Introduction to A Passage to India

Comment closely on ways in which Forster introduces the setting of the novel in the opening chapter.
Forster introduces his novel to us through the setting. He describes Chandrapore as an impoverished city whose pain and low life is shielded by a romanticized view of its British inhabitants. He describes the Indians as barely people who have very little significance and value. He does this through descriptions of the city itself and connecting it back to the people and poverty. Forster still manages to shock the reader by what is hidden behind the fantasy construed by the British. All through the chapter, Forster discriminates the Indians against the English indirectly, by making religious references and by just describing each side of the city according to what the people living there might be like. He also begins with the Marabar caves and ends with them.
Forster establishes a clear sense of racism by describing the Indians in such a way that they seem to be of little value compared to the English. “The very wood seems to be made of mud, the inhabitants of mud moving” – Here, Forster uses a lot of alliteration which highlights his reference to “mud”. This makes it sound like dollops of squelching mud rather than just a word and makes the Indians seem mud like; thick yet slimy. However, this only gives us an introduction to the Indian’s low value. He then writes, “Houses do fall, people are drowned and left rotting”- here, the readers are taken aback and are shocked but at the same time disturbed by the image of dead, rotting bodies left there as just part of the setting, like part of the ground; part of the mud. The fact that he describes all these as just a normal day in Chandrapore; normal scenery that people come across and pass by in their daily lives makes it even more depressing because for us, they are still people that we have a natural emotional sympathy towards them. Forster gives us a good insight on this lowlife part of India through close