A Passage To India: Scene/Character/Theme Summaries Flashcards
(39 cards)
How many scenes are there?
15
What happens in scene 1? (Landing in Bombay, cast and class in the British Empire)
. Credit with orchestral music and warm-tone erotic Indian painting
. The journey “out” to India - Adela purchases steamer tickets and is envied for the “new horizons” and “first time in India”.
. Marabar caves are seen in a picture, along with the well-known icons of Indian landscape, the Tah Mahal and the Himalayas. Outside in London, it is raining and dark, nothing to see by dark umbrellas.
. Landing in Bombay - camera angles (both low and high) emphasise the signifiers of empire. Lean depicts a clear contrast between the Indians and the British.
. Caste and class in the British empire - Mrs Turton welcomes Mrs Moore and Miss Quested “to the fold”. Ronny and Adela are suitably matched in terms of the English class system.
. Some high-caste Indians are sufficiently acceptable to the British to be in the welcoming party, by the message for new arrivals is “we don’t come across them socially - East is east (and west is west)”.
. Mrs Moore and Miss Quested clearly don’t like the Turtons. As Adela ponders the disturbing idea that Ronny “has become a proper sahib”, the train thumps across a bridge over a moonlit stretch of water, throbbing as if prefiguring her psycho-sexual journey in the Indian landscape.
What signifies the empire?
K
Examples of juxtaposing seen in the movie.
There are impressively large stone arches and hotels, soldiers and military bands immaculately dressed and marching with ordered precision. These are contrasted with the “muddle” of India (huge crowds of noisy, disordered, colourful lower-caste Indians out under an extremely hot sun).
Who is Mrs Turton?
Wife of Chief Collector who welcome Mrs Moore and Miss Quested “to the fold”
What happens in scene 2? (Miss Quested and Mrs Moore take a train to Chandrapore)
. Miss Quested and Mrs Moore take a train to Chandrapore - tension between Indians and Britons is shown when “the great man” has his carriage knock Dr Aziz and friend off their bicycles into the dust.
. Quested wants to see “the real India”, she tours the court (where Heaslop is Magistrate), church (Mrs Moore looks at gravestones -looks at her future), hospital, war memorial and club, but her sigh over cucumber sandwiches tells us that she feels confined by that colonial lifestyle.
. Mrs Moore appears to enjoy the noise, colour and smells on their drive from railway station to her son’s bungalow Fairholme, but she is more pragmatic and accepting of their situation than her putative daughter-in-law: “life rarely gives us what we want at the moment we consider appropriate. Adventures do occur, but no punctually.”
. Quested, as she sits on her bed at day’s end, has a slight smile signifying the hopes Heaslop will open her bedroom door - but he merely calls out “Good dear”. This scene suggests she has only a subliminal awareness of her own sexual desires.
What happens in scene 3? (Mosque, “bridge party”)
. Mosque - Dr Axis has a humble dwellings is Cambridge-educated and dressed in British style. His two Muslim lawyer friends, Hamidullah and Mahmoud Ali, represent different Indian views of the British (Mahmoud Ali bring the more politically strident of the two).
. Dr Aziz, a man of good characters beats the insults of Major Callendar and two selfish English women with resigned acceptance. His meeting with Mrs Moore is a heavily significant moment preceded by camera suits of the moon, stars, leaves rustling and sounds of crickets, dogs eerie music, all of which creates a dream-like mood.
. Water and moon, darkness and light clothing, signify a sort of religious-mystical moment: “God is here”. Aziz compliments her sentiment and adds protective warning that there are “bad characters, lepers, snakes” about and “leopards may come from the Marabar hills”.
. “What a terrible, what a wonderful river” observes Mrs Moore of the Ganges, where “crocodiles float by from Benares.” She tells Quested later “I had a small adventure and saw the moon.”
. “Bridge party” - at the garden party put on by the Turtons, a sense of polite formality and mutual antipathy between British and Indian (“they hate it as much as we do”) is conveyed by dialogue, setting and costume as well as ironic touches like the band playing playing “Tea for Two”.
. Heaslop states “we’re out here to do justice and keep the peace”, Mrs Moore thinks the party is “an unnatural affair” and adds “this is about power and personal superiority - God has put us on this war to love and help our fellow man.”
. The old Hindu professor, Godbole, comes with another set of religious concepts: reincarnation and destiny. Quested meets Richard Fielding.
What happens in scene 4? (Tea together)
. A Muslim (Aziz), Hindu (Godbole) and Christian (Adela) take tea together at Fielding’s house - Aziz arrives early at Fielding’s Bungalow and is invited to “make yourself at home”, which kegs us know that Fielding is completely different in attitude from the other long-term British residents.
. Aziz admires him and the signifiers of his Englishness, his books, cricket bat, war pictures and humming of a Gilbert and Sullivan tune.
. Aziz tells Fielding of his own ancestors, coming “over the mountains from Persia and Afghanistan”; Mrs Moore says she likes “mysteries” by not “muddles”, Godbole says India is a muddle, while Fielding watches what the old vegetarian will eat.
. Aziz said he though Mrs Moore was a “ghost” and Godbole suggests that she is an “old soul”, that is, a re-incarnation. The caves are discussed and Aziz, panicked about inviting the ladies to his house, proposes the expedition.
. Heaslop arrives, furious at racial and religious intermixing and at the sight of his fiancé’s bare white legs in the water. Unlike him, the viewer is positioned to see the pool as healing waters site of genuinely relaxed mixed gathering.
What happens in scene 5 (part 1)? (Polo ground, temple)
. Polo ground - Heaslop drives Quested and his mother away from the refreshing mystical calm of Fielding’s pool, and takes them to an aggressive game of polo. A player falls of his horse as Quested says “I’ve finally decided we’re not going to be married.”
. Strong, portentous winds blow into the rooms of Indians (at Hamidullah’s house where he, Aziz and Mahmoud Ali plan the outing) and English (at Heaslop’s bungalow where Mrs Moore says over dinner “sometimes I think too much fuss is made of marriage. Century after century if carnal embracement and we’re still not near understanding one another!).
. Temple - when Adela rides her bicycle, alone, into a wild and overgrown place and comes upon ruins of an abandoned Hindu temple, the music reveals her psycho-sexual response to the ancient erotic sculptures.
What happens in scene 5 (part 2)? (More temple, return to Heaslop, at the club)
. The music conveyors an ambivalent attitude to the temple figures; it seems to both celebrate the joyful sexuality of the stone figures but also to warn of the to trouble that will come
. A low flute (maybe clarinet) suggests something mystical; guitar, voice and urgently increasing tempo suggest sexual excitement; the screaming monkeys cause Adela to flee. Timeless erotic stone people seem to watch without any tumultuous human emotions that are afflicting her.
. Returned to Heaslop, she wants to marry him after all “I’m such a fool, I want to take back what I said at the polo.” To Mrs Turton she admits being disturbed by her “bothers”, and in her mosquito netted bed that night she is stirred sexually by memory of the ancient erotic sculptures - the soundtrack music tells us this.
. At the club, Mrs Moore appears to be unaffected by all the emotions, even by India itself. Her insight “India forces one to come face to face with oneself. It can be rather disturbing” is followed with a comment about how “cold (it is) in England.”
. The East and “oriental” way of seeing the world, is changing her. At the church, she reads gravestones while people congratulate her son and Adela on their engagement.
What happens in scene 6? (Dr Aziz’s house)
. At Dr Aziz’s house - Dr Lal pronounces Aziz to have a “slight fever”. Aziz is embarrassed by Haq’s obsequiousness and Mahmoud Ali’s political question “how is England justified in holding India?”
. The film constructs Aziz as emotional (Fielding gently exposes his “shamming”) and sentimental (“you are the first Englishman she has ever come before”; “I showed her to you; I have nothing else to show”), while Fielding is more matter-of-fact (“the lady I liked wouldn’t marry me”) yet both seem sincere in their intention to be friends.
. However my we see Aziz’s painfully paradoxical dilemma: he admires the English, but he wants to be equal rather than subservient. Mahmoud Ali gives voice to the Indian resistance: British out! Jobs for Indians!
. When Fielding leaves the house the sun is fiercely beating down on hi,m- suggesting that his cross-cultural actions are hard work and that he finds Aziz’s house physically too hot, just as metaphorically it is politically “too hot, for the British in India.
What happens in scene 7? (Train to the caves, in the caves)
. Train to the caves - Aziz feels his expedition is ruined when Fielding fails to be punctual. “Godbole’s prayers” are responsible because “an Englishman never misses a train.”
. Mrs Moore is sanguine (“we’ll be Muslims together”), Godbole rather mystical (“Tuesday is … inauspicious) and Fielding impatient with all nonsense.
. As the train chugs over an enormous chasm, the rhythmic thumping sound again foreshadows Quested’s impending emotional experience. Long shots show us the imposing landscapes through which they travel.
. Camera looks up at Aziz atop the coloured elephant dreaming that he is a “Mogul emperor” or “riding into battle behind Alamgir”. But u,tires are flying overhead, and Mrs Moore, although appreciating everything being “well arranged”, is closer to the mark when she says the place is “horrid” and “stuffy”; the expedition is about to be a disaster.
. Inside the cave, black faces and darkness surround and overwhelm an apprehensive Mrs Moore; when the exuberant echo booms around them, her distress reaches a climax and she leaves. Quested moves closer to Aziz.
What happens in scene 8? (Walking to more caves)
. The landscape around the same mouths of the caves consists if bare grey-brown rocks. Outside and seated at the chairs and tables that Aziz had brought up, along with port that the English women didn’t really want, Mrs Moore wears sunglasses against the midday sun.
. She remarks “Godbole didn’t mention the echo”, and then, apparently abandoning her own Christian religion, “I suppose, like many old people, I sometimes think we are merely passing figures in a Godless universe. Get some water”.
. Aziz and Quested set off to climb higher, seeing everything down below as a”mirage”. She asks whether he loved his wife; his enigmatic reply “we were a man and a woman and we were young” is constructed as sexual by the music, that same music that accompanied Adela’s discovery of the ancient erotic temple sculptures.
. Their joined hands are shown in close-up slow motion, emphasising a moment of friendship across the racial divide.
What happens in scene 9? (In the next cave - Adela runs away)
. In the cave - the match light inside the dark cave, silhouette of Aziz’s body against the glaring sun, the echo, Quested’s tears, water overflowing and stones rolling - all these image suggest emotional and spiritual forces gathering to a peak, followed by release.
. Adela races downhill amongst cacti, Aziz calls out “Miss Quested!” in vain and is aggressive towards his low-caste guide; Mrs Moore asks “what happens?” as if she already instinctively knows.
What happens in scene 10 (part 1)? (Arrest and unrest, Adela revivers at the Calendars’)
. Arrest and unrest - in the police station Hamidullah tells Fielding he “wants bail” but is worried McBryde might be prejudiced by his asking for it, and Fielding tells him “nonsense, this is no way to be thinking. Aziz is innocent.”
. Fielding is confident that sense and justice will prevail. However, yet another chaotic religious festival flows around them, and Indian resentment is palpably dangerous: “the situation is going to become very nasty in the next few weeks”.
. McBryde re-iterates the “East is East” principle: “I’ve never known anything but disaster result when English and Indians attempt to be intimate.”
. The famous British-educated barrister Amritrao agrees to come from Calcutta to defend Aziz, for free. He is know to be anti-British.
. Quested receivers at the Callendars’, but still with the echo in her head. Mrs Moore reflecting Godbole’s philosophy of destiny, remarks “she has stated the machinery; it will work to its end.”
What happens in scene 10 (part 2)? (Godbole’s indifference, Mrs Moore prepares to leave)
. Fielding is shocked at Godbole’s indifference when he announces that he is off tc start a school; their conversation highlights Godbole’s religious philosophy about destiny and karma. (“It is of no consequence if I dare or do not care, the outcome is already decided … My philosophy is you can do what you like, but the outcome will be the same”).
. The British characters meet, aligning with Heaslop (“one can’t run with the hare and hunt with the hounds”) but shunning Fielding, who in turn shuns them by insisting on Aziz’s innocence and relishing from the Club.
. Mrs Moore prepares to “get away from all the muddle and fuss, into some cave of my own …”, adding another swipe at marriage for Heaslop’s benefit: “All this rubbish about love … Love in a church, love in a cave, as if there were the least difference.”
. As he train leaves Chandrapore, Godbole is seen paying homage in a classic Eastern pose, softly backlit. Contrasting key imperious is the low-angle shot of a stone Queen Victoria in the next scene.
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What happens in scene 11? (The court)
The court - Indian crowds demonstrate in support of Aziz and against the British. Demonstrative Indians are seen outside, while two types of Britons are seen inside the car: Adela weeping and frightened; the Turtons stoney-faced, arrogant and referring to Amritrao as “up to his usual tricks” and “playing to the Indian gallery”.
. Similarly in the courtroom, Indians are confined to upstairs and are noisy, while the British sit downstairs are generally emotionally contained - except for Fielding who is friendly as Aziz waves, and Quested, who makes sincere direct eye-contact with Aziz and shows intense, though contained, emotion throughout.
. British justice, also on trial in this courtroom along with Aziz, is shown to be fair and equitable: Heaslop has stepped aside and put in an Indian Magistrate (Das), to home he refers as “a good man”, on the bench.
. We are positioned to sympathise with Amritrao as he mocks McBryde (“the darker races are attracted to the fairer, but not vice versa” - “even when the lady is less attractive?”). Viewers are positioned to accept this mockery from the Indian barrister but also to be sympathetic to the British Quested.
. McBryde, in euphemistic language, accuses Aziz of having planned to rape Quested from the time of the tea party at Fielding’s place.
What happens in scene 12? (Mrs Moore dies, court continues)
. Mrs Moore dies at sea, God-like and inspirational, with her eyes on the stars and the moon.
. In the court, Mahmoud Ali claims Heaslop has smuggled Mrs Moore out of the country “because she was in out side”, tells Magistrate Das “we are both slaves” and starts the chant “we want Missus Moore”.
. Quested’s respond to the chanting is “isn’t is strange, rather wonderful”, by Amritrao, respecting an ordered English courtroom, apologises for Mahmoud Ali’s outburst.
. Cut to scene of Mrs Moore being buried at seas according to Christian burial rites “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.”
What happens in scene 13? (Quested is sworn in)
. Quested walks in eerie slow motion to the stand; soundtrack is thin, eerie woodwind instruments and thunders creating a sense of gathering tension and referring us back to erotic deities in the abandoned temple.
. She takes oath on the Bible’s cross, swears to reveal the truth and proceeds to do so. As she “casts her mind back”, the scene of two different-coloured hands replays, and the thoroughly-honest-Englishwoman says: “I think it may have been partly my fault. I asked Dr Aziz if he loved his wife. I shouldn’t have done that. Mr Heaslop and I had just become engaged … I realised I didn’t love him.”
. She describes what happened in the cave, with intercut re-plays from Scene 8 until she gets to “No … I’ve made a mistake … Dr Aziz never followed me into the cave.” When she says “I withdraw everything,” McBryde wants to characterise her as “mad” but the skies affirm her “no” by sending cleansing, refreshing rain.
deity ties in the ago dined temples
What happens in scene 14 (part 1)? (Courts aftermath)
. Another “madness” is in the crowd outside the court. Fielding knows that “this could turn into a riot” as Indian demonstrate against British rule and chant “Aziz, Aziz” while carrying him in triumph.
. Quested is mistaken for Mrs Moore by the crowd, and has lost her echo. Aziz calls Fielding by his first name, wears Indian clothes and says “I am an Indian at last”. Quested and Fielding converse - she seems to be still trying to figure out what happened, whereas he thinks she had a hallucination; ever the realist, he also doesn’t believe in life after, but Quested seems undecided.
. Godbole outs the case for destiny: “who could have foretold that Aziz would be saved by his enemy? What now Mr Fielding?” and informs Fielding that “Amritrao is asking 20,000 rupees damages … and costs.”
What happens in scene 14 (part 2)? (At Aziz’s house)
At Aziz’s house, Fielding admires Quested’s courage: “she had the entire British Raj behind her … But when she saw she was wrong, she stopped and sent the whole thing to smithereens.” But Aziz is angry, especially when Fielding says “it’ll ruin her”.
. Aziz replies “what about me?”, lists all the indignities the British have heaped upon him and adds that “the English will say here is an Indian who almost behaved like a gentleman. But for the colour of his faces we might even let him join the club … You English always stick together.”
. Aziz sends his own insult to his enemy: “tell her to keep the money’s us it to buy herself a husband” and announces he will go to an Indian state away from British India.
. Tension between the two men is palpable, a kind of love: “are you coming over with me?” Aziz cries, Fielding is in the rain, water is rushing everywhere. Water, in this scene, signifies their mutual sense of sadness and loss.
. Much late, in Srinagar, we learn: that Godbole knows Fielding is coming to visit but hasn’t told Aziz because “one cannot tell someone when someone is not ready”; that Aziz tore up Fielding’s letters “sent … from Bombay and London”; and that Aziz thinks Fielding married Quested.
What happens in scene 15?
.Mount Everest and the Himalayas, king of all landscapes, is accompanied in this scene by triumphant music: strings and brass, climactic chords and cadences. Fielding and Mrs Moore’s daughter Stella have come to visit Aziz in Kashmir via the famous majestic mountains.
. As if to underline India as a land of extremes, Srinagar is in fact a place with serene water-scales; the two children paddling a boat creat an idyllic introduction to Dr Aziz’s surgery.
. Aziz finds that Fielding has not “married my enemy!” But in fact the daughter of his friend, or rather the daughter of Mrs Moore who had appeared God-like to the Indian characters in scene 12.
. Fireworks and lights, the festival of Diwali, “and Stella believes the evil of the Marabar has been wiped out, so do I”. “Please forgive me - because of you I am here”: Aziz gains redemption through Richard and Stella. She wears an unconventional hat, to remind us of Mrs Moore’s unconventional husband.
. Final shot of Quested standing behind a rain-soaked English window leaves the viewer with a sense that something is unresolved, unfinished. Is it the political story, of India gaining independence? Or is perhaps the questions of what really happened in the cave?
What are the different landscapes depicted in A Passage to India?
. The natural/physical landscape
. The imagined political landscape
. The imagined social/cultural landscape
. The religious and spiritual landscape
. How landscapes change and the effects on individuals
. Subjectivity and perceptions of the landscape
. The profound connection between humans and the landscape
. Landscape of the mind - the inner psychological response to the landscape
.
Explain the following landscape: the natural/physical landscape
. The opening scene reminds us that humans are innovative. The human imagination is able to design machinery such as ships and trains. The Suez Canal and the P&O Shipping Company are symbolic of engineering.
. The fierce sun in the vastness of the Indian sky.
. The landscape that resists transformation - the ruined temple and twisting vines.
. The heat and dust if India.
. The Marabar caves.
. The sacred River Ganges.
. The manicured lawns at the Club and the British street signs are evidence of an imposed landscape.
. The struct courtroom.
. The uncomfortable bridge party.
. More …
