Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1, 0 (A), Cummins Memorial Theological Seminary (USA: East Tennessee State University, Johnson City - College of English), course: E.M. Forster, 13 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: 1 Introduction
E.M. Forster's last novel A Passage to India has been widely appreciated as his most brilliant, most successful, and most valuable work of art. It has received a high reputation as one of the greatest, but also "most puzzling, " (Allen, 934) modern masterpieces ever written. After its publication in 1924 "it was accorded instant recognition, as a fine novel and as a perceptive and sympathetic treatment of the problem of 'Anglo-India'" (White, 641). In the novel Forster examines racial tensions between the British colonizers and the Indian people at the time of the British Raj and also the philosophical question about the nature of human relationships in general. Despite its great acclaim, it has also been highly criticized and its release gave rise to a political controversy about British imperialism because it was perceived as a clear offensive against the British imperialists. Some literary critics doubt the novel's credibility since it allegedly depicts British officials behaving too cruelly and the relations between British and Indians as unrealistic (Macaulay, 188). Although most criticism focused on its political assumptions, and Forster himself intended to express his scepticism about British imperialism in India and its destroying impact on human personal relationships, it was not predominantly intended to be a political novel. However, "as a political novel it has had a notable success" (Rutherford, 2).
Forster's central purpose is the same as in his preceding novel Howard's End, he is concentrated on the issue of 'connection, ' as well as on the desire to overcome gaps of social and