-
Essay / The use of language to create sympathy in Howard's End and a passage to India
'He heard the will in his wife's voice and was lost. His language was unintelligible to him” (DH Lawrence). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned"? Get an original essay In the novels Howards End and A Passage to India, EM Forster evokes the social origins and priorities of his characters through the difference of their language, and the difficulties they have in communicating with each other. The marriage of Margaret and Henry at Howards End seems to reconcile two worlds by uniting the moral and cultured Schlegals, primarily concerned with ideas and words, with the dynamic and bullying Wilcoxes and their "outer life" of "telegrams and anger" ( (this description by Margaret in chapter 4 reduces them to modern brutality but also admits their superior capacity to act "outwardly.") The differences between husband and wife, however, are still present in their conversations, as Forster shows in their disagreement over Helen in chapter 34. Forster expresses Margaret's realization that something was mentally wrong with Helen as a revelation about London: "Helen seemed at one with the filthy trees, the traffic and the patches of mud that were slowly blooming...she had the impression that her sister had been unwell for many years. '. Margaret's romantic ideas about the pollution of London compared to the idyllic countryside embodied by Howards End are an impractical but characteristic part of her concerns. Henry, on the other hand, receives the news with clichéd remarks, such as that it was "just like Helen." " to worry those close to him. He is not at all interested in the lists of original images or in using language in a different way, and when Margaret asks why Helen's nature is "allowed to be so strange and to become even stranger,” he replies “Don’t ask me I’m a simple businessman I live and let live.” when Tibby says he doesn't see the point, Henry responds, "I don't think I ever will," as if admitting the limits of communication between him and the "gifted but ridiculous family." ” which he mocks The lack of verbal ingenuity is a characteristic barrier between married couples, but another, as Forster demonstrates a page later, is his inherent aggressiveness: speaking of Helen as an object to be had. grab it, he asks: 'Want to get your hands on her?' and plots to lie to him so that "we can take him to a specialist in no time", as the narrator comments, his intentions are good but the plan "drew its ethics from the wolf pack" and Margaret did so. rejects on the grounds that "it's not the particular language Helen and I speak"; the direct action plan could not work because of the sisters' linguistic sympathies. The characters of Mrs. Moore and Adela lie in the ease with which Mrs. Moore adapts to her surroundings through conversation, called a true "Oriental" by Aziz, while Forster depicts Miss Quested as having theoretical sympathy towards the native Indians rather than natural The efforts of Miss Quested in this novel and Helen in Howards End are seemingly well-intentioned but fundamentally flawed and result in actively ruining the lives of those they are trying to understand or help. The barriers between Adela and the full understanding of India are hinted at in the stilted conversation between her and Aziz: in their conversation in the caves ofMarabar, she shocks him by asking, without any knowledge of Indian marriage aside from Mrs. Turton's racism: "Do you have a wife or a wife?" more than one? Forster prefaces this error with the description "in his honest, decent and curious way" (the triple of adjectives appearing almost hyperbolically defensive) and specifies that attachment to a single wife is a "new conviction" for a Muslim educated like Aziz at that time. ,as if to lessen the impact of his honest ignorance through narration. Aziz's relative dishonesty is also highlighted as if in his defense: he lies because he believes it is "more artistic to have his wife alive for a moment" and tries to "hide his confusion" through stuttering “one, one in my own particular case.” Aziz also speaks in a language foreign to him and strives to impress Adela with little reciprocity; rather than protecting Adela by making her appear dishonest and therefore immoral, Forster uses these complications and obstacles to natural communication to illustrate how little Adela attempts to connect in comparison. While Aziz tries to protect his feelings by hiding how offended he is, Adela is "quite unaware of having said the wrong thing" and leaves "without seeing him." This ignorance demonstrates that their communication difficulties stem from her using him as a representation of her culture, rather than as someone she could offend. The condescension behind his thoughts, such as diluting the admiration in "what a handsome little Oriental he was" with the diminishing caveats of "little" and "Oriental" rather than simply "man", prevents him from speaking with him as honestly as Mrs. Moore does. Another example of an attempted impression met with well-meaning condescension is Leonard of Howards End. In chapter 5 of Howards End, Leonard nostalgically compares his conversation to that of the cultured Schlegel sisters: “If he could have spoken like that, he would have conquered the world. Oh, acquire culture! Oh, pronouncing foreign names correctly! Oh, to be well informed, to speak at ease on every subject a lady discusses! The poetic nature of this triadic structure, with the melancholic interjections of “Oh” regretting his ignorance, can seem to contradict the real meaning of the character as he speaks so elegantly. However, during their conversation in chapter 14, the sisters treat him as a curiosity because he speaks so differently and is so removed from the culture. By saying "No", that the dawn was not wonderful as Helen hoped, he gains an "unforgettable sincerity" in presenting a practical, working-class view of the world and "overthrows everything that had seemed ignoble or literary in its speech ". He excites the sisters by recounting how hungry he was instead of beauty or culture (indeed, the narrator mocks his cultural longing with the childish rhymes "Borrow, Thoreau and sorrow"). Leonard desires the power that comes with cultivated language, but alone is remarkable to the sisters, and perhaps to the reader, as a contrast. In an almost comical literal metaphor, Leonard is ultimately killed by a representation of the upper classes and collapses in a "rain" of books due to a misunderstanding: his desire to associate and speak the same language as his social “superiors” caused his downfall. The language of his perspective also shifts into short, simplistic, infantilized sentences in his final moments, as if to emphasize the contrast: "The man grabbed him by the collar and shouted, 'Bring me a stick.' The women were screaming. A very shiny stick came down. It hurt him, not where it went down, but in his heart. Of theBooks fell on him in the shower. Nothing made sense. He doesn't understand who "this man" is or why the books are falling on him, and the childish simplicity of language like "It hurt him" or "Nothing made sense" echoes the narrator calling him “naive boy with a gentle character”. " in chapter 14. He is overwhelmed by this world and its language (even when it is not intentional, as when he is "terribly hurt" by Helen's supposedly kind letter in Shropshire), and Forster reflects this in the language of his final moments. Forster's characters use language to bridge the divide between West and East in A Passage to India in a way different from the real Anglo-Indians for whom Forster had admitted a 'lack of sympathy'. The friendship between Cyril Fielding and Aziz begins when the former casually says "Please make yourself at home" at his home, as Aziz is honored by this familiarity. Although this may seem like basic etiquette, the actions of the English at the garden party in which they ignore their Indian guests and in Chapter 1 when Mrs. Callender takes Aziz's tonga clearly describe a society in which polite language is used as a means of association. only among certain groups. Anglo-Indians often ignore conventions of politeness with Indians, which is why this formal display of etiquette is paradoxically familiar and encourages friendly relations. Fielding and Aziz are, however, separated by Fielding's empathy towards Adela after the trial: here, it is not language that separates them but their identity, because Aziz chose to reject the Western world after being so misunderstood by this one. In the original 1913 version, Forster had found Aziz guilty, but the final version embodies much more sympathy for his character and for the falsely vilified Indians (perhaps influenced by the Amritsar massacre of 1919 – there is a parallel clear in the idea of forcing Aziz to be guilty). This empathy, creating what Leonard Woolf called "the most 'real' Indian that can be found in fiction", makes his choice understandable to British readers who might more naturally align with Fielding. The argument therefore seems realistic on both sides and inevitable, occurring despite the communication rather than because of it. After their final meeting, Forster writes that "entanglements like this always interrupted their sexual relations." One pause in the wrong place, one misunderstood intonation and a whole conversation gone wrong. Even between these natural friends, misunderstandings still arise due to specific social barriers complicating their language. The natural world itself rejects the idea of them being true friends in the final lines because "the earth didn't want it... the palace, the birds, the carrion... they didn't want it, they said with their hundred votes “No”. , not yet,” and the sky said, “No, not there.” The disrupted anaphora emphasis of “yet” and “there” makes it clear that the time and place of their knowledge is to blame. This failure is an example of an affinity initially shared by the fact that language is not enough and their fundamental beings as West and East sabotage a connection. Edward Said described the obstacles to their friendship as "ontological", rather than "political" or an inability to speak the same language. Thus, in his view, Forster unfortunately neutralizes the Indian nationalist movement, because they are not a political force eloquently capturing the need. for freedom of words.Keep in mind: This is just a sample.Get a personalized article from our expert writers now.Get a Trial..