Passage to India
Meaning and Muddle in the Marabar Caves: A Look at E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India
In E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India, the Marabar Caves occupy an important part of the plot. The purpose of this deserves exploration considering Forster entitles the entire second part of his novel to them. Are these caves symbolic of an exploration into one’s own subconscious? Could they be a physical representation of freedom from societal constraint? Perhaps they are meant to embody the enigma that India and the East present to the West? An exploration of these possibilities hopefully shall reveal which meaning, if not all of them, Forster intended the Marabar Caves to possess.
On a metaphysical level, the Caves can be seen as a representation of the subconscious. By entering the caves one penetrates the dark, cavernous realm of one’s own psyche. Several characters experience a revelation within their walls. Mrs. Moore’s revelation is that of immense hopelessness. Her experience in the cave creates a sense of chaos and the sense that despite what is said or known in the world, it is all essentially meaningless. The echo she hears reinforces this revelation to her. The scary resounding “boum” reduces every individual sound or voice to a continuous and indistinct noise (Forster 163). She meditates that the sound, “had managed to murmur 'Pathos, piety, courage-they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value. ' If one had spoken vileness in that place, or quoted lofty poetry, the comment would have been the same- 'ou-boum '” (165). It is here she realizes the whole of human history has sounded just like this and that her existence makes no impression upon it at all. That no matter what is done and said it is all in the end meaningless. For her, the caves symbolize the antiquity of existence and she has been reduced to being another nonsensical blurb in the annals of time. When she emerges from the cave, Adela asks Mrs. Moore if she saw
In E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India, the Marabar Caves occupy an important part of the plot. The purpose of this deserves exploration considering Forster entitles the entire second part of his novel to them. Are these caves symbolic of an exploration into one’s own subconscious? Could they be a physical representation of freedom from societal constraint? Perhaps they are meant to embody the enigma that India and the East present to the West? An exploration of these possibilities hopefully shall reveal which meaning, if not all of them, Forster intended the Marabar Caves to possess.
On a metaphysical level, the Caves can be seen as a representation of the subconscious. By entering the caves one penetrates the dark, cavernous realm of one’s own psyche. Several characters experience a revelation within their walls. Mrs. Moore’s revelation is that of immense hopelessness. Her experience in the cave creates a sense of chaos and the sense that despite what is said or known in the world, it is all essentially meaningless. The echo she hears reinforces this revelation to her. The scary resounding “boum” reduces every individual sound or voice to a continuous and indistinct noise (Forster 163). She meditates that the sound, “had managed to murmur 'Pathos, piety, courage-they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value. ' If one had spoken vileness in that place, or quoted lofty poetry, the comment would have been the same- 'ou-boum '” (165). It is here she realizes the whole of human history has sounded just like this and that her existence makes no impression upon it at all. That no matter what is done and said it is all in the end meaningless. For her, the caves symbolize the antiquity of existence and she has been reduced to being another nonsensical blurb in the annals of time. When she emerges from the cave, Adela asks Mrs. Moore if she saw
Cited: Forster, E.M. A Passage to India. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company: 1984. Macaulay, Rose. The Writings of E. M. Forster. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1938. Monk, Leland. "Apropos of Nothing: Chance and Narrative in Forster 's 'A Passage to India." Studies in the Novel 26.4 (1994): 392+. Questia. 29 Apr. 2009 <http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5000287353>. Walls, Elizabeth Macleod. "An Aristotelian Reading of the Feminine Voice-as-Revolution in E. M. Forster 's A Passage to India." Papers on Language & Literature 35.1 (1999): 56. Questia. 29 Apr. 2009 <http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5001236740>.