A Study On The Uncertainty Of The Characters’ Identity In A Passage To India

Edward Morgan Forster (1879-1970) is considered to be a representative writer of thetransitional period from tradition to modern times. A Passage to India, which draws fromForster’s two personal experiences to India during1912-1921, arouses much attention fromcritics to study the political elements and racial conflicts, however, there is comparatively lessconcern on the identity anxiety which implicitly through the culture conflicts. Due to therequest for diversification of the postmodernist, the uncertainty of identity becomes a newcontroversy in literary world.“Identity” which is introduced to cultural studies, defined as the identity for specificindividual and social culture. Generally speaking, uncertainty is the abandonment of binaryopposition and the pursuit of ultimate meaning, and seeks for multiple possibilities ofreality. The rise and development of the Industrial Revolution and the colonialism in18thcentury ushered “The Era of Victorian” and entitle the time they lived in “the empire the sunnever sets” with utmost pride. They have their own culture as the standard of civilization incomparison with others’. The works created in this time reflect this cultural hegemonyintentionally or unintentionally. A Passage to India is the right postmodernist novel whichreflects the identity anxiety caused by the exclusion of a foreign culture.This thesis is divided into three chapters. Chapter One analyzes the dual identities ofthe British officer Ronny and the rooted cause for this duplicity. The communication betweendifferent people and Ronny exposes the identity anxiety caused by the cultural hegemonyconception, which reflects that identity should be viewed as a cultural construct whoseprocess due to the co-function of many factors such as one’ s educational experiences, socialstatus and cultural diversification. Chapter Two discusses an English lady Adela’scontradictory identity to explore the contradiction that people are confronted with in acolonized country. On the one hand, Adela enjoys the racial superiority; on the other hand,Adela struggles for an unbroken identity in the patriarchal culture, which is doomed to faildue to the social reality. This contradictory identities exposes the aim of imperialist inpursuing a identity certainty is to dominate people by eliminating human individuality and social differentiation. Chapter Three discusses the reconstruction of Aziz’ s identity andfurther analyzes how people actively construct a meaningful identity in a hybrid culture.Facing with the anxiety on the identity, people in India are doomed to experience a process ofidentity construction, which results in a puzzled identity towards the ethnic and culture, thatis, a colonial nostalgia as well as a legacy of a sovereign state. This kind of hybrid identitymarks a resistance for the certain identity which preserved by the British colonizer, andAziz’s success in establishing his identity shows that the uncertainty is the essence ofindividual identity.The probing into the different identities not only reveals Forster’ s anti-imperialism butalso highlights the identity anxiety caused by the cultural hegemony notion and criticizes theimperialism and colonialism. It helps to understand the social significance of the novel, inaddition, It provides some reference and inspiration to modern people on the necessity andurgency in promoting people to establish one’ s meaningful identity based on the uncertainty.