Forster as Fabulist: Proverbs and Parables in A Passage to India

245 Forster as Fabulist: Proverbs and Parables in A Passage to India By Robert Gish (University of Northern Iowa) Critics have not devoted much attention to E. M. Forster*s use of proverbs and parables In A Passage to India; in the light of the amount of commentary about the book, this Is rather surprising. Forster has been called "mythical" and "allegorical"; but in such considerations nothing is said of how proverbs and parables contribute to such an effect. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to show how proverbs and parables are used in A Passage to Indla ; that there is purpose and design in their use; that they are an integral part of the stylistic and technical fiber of the book; that, In short, they contribute much to understanding Förster as a fabulist . Santha Rama Rau quotes Forster*s program note for the dramatization of the novel. In the note Förster explained what was behind the title, Λ Passage to India: "Taking my title from a poem of Walt Whitman 's - I tried to Indicate the human predicament in a universe which Is not, so far, comprehensible to our minds."1 Whitman sought to "Eelaircise the myths Asiatic, the primitive fables." And Forster·s book, though it does not really "eelaircise" or explain "the myths Asiatic, the primitive fables," is about people who confront them but not with the singing verve of Whitman: The earth to be spann*d, connected by network. The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage. The oceans to be cross'd, the distant brought near. The lands to be welded together.2 That Forster·s own story - fable. If you will - is about the successful building of bridges between people, between cultures, is doubtful . Santha Rama Rau says of Forster: Mr. Forster summed up the purpose of literature - and indeed the solution, in a way, of 'the human predicament · In two words: 'Only connect.· Easier said than done, of course, but "the brilliance of Mr. Forster's novels lies to a large extent in the giant step they take towards Just such 'connecting.· ... In short, he Is always building the connecting bridge between human beings.3 How to do it and why It is so difficult are his considerations. Forster does not offer homilies, proverbs, parables - catch phrases and nice little moral stories - as means of attaining Whitman's ideal of "lands welded together." His style Is homiletlc and his characters and even his narrator speak "proverbially"; but his narrator is often ironic and the characters whom he treats relatively more sympathetically realize the limits of language, the Inanity of sayings per se. Whitman himself spoke of enigmas, problems and 246 dangers: Passage to you, your shores, ye aged fierce enigmas! Passage to you, to mastership of you, ye strangling problems! You, strew'd with the wrecks of skeletons, that, living, never reach'd you. Sail forth - steer for the deep waters only. Reckless 0 soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me. For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go. And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all (pp. 346-47). In his novel about the passage of souls to "fierce enigmas" and "strangling problems," to "myths Asiatic" and "fables of eld," Forster composes a new fable, becomes a fabulist. Frederick P. W. McDowell agrees with recent Forster critics like George H. Thomson who see Λ Passage to India as an allegorical and archetypal work. Thomson calls Passage a romance In that Forster "does not hesitate to Judge. . . [his characters] according to the black and white standards of romance."4 McDowell says: That Forster is a realist, comic writer and philosopher In fiction, there can be no doubt; the very body of the criticism exploring these facets of Forster's mind and art testify to the fact that he is a novelist in the commonly accepted sense of that term. But he Is more than a realistic and comic novelist, and in that more lies the difference between him and his Edwardian contemporaries . . . . Forster did overlay his comic and realistic art with symbols as well as with the allegorical conventions that attach to...