LITERATURE IN THE MODERN WORLD

Block 4
End of Empire P. 1-55

Introduction
End of empire specifically refers to end of British Empire (1947)= independence to India 1940-41 North American support in war with Germany, the imperial world-political role was taken by USA. End of Empire dates from the post-1956 years when Britain could no longer act as if it were the centre of a worldwide empire. Britain as an imperial power had certainly influenced writers since the 1890s. This imperialism losing its roots was supported by writers like Forster, Kipling etc.

 Lit and Lang was strengthened to sustain Englishness. Rudyard Kiplings stories and poems expressed a passionate commitment to the imperial world- mission of Anglo-Saxondom. For Kipling, the exercise of lit would eventually bring the conquered, backward races towards a civilized adulthood. Forster believed that the true spirit of his country is represented not by the conquering imperialists but by poets and artists. By 1924, he became wholly an anti-imperialist. Auden saw in the industrial stagnation of the postDepression years that Englands imperial history was coming to an end.

 Lit texts always reflects events in society and lit is not separate from reality. Eg, Ulysses, Wasteland The British Empire was a worldwide phenomenon which was at the height of its power from around 1850. Its nature and the specific terms of social and cultural organizations varied from place to place. India was politically and economically at the heart of the British Empire, contributing huge amounts to both private and public purses from the early eighteenth century. The Indian Civil Service provided careers for the British middle class, and the Indian Army provided a force to police the empire. The Indian Empire in the period 1876 to 1947, mean not just the British Empire in India, but the empire of India itself, wholly subordinate to London but ruling the modern states of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma and Sri Lanka.

The nature of Empire

What kind of political, economic and cultural structures were characteristic of these empires? One state or nation controlled others Control operate at different levels in ways that are explored by Raymond Williams as follows: Imperialism, is defined primarily as a political system in which colonies are governed from an imperial centre, for economic and other reasons, and the subsequent grant of independence or self-government to these colonies is described ... as the end of imperialism.

 It is also understood primarily as an economic system of external investment and the penetration and control of markets and sources of raw materials. In 18 & 19 centuries, huge fortunes earned from cheap labour or cheap natural resources were transferred from Africa and Asia to support British aristocratic society, and control of the capital has remained in Britain. Even after independence, judiciary was controlled by British Empire for Africa. After 1st Indian war of Independence (1857) the British reasserted their control and suppressed rebellion. They controlled national and local governments Political revolution was suppressed by imposing lang, lit & education claiming it to be superior.

 Queen Victoria was proclaimed empress of India in 1876 with a Viceroy heading the govt machine. Education was a key vehicle for the transmission of culture British education and culture were imposed on India British education reforms symbolized by Thomas Arnold and the principles developed by Matthew Arnold were paralleled by developments in British Cultural Imperialism in India. William Archer (India and the Future) attacked Indian art and culture stating that the mass population are not civilized people and liberty for them is unthinkable. Sir John Woodroffe praised unique Indian culture and her urge towards the spiritual and the eternal constitute the unique value of Her civilization.

 Christian churches were built for the conqueror and the conquered. For Trevelyan, British education and English literature were morally and spiritually uplifting. It opened market for English books in India suppressing Indian books Empire Empire refers to a set of territories governed by an emperor and imperialism describes the attitudes of the rulers It is composed of states under the rule of the emperor who lives in imperial palace supported by a govt pursuing imperialist policies that are unchallenged. Imperialism is the process involved in it.

 Imperial ideology is bound up with notions of humanity, Indians drawn from their Asiatic darkness into Western enlightenment. (White mans burdenKipling) In A Passage to India British colonial administrators are caricatured in paternal and patriarchal terms. The phrase End of empire preserves an imperialist perspective, and from this perspective, colonies are not seen as economically overthrowing exploitative repressive imperial yoke-thus revealing weakness in the imperial power-but as becoming independent. (colonizing the mind) Independence is construed among enlightened imperialists as a sign of maturity in both the imperial parent and the colonial child.

Empire Triumphant
Tension b/w colonizer and colonized are resolved in Kiplings A Sahibs War. Equally imp is the rep of imperial supremacy in Kiplings poem The Whitemans burden (p.10) Throughout its history, British empire resonated with crises as with confidence and triumph eg. Sepoy revolt (1857) Imperialism is a complex system of ideologies of great importance in understanding British culture in 19th and early 20th c. Lit is intertwined with imperialism and its ideologies.

 A Passage to India (1924) is a text marked by imperialism It goes deeper into problems of Anglo-India, and offers clear and accurate picture of the conditions under which Indians and English live. The use of India as a setting reveals aspects of colonialism and imperialism. Cultural imperialism where the worlds of ruler and the ruled appears separate.

 This novel also fits into a modernist fiction with its publication in 1924. It incorporates features more associated with poetry, in precision and evocative power of its imagery and in deployment of explicit symbolism, both as carrier of novels deeper significance and one source of its deeper aesthetic unity. (hills and caves) Forster gives us a signal that he is presenting imperialism in crisis rather than at the height of its power and confidence.

 The geographical structure of settlements mimics divisions b/w races and separate worlds alien to each other. Forster uses peculiarity of speech to mark the Indians and they are fluent in the lang of their masters, able to make a world of their own. Aziz is the imp. chr and narrating voice provides more details on his chr. Forsters narrative is insistently proleptic, a mass of expectations of what might follow but refuses the way of analepsis anchoring of events by providing past.

 An attack on the prejudiced attitudes of the British is at the heart of the depiction of Women. Muslim occupation of India was characterized by the destruction of Hindu temples and the building of Mosques in their place. Forster is not a political novelist and this novel is identified with the group of Raj Novels. In Raj novels, the real political tensions of India are dissolved into stories of personal relationships and focused on British experiences and they appear to be the most significant events in the end of Empire. Key mood is nostalgia

 Woolf says that in Forsters novels he wanted to include a sense of burning core, the soul, reality, truth. Forsters critique of British imperialism is bound up with his critique of suburban values. There is a gender bias, both suburban and imperial men can achieve practical dignity through work whereas screeching women are beyond redemption. Through chrs, Forster presents a satirical picture of an attempt to bridge the racial divide by the British.

 Imperialism is presented from a European viewpoint and Indian voices are all Anglicized. In general terms, imperialism is marked by divisions b/w those who have power and those who are subordinate , and the division is based on race, groups and classes of people. Aziz is constructed as poised b/w two cultures, the official British world of hospital and the predominantly Muslim Indian world. It is a novel on colonial rule, and crucial differences between the natives of India and British are revealed

 The novel is a relationship between colonized and the colonizer, which discusses the modern problem of clash between cultures, and it is a discourse on the cultural differences between two nations. In A Passage to India, the story of Miss Adelas false accusation against the Indian doctor, Dr. Aziz, that he attempted to rape her on an expedition to the Marabar Caves, becomes symbolic of the distortions of understanding and misinterpretation that can occur between cultures. It is also symbolic of the injustice that inevitably occurs when one people holds power over another. A Passage to India is a discourse on the understandable existence of man, where it reveals the questions about mans existence, which is the feature of 20th century literature.

 Marabar Caves themselves are an important symbol, where their freezing regularity and hard to decipher echo that follows any sound made within them come to represent the nullity of human action, the meaninglessness of existence. As in all 20th century literature, the psychological effect of the colonization is clear in A Passage to India. The British people cannot come out of the psychological influence that they are a much exotic race than the Orientals, where as the natives are hostile to them.

 As a result, it ends up that, with the British and Indian given psychologies, the two nations cannot unite. Ms. Adela cannot stand the reality, and the real India and her illusions become symbolic of the psychological crisis. Ms. Moore undergoes a genuine emotional and psychological transformation as compared to other English men.

 The British army in India became mainly dependable on the Indian soldiers, which created a state of fear in the empire. To keep its control over India, England created an illusion of ruling partnership with the Indians to preserve law and order in the country. The Indians were deceived for many years by this illusion, which was actually an illusion of permanence created by the British. The British presence in India had begun in the 1600s, when a British trading company, the East India Company, gained a strong foothold in Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta. At this time, much of India was nominally governed by a royal Muslim dynasty, the Moguls, and it was the Mogul emperors and their court that Dr. Aziz, in the novel, idealized. However, the Mogul government was weakened by infighting and was unable to control all of India.

 Subtle and rich in symbolism, the novel works on several levels: On the surface, it is about India which at the time was a colonial possession of Britain and about the relations between British and Indian people in that country. It is also about the necessity of friendship, and about the difficulty of establishing friendship across cultural boundaries. Mrs. Moore is an Englishwoman who is a central figure in the book. She is the most sensitive and reflective of the English characters.

 An elderly widow, she is the mother of Ronny Heaslop, the Chandrapore city magistrate, by her first marriage. She also has another son, Ralph, and a daughter, Stella, by her second marriage. Mrs. Moore has recently arrived in India with Adela Quested, who is expected to marry Ronny. The Bridge party is symbolic of the superficial life of the British and the Indians. Forster says, Just as the heart of England is the middle classes, so the heart of the middle classes is the public-school system.

 Hypocrisy is an English characteristic, which Forster mentions in his novel The expedition to the caves is a display of Indian hospitality Individuals in all their separateness can form links and bonds with other individuals. To explore this issue, Forster has chosen the most hostile terrain in which barriers of race, gender and power are added to normal obstacles.

 Allen Stone speaks about the 3 part structure of the novel emphasizing certain qualities of mind and soul to- the Moslem belongs the emotional nature[Mosque], to the Anglo-Indian the intellect [caves], and to the Hindu the capacity for love [Temple] The caves represent some kind of transcendent amoral world. Forster presents the English male response to racial divisions not to restore unity but to intensify divisions The British constantly worked to increase Hindu and Muslim divisions and Muslim fundamentalism.

 At the end, we see that Forster represents something beyond a simply defined political situation through the friendship b/w individuals Aziz and Fielding which can exist after the Indians have driven every blasted Englishman into the sea The setting Forster creates for the image of unity is important.

Dr. Veena Vijaya E-mail: drveena@arabou.edu.sa

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