The Image Of India In A Passage To India

A Passage to India, one of E. M. Forster's representative works, is an important text to study his colonialist narrative. The novel's insightful exploration of the relationship between Britain and her colony India in early 20^th century guarantees it a seat among the classics of British colonist literature. Upon its appearance, it drew westerners' attention upon Indian politics and culture and has become a popular critical concern ever since. Since the rise of postcolonial theory and criticism, the issues centering on racialism, cultural-imperialism, national culture and cultural identity have become more and more heated for theorists and they have achieved greatly on the image of India. Now more and more scholars come to agree that the image of "the other" is in essence an open and multi-ply one.The thesis, by interpreting the textual features of the discourse of the other, examines it in India's natural and cultural landscapes and religion, discusses the image of Indian and the sexual discourse features concealed within and analyzes the discourse function of the other, attempting to: l)clarify that the discourse of the other is the subjective product of the paradoxical colonist consciousness of Forster, who, assisted by constructing the discourse of the other, wishes to accomplish the self-recognition of western culture; 2)discover the cultural discourse relationship between India and its suzerain and cultural context behind the discourse of the other; and 3)unveil the author's subtle attitude within. This thesis is divided into three parts. Part one makes clear the thesis' primary task is to interpret the image of Indian as the discourse of the other, illustrate the term "the other" and point out the colonist discourse features in constructing the discourse of the other. Part two plumbs the textual features of the discourse of the other by textual examination at aspects of cultural & natural landscape, Indian and the sexual discourse features concealed in the image of India. And Part three interprets its discourse function.