Quote 1
In
every remark [Aziz] found a meaning, but not always the true meaning,
and his life though vivid was largely a dream.
This quotation occurs in Chapter VII
during Aziz and Fielding’s first meeting at Fielding’s house, just
before the tea party. Fielding has just made a brief comment in
which he meant that the post-impressionist school of painting, to
which Aziz has just made joking reference, is obscure and silly.
Aziz, however, takes Fielding’s comment to mean that it is silly
for Aziz to have Western cultural knowledge. Aziz’s embarrassment
and discontent does not last long in this instance, but the incident
foreshadows the misunderstandings that eventually break down the
men’s friendship.
Aziz’s capacity for imagination and intuition leads him
to genuine and deep friendships with Mrs. Moore and Fielding. However, Forster
also shows that Aziz’s intuition, which lacks grounding in fact,
can lead him astray. In the aftermath of his trial, Aziz’s false hunch
that Fielding is courting Adela Quested leads to the breakdown of
the men’s relationship. In the above quotation, an early case of
this false intuition, we see that Forster lays the blame for the breakdown
on Aziz. Forster does not fault the difficulties of cross-cultural
interaction, but rather Aziz’s overactive imagination.
This flaw in Aziz’s character, in a sense, also stands
for a flaw of India itself. Forster presents Aziz’s attitudes toward
others as unfounded in reality. Cut off from a logical cause, Aziz’s
responses damage relationships rather than build them. This cut-off
quality is later mirrored in the very landscape of India: the land
around the Marabar Caves, described in Chapter XIV, appears “cut
off at its root” and “infected with illusion.” Forster presents
India and Aziz as somewhat threatening to the logical and reasonable
apprehension and reaction to reality that the author sees as epitomized
by Western order.
This type of narrative comment that diagnoses Aziz’s character
is characteristic of Forster’s writing. The author is concerned
with presenting actions and dialogue, but he also seeks to draw
comparisons and distinctions, to categorize and characterize. Indeed,
Forster tells and comments as much as he shows. Still, not all of
Forster’s narrative diagnoses can be taken as absolute truth that
stands throughout the novel. Though Forster depicts Aziz’s imaginativeness
as a handicap here, in other scenes we see that Forster values it.
