parachute) by Jack and the dripping head
magnetized lots of flies around it and became literally a lord of flies. The fictitious
conversation between Simon, the Christ figure, and the lord of the flies referring to
Beelzebub allegorically presents the struggle between goodness and evil. First of all,
the Lord of the Flies entices Simon asking him to join the Jack's party and have fun.
When Simon is not tempted, the Lord of the Flies intimidates him telling him that he
would be killed by Jack and his party. For the Christian temptation and threatening are
the two main ways used by forces of evil to defect good towards them; Satan inveigled
Eve and her husband in the Garden of Eden and brought the downfall of human beings.
Christ also met the devil in the desert. The scene that describes Simon's meeting with
the Lord of the Flies is like the scene in the Bible where Christ meets the devil in the
desert. The saintly persons cannot be deceived; they are, therefore, threatened and
even eventually murdered by the evil forces. Nevertheless, though all these references
states the Christian theme, Golding's approach to the problems of his age is clearly
distinct from other Christian works (Kinkead, 1967: 25). The religious dimension of the
works of Golding‫ ـــــــ‬his preoccupation with the Biblical theme of the collapse of human
being ‫ ــــــــ‬has been noted by almost all the critics. For instance, John S. Whitley says
that "Lord of the Flies is governed by the idea that the man is a fallen creature" (Whitley,
1970: 7). It cannot be rejected that Golding's major preoccupation was the fall of man,
and at the same time, he expresses his concern for the possible way out of this fallen
condition through the development of human feelings. That is why he did not like to be
described as a pessimist. He would rather like to be called a realist.

CONCLUSION

The novel Lord of the Flies is an allegorical novel which talks about the conflict between
the impulse toward civilization and impulse toward savagery that rages within each
human being. It also concerns the breakdown of civilization as resulting from nothing
more complex than the inherent evil of man. Lord of the Flies is a novel to embody the
meaning of rationalism and intellect, for example, Piggy in spite of his weak attitude and
his weak eyes always try to convince his friend that he can achieve something for them
by following their minds. Sometimes, we can see William Golding as a religious novelist
in his writing as for example, in Lord of the Flies, Simon represents goodness and
saintliness. This displays that Golding writes his first novel Lord of the Flies to deal with
several prominent and important side of our life and the religious dimension.