Introduction:
Forster is a distinguished novelist both in modern English and world literature history. After the author's two visits to India, the great novel A Passage to India (1924) was produced; it is a novel by E. M. Forster set against the backdrop of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s. In a word, it is a novel of cultural, social, psychological, and religious conflict arising mainly from clashes between India's native population and British imperialist occupiers. Altogether there are certain parts in this article highlighting on the author's philosophy, the imperialism, racialism and colonization in A Passage to India from the perspective of symbolism.
The Use of Symbolism in A Passage to India:
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts. E.M. Forster's A Passage to India is painted with the colour of a wide range of symbols. They include- 1. The Marabar Caves a. The Reverberation of the Cave b. The Echo Representing a Hindu Resonance 2. The Image of the Green Bird 3. The Wasp Symbol 4. Social Events: Parties, Picnics, and Celebrations 5. Mosque, Cave, Temple, and Weather 6. Nothing as a Metaphor 7. The Infinite Sky 8. The Pankhawallah Image 9. The Snake Imagery 10. The Collision of the Boats 11. Other Insignificant Images
1. The Marabar Caves:
The imaginary caves in A Passage to India are modelled by E. M. Forster on actual caves about twelve miles from the city of Gaya in the state of Bihar. Nevertheless, the actual caves are known as the Barabar Caves, not the Marabar Caves (Forster's fictional name for them. There are four Barabar caves. Their even inner walls maintain expanded echoes.
Forster's A Passage to India is intense with the type of symbolic language that we generally connect with poetry in spite of the deep political themes of