A Passage: Knowing, Experiencing, and Being in the Orient

As I distinguished in my first post, Edward Said gives a better description of the Occident and which countries represent the hegemonic control of the Orient. Once again the Occident, according to Said, is made up of two European powers, France and England, and Orientalism is established through the relationship between the two and the Orient. Therefore, we have a place to begin the deconstruction of the Orient/Occident binary through the lens of Said's Orientalism. But just because Said gives greater power to what countries represent the Occident it doesn't mean that one can't discern what constitutes the Orient.


However, let’s not forget that Orientalism is a product of colonialism. So it is through the anthropological discourse of colonialism that it can be understood.  It is colonialism towards which I will turn my task of deconstruction through a comparative study.  I want to continue with understanding the way the Occident/Occidentals understood the East, and will (in the post to come) explicate the way the Orient/Orientals understand the West.

I find it fitting to start with a passage to the theoretical East, but not just any passage. E.M. Forester's A Passage to India is more than just a trip, or a crossing of borders, it's a rite of passage and an introduction to understanding the Orient.
 

(Definition: Rite of Passage--a ceremony or event marking an important stage in someone's life, especially birth, initiation, marriage, and death (Oxford Reference).)


It's an experience of the way in which English established, and exploited its colonial rule over India and its people.  However, Orientalism is much more than just the discourse in which colonial society was constructed.  It penetrates the psyche of both the colonizer and the colonized, and creates a mental state of fear, discrimination, distrust, and racial hate.


But before any explication can be attempted there are two more passages I would like to visit in Said’s Orientalism because they have to do with controlling the Orient/Oriental and viewing the Orient/Oriental.


I mentioned previous factors/qualifications in my initial post for this class.  There is one final qualification from the “Introduction” that I would like to examine.


The final qualification—or aspect of Orientalism—that Said points out is that:


One ought never to assume that the structure of Orientalism is nothing more than a structure of lies or of myths which, were the truth about them to be told, would simply blow away.  I [Edward Said] believe that Orientalism is more particularly valuable as a sign of European-Atlantic power over the Orient than it is as a veridic discourse about the Orient…Never the less, what we must respect and try to grasp is the sheer knitted together strength of Orientalist discourse, its very close ties to the enabling socio-economic and political institutions, and its redoubtable durability. (6)

The most important part about this passage is that Said points out that the way Orientalism functioned most successfully is that it was an “Enabling” form of discourse.  But what enabled it? Said points out that established Economic/Socio/Political institutions were all factors that Enabled control over the Orient. England had money, the military strength, and the “superior” social position.   But there’s more, control over the Orient stems from a mental state of “European Superiority” and Orientalism depend[ed] for its strategy on [the] flexible positional superiority, which [put] the Westerner in a whole series of relationships with the Orient without ever losing the relative upper hand” (Said 7).


The relationship between the Occidental and the Oriental is important and it comes in many forms.  I will get to that a bit later in this post.  There is one final passage I’d like to visit within Orientalism before I get to A Passage to India and leave Orientalism behind—Chapter 1: “Knowing the Orient.” 


Said states that “Knowledge of subject races or Orientals is what makes their management easy and profitable: knowledge gives power, more power requires more knowledge, and so ion in an increasingly dialectic of information and control” (Said 36).   Well that’s obvious isn’t it? Knowledge is power, and if colonial authority created and instilled a certain knowledge within, and without, the Orient they would be the people in charge.  Knowledge created a strict code that every Orientalist followed.


Said examines the way Lord Cromar (Evelyn Baring) ruled over Egypt and the knowledge he propagated as his seat of power enabled him to do so.  According to Said Lord Cromar established the knowledge (I think it more colonial propaganda than knowledge) that:

 

“There are Westerners (Said refers to the English) and there are Orientals (Said refers to the Egyptians). The former dominate the latter must be” (36).

Orientals/Arabs—(Said is specific here when it comes to identifying the Oriental) are gullible (38).

To be an Oriental was a crime, period. If an Oriental deviated from any standard behavior predetermined by Colonial authority they were unnaturally a worst criminal (39) Hypocrisy?

Finally, “…the Oriental is irrational, depraved, (fallen), childlike, different” (40).


By clarifying each of these different “knowledges” of the Oriental, Said demonstrates that “the point is that in each of these cases the Oriental is contained and represented by dominating frameworks” (40).

 

It’s important to understand this final qualification of Orientalism, as well as the way the Oriental is understood, in order to thoroughly explicate the relationship between the English colonial authorities in India during the time period in which A Passage to India takes place.  These two passages provide the framework in which we can understand Orientalism in A Passage to India.

 

So let's start at the beginning even though we know no two colonial narratives are ever the same but the colonial experience often is.

 

The setting and place: 1920's India, under British Colonial Control

The Conflict: A Rising Racial Tension between the "Orientals" and the English.

The English: Miss Adela Quested, Mrs. Moore, Mr. Cyril Fielding, and Colonel Ronny Heaslop, and the Turtons and the McBrydes. 

The Indian (Or as the English prefer to call them the curios, odd, lowly, Orientals): Dr. Aziz, Professor Godbole.

Each of these characters is divided by their “Race” or I should say their experiences with Orientalism.  I could write a book on the way each of these characters understands their “other” through the lens of Orientalism, but for the sake of time there are a few specific passages I would like to illuminate or examine side by side with Said’s theory.  Take note though that the list of English characters is substantially bigger than the list of Indian characters.  There are only two specific Indian characters that are scrutinized because of Orientalism—Aziz and Godbole.  The other Indian characters that are represented in the book are only recognized as masses of people—inhuman at that for all of their qualifications have to do with their bodies—after Miss Quested renounces Aziz’s crime “Mass of Indians” (Forster 257) to the beautiful punkah (Fan) man when she enters the courtroom (241

The first passage coincides perfectly with Lord Cromar’s beliefs that Said so expertly outlines when he confirms the last qualification of Orientalism.  This passage concerns Mr. McBryde—the District Superintendent of the Police.  He is reflecting on the impending trial about to take place concerning Dr. Aziz’s indecent assault on Miss Quested. Mr. McBryde says to Dr. Aziz “‘I have to detain you until you get bail...But no doubt your friends will be applying for it, and of course they will be allowed to visit you, under regulations. I am given certain information and have to act on it—I’m not your judge.’” (Forster 184).  Mr. McBryde than thinks to himself and reflects that:

[He] was shocked at his downfall, but no Indian ever surprised him, because he had a theory about climatic zones. The theory ran “All un-fortunate natives are criminals at heart, for the simple reason that they live south of latitude 30. They are not to blame, they have not a dog’s chance—we should be like them if we settled here.” Born at Karachi, he seemed to contradict his theory, and would sometimes admit as much with a sad, quiet smile. (184).

This passage is EXACTLY the knowledge of the Oriental that Said points out—it even shows the hypocrisy and invalidity of such knowledge.  Mr. McBryde as a colonial official possesses a certain knowledge of the Orient.  YET, he thinks that Indians are unable to be anything else but criminal.  He goes so far as to feign surprise at Dr. Aziz yet expected it of him all along.  Finally, it demonstrates the “superior” complex that permeated the English conscious—he thinks his superiority stems from the fact that he lives north of latitude 30.  AS IF the physics of geography has any affect on the behavior of any people! The binary of control is one founded on scrupulous principles that are hypocritical and ridiculous! Every colonial official that Forster characterizes has this mindset when dealing with the Indian Orientals.  

Before I end this posts, because there is a lot of sections within A Passage to India that I can explicate in terms of Orientalism I would like to assign different levels of Oriental thought to the key characters within the novel.  Say we were to judge Orientalism on a scale of 1-5-10.

1) This number would represent Pre-Oriental thought

5) This number would represent being stuck between Pre-Oriental thought and Oriental thought

10) This number would represent a full Oriental mentality.

Of course there would be numbers between because each character within the novel responds differently.  However, the numbers represent certain thresholds, or tolerance, of Orientalism.  Let me determine, however, that some characters transcend the whole scale of Orientalism, but ONE can never go back to Pre-Oriental thought/naivety.  Orientalism changes everyone permanently. So let’s apply this theory to the characters. Also, the middle stage is extremely susceptible and can be easily influenced to sway either way.

Figure of Orientalism Scale

Miss Quested: traverses each threshold and becomes fully immersed in Oriental thought—it’s what leads her to accuse Dr. Aziz of such an atrocious act. She arrives in India with pre-conceived thoughts.  Eventually, she becomes a 5 on the Scale of Orientalism. I associate this with guilt for having become an associate of colonial authority.

Mr. Fielding: Occupies a space of 5 on the scale.  Even though he’s takes the side of his Indian friends Godbole and Aziz, he is still bound by his own society.

Mrs. Moore: Is 1 on the Oriental scale of thought.  Her thoughts are always Pre-Oriental, and eventually she leaves India because she cannot stand how Miss Quested occupies the space of Orientalism, a mentality Mrs. Moore never fully understands.

Colonel Hysop: Occupies the space of 10.  He is a full Orientalist that uses his superior position to control the Natives.  He is constantly trying to move his way up the proverbial colonial ladder.

I'm sure many of the other characters can be placed on the scale as well, but the overall point is that Orientalism comes in many different forms, but the types of people never change.

I’d like to end this post pointing out that I believe Forster himself was an advocate for Indians and was extremely against colonial authority and the oriental thought that goes along with colonial rule.  His wide spectrum of characters that occupy the different levels of oriental thought proves this? I admit I’m guilty of analyzing only one side of the Oriental binary, but I did so because I think Said’s theory reveals alout about Orientalism within A Passage to India.