Infancy Colonialism and Post-Colonial (Thwarted)

Infancy

Colonialism and Post-Colonial (Thwarted) Relationships

Are you married Dr. Aziz?" With this innocent question, a tragedy is instigated in a Passage to India. Novelist E.M. Forster shows how the naive and virginal heroine Adele projects her sexual insecurities upon the persona of a fellow human being she sees as alien to her own culture. This Englishwoman, rather than seeing Dr. Aziz for who he truly is, an educated but rather prudish and fastidious man, given the inner monologue the reader has been privy to for most of the book, can only see him as an "Oriental." Looking at Aziz, Adel thinks: "What a handsome little Oriental he was...she guessed he might attract women of his own race and rank, and she regretted that neither she nor Ronny had physical charm. It does make a difference in a relationship -- beauty, thick hair, a fine skin. Probably this man had several wives -- Mohammedans always insist on their full four, according to Mrs. Turon" (Forster 169). Because Adele can only think in Mrs. Turon's colonial discourse of us/them she sees 'the other' as inherently more sexualized than whites. She perceives Aziz's mere presence as a kind of sexual overture. "Have you one wife or more than one?" she asks with prurient curiosity (Forster 169). This shocks him, almost as if she has made a deliberately sexual overture to mention such a subject. But Adele's verbal 'rape' or social transgression, in her confused and half-sexually awakened mind becomes inverted after leaving the caves. She assumes that Aziz must have taken advantage of her, because in her mindset and the mindset of her society, Englishwomen cannot have such desires for 'Orientals.'

In such a discourse, Forster suggests, true communication and real relationships are impossible, even though the English and the Indians try to create a kind of truce, as when Aziz offers to lead the English around the sacred places of his land and faith. But because the English do not see the humanity of the colonized, only stereotypes, no real communication is possible, and people like Adele see only their fears in the face of Indians. Forster does believe that people who truly engage in dialogue from different cultures can reach an understanding, like Mrs. Moore and Aziz do earlier in the book, but this is rare and impossible when one land tyrannizes another with its political power and ideology.

Forster's novel calls into question not simply British colonization in India, but also the ways that colonialism has been represented throughout British literature. For example, in Shakespeare's "The Tempest" it is taken for granted that Caliban, the inhabitant of the island before Prospero is savage, ugly, overly sexualized, and tries to rape Prospero's daughter Miranda. In the caves of this play Prospero says: "I... lodged thee/in mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate/the honor of my child" (I.2). Caliban is shown from the perspective of the colonizing Prospero, gleefully gloating: "Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else/This isle with Calibans" (I.2).

Shakespeare, in other words, tells the story of the island from Adele's point-of-view -- that it was necessary that the island be taken away from the evil sea-hag ruler, that the good natives like Ariel are happy servants who regard themselves as liberated through service, and the bad natives resent their captivity. Forster's novel shows that the colonial relationships are highly subjective and contextual, and the colonial power does not have real cultural access to the feelings and the meanings of the culture they are impinging upon. They may militarily dominate the culture, but they do not speak the language of the culture's beliefs. Adele assumes that Aziz desires her because she desires him and because 'Orientals' are highly sexualized, even though Aziz actually pities her before the events of the cave, noting "she has practically no breasts" (Forster 130).

The narrow view of Shakespeare's famous play of colonization is explicitly questioned in Elizabeth Nunez's novel Prospero's Daughter. There, the mad scientist

Dr. Gardner takes over the native orphan boy Carlos' land and falsely accuses him, as the boy comes of age and can lay claim to his property, of raping Gardner's daughter Virginia. Gardener uses this as justification for his taking possession of everything Carlos owns. He even uproots the life-giving native fruit trees crops because they take away from the beauty of his transplanted soil and grass. Eventually, the Carlos and Virginia fall in love, overcoming the boundaries of nationality and the 'us vs. them' discourse to establish a loving relationship.