The Wasp and the Echo: The Oneness with Everything
In A Passage to India, E. M. Foster explores various conflicts between the Indian and the English in a dramatic setting. Foster is a master of realism; however, what walks side by side with the realistic plots like the trial and the friendship is the mysticism, which reflects Foster’s extraordinary ability to grasp the essence of the Oriental spirit. Realistic descriptions in many colonial literary works sometimes cannot suffice to present the complexity of the real Oriental world whose cultural logic is not rooted in Western rationality. In Foster’s work, the alternative way to introduce the subtleness of Oriental culture rather than to plainly depict the Oriental’s and English’s lives in …show more content…
By opening the novel with the Indian’s discussion of the possibility of being friends with the English, he depicts the Oriental experience regarding the English in a rather direct way. In contrast to the realistic conversation among the Indians, an interesting episode at the end of Chapter 4 seems irrelevant to the main storyline, but enables readers to glimpse the difference between the Indian and the English in a subtle way. Two Christian missionaries who only appear once in the novel teach Christian doctrine in India and try to sooth the Indian’s nerves by telling them that God’s mansion welcomes “the incompatible multitudes of mankind” (38). Regardless of its feasibility, the missioners’ religious theory seems to solve the racial problem, but their mission becomes problematic when they are asked, “May there not be a mansion for the monkeys also? And the wasps? And oranges, cactuses, crystals and mud?” (38) The missionaries cannot agree with the extension and reply, “No, no, this is going too far. We must exclude someone from our gathering, or we shall be left with nothing” (38). Their imaginative equality is built on a rough and vague connection between the Westerner and the Oriental without a consensus on the view of the world. A mansion for a wasp is possible because for the Oriental it should contain the whole …show more content…
Moore, the old English lady who is identified by Dr. Aziz as “an Oriental” (23), illustrates the inner spirit of India in a similar way. Before the missionaries’ teaching, the wasp has already appeared in Mrs. Moore’s house and she regards it as an Indian wasp and calls it “pretty dear” (35). Mrs. Moore’s understanding of Indian animals reveals her initial sympathy with Indian mysticism, as she says, “No Indian animal has any sense of an interior. Bats, rats, birds, insects will as soon nest inside a house as out; it is to them a normal growth of the eternal jungle, which
In A Passage to India, E. M. Foster explores various conflicts between the Indian and the English in a dramatic setting. Foster is a master of realism; however, what walks side by side with the realistic plots like the trial and the friendship is the mysticism, which reflects Foster’s extraordinary ability to grasp the essence of the Oriental spirit. Realistic descriptions in many colonial literary works sometimes cannot suffice to present the complexity of the real Oriental world whose cultural logic is not rooted in Western rationality. In Foster’s work, the alternative way to introduce the subtleness of Oriental culture rather than to plainly depict the Oriental’s and English’s lives in …show more content…
By opening the novel with the Indian’s discussion of the possibility of being friends with the English, he depicts the Oriental experience regarding the English in a rather direct way. In contrast to the realistic conversation among the Indians, an interesting episode at the end of Chapter 4 seems irrelevant to the main storyline, but enables readers to glimpse the difference between the Indian and the English in a subtle way. Two Christian missionaries who only appear once in the novel teach Christian doctrine in India and try to sooth the Indian’s nerves by telling them that God’s mansion welcomes “the incompatible multitudes of mankind” (38). Regardless of its feasibility, the missioners’ religious theory seems to solve the racial problem, but their mission becomes problematic when they are asked, “May there not be a mansion for the monkeys also? And the wasps? And oranges, cactuses, crystals and mud?” (38) The missionaries cannot agree with the extension and reply, “No, no, this is going too far. We must exclude someone from our gathering, or we shall be left with nothing” (38). Their imaginative equality is built on a rough and vague connection between the Westerner and the Oriental without a consensus on the view of the world. A mansion for a wasp is possible because for the Oriental it should contain the whole …show more content…
Moore, the old English lady who is identified by Dr. Aziz as “an Oriental” (23), illustrates the inner spirit of India in a similar way. Before the missionaries’ teaching, the wasp has already appeared in Mrs. Moore’s house and she regards it as an Indian wasp and calls it “pretty dear” (35). Mrs. Moore’s understanding of Indian animals reveals her initial sympathy with Indian mysticism, as she says, “No Indian animal has any sense of an interior. Bats, rats, birds, insects will as soon nest inside a house as out; it is to them a normal growth of the eternal jungle, which