E.M. Forester

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E.M. Forester

• David Pierce

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Thesis

• E.M. Foresters well-plotted novels draw
  attention because of his attachment to mysticism
  and his secular humanist beliefs.

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Early Years

• Forester was born January 1, 1879 in London.
• He was an only child.
• His father was an architect and died when
  Forester was only a year old.

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Continued

• Most of his boyhood was dominated by women.
• He later inherited 8,000 in trust as a young boy
  from his great aunt in 1887.
• This made it possible for him to live on and
  become a writer.
• Foresters childhood was the happiest time of his
  life.

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Travel

• After leaving the university he traveled with his
  mother.
• They traveled through Italy for a year then a
  cruise to Greece following.
• Forester also visited Egypt, Germany, and India.
  
• During these travels he gathered the material
  that he needed for his early novels.

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Continued

• He began to satirize the attitudes of English
  tourists. This is shown in A Passage to India.
• When returning from travel he began to write a
  new independent review that was launched in 1903
  by a group of Cambridge friends. In 1904 he
  published his first short story, The Story of a
  Panic.

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Published Novels

• These novels had great success and made Forester
  a well known author.
• Where Angels Fear to Tread 1905
• The Longest Journey 1907
• A Room with a View 1908
• Howards End 1910
• A Passage to India 1924

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A Passage to India

• Published in 1924
• This was his last novel
• and the most famous
• of his work.

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The title

• Forster took the title from Walt Whitman's poem
  "Passage to India", 1870. The Suez Canal,
  creating a passage to India, was completed in
  1869. "While "Passage to India" is very much
  about the anticipatory joy of a global union
  fulfilling the destiny first sought by
  Christopher Columbus, it is also about the voyage
  of the soul or spirit and the resultant discovery
  that lies beyond India, the cradle of
  civilization, the motherland of America. In fact
  it is India, as the ultimate goal of Columbus's
  voyage, that represents all great human
  undertaking and, at the same time, the distinct
  wonder of America, for when Columbus arrived in
  America, he thought he was in India," from An
  Analysis of Asian Influences in "Passage to
  India" by Matthew Whitman Lazenby.

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Background of the Novel (I)

• The colonial occupation of India is significant
  in terms of the background of the novel. Britain
  occupied an important place in political affairs
  in India since 1760, but did not secure control
  over India for nearly a century. In August of
  1858, during a period of violent revolt against
  Britain by the Indians, the British Parliament
  passed the Government of India Act, transferring
  political power from the East India Company to
  the crown.

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Background of the Novel (II)

• This established the bureaucratic colonial system
  in India headed by a Council of India consisting
  initially of fifteen Britons. Although Parliament
  and Queen Victoria maintained support for local
  princes, Victoria added the title Empress of
  India to her regality. The typical attitude of
  Britons in India was that they were undertaking
  the "white man's burden," as put by Rudyard
  Kipling. This was a system of aloof,
  condescending sovereignty in which the English
  bureaucracy did not associate with the persons
  they ruled, and finds its expression in
  characters such as Ronny Heaslop and Mr. McBryde
  in A Passage to India.

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Background of the Novel (III)

• Indian nationalism began to foment around 1885
  with the first meeting of the Indian National
  Congress, and nationalism found expression in the
  Muslim community as well around the beginning of
  the twentieth century. Reforms in India's
  political system occurred with the victory of the
  Liberal Party in 1906, culminating in the Indian
  Councils Act of 1909, but nationalism continued
  to rise.

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Background of the Novel (V)

• More than twenty years later, after a long
  struggle, Parliament passed the Indian
  Independence Act in 1947, ordering the separation
  of India and Pakistan and granting both nations
  their sovereignty.

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Conclusion

• Many people know of E.M. Forester through his
  many film adaptations made from his work.
• Forester had concrete ideas, irrational thoughts,
  and believed in a philosophy that upholds reason
  and ethics.

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Any Questions?