450 Forster, E. M.
the racial interactions from a different perspec-
tive than the normal anti-colonial stance. Forster
portrays two types of gender relations between
the Britons and the Indians: a stereotypical fear of
Indian men and their sexual advances toward Brit-
ish women and a moderate view that demonstrates
Indian men’s attempts to befriend British women
without threatening them.
In the novel, many British women maintain
Victorian standards of femininity and gender roles,
specifically the “angel in the house” attitude that
asserted women were the moral exemplar of the
British home. Auxiliary activities like acting, how-
ever, permitted women to portray different roles,
yet the women required protection from the peer-
ing eyes of the Indians. Early in the narrative, the
narrator alerts the reader to the social and racial
“propriety” of the memsahibs (the British women in
India) when he explains that the “windows [of the
playhouse] were barred, lest the servants should see
their mem-sahibs acting.” Women like Mrs. Callen-
dar, Mrs. Burton, and Mrs. Turton (all wives of long-
standing civil servants in the colony) demonstrate a
stereotypical fear of and repulsion from the Indian
people. The attitudes and actions of the Anglo-
Indians promote a strict separation between the
colonized and the colonizers, and they go to great
lengths to protect their women from being seen by
the servants. To remain hidden from servants while
acting allows the women to act “improperly” with-
out losing status in the colonial hierarchy, for the
women are of a “superior” race (British) but not of a
“superior” gender (female). It is obvious that gender
identity is not as simple as being male or female, for
the narrator indicates that the gender of the Brit-
ish actors (female) is just as important as the racial
status of the performer and the potential viewer.
This intricate and delicate relationship between
“superior” race and “inferior” gender drives many of
the interactions in Forster’s novel. Moreover, gender
relations are rarely separated from other aspects of
the novel like social class or race, and in A Passage to
India it is often impossible to separate gender from
other attributes that determine the characters’ social
status in the colony.
Not only are the memsahibs afraid that their
servants (who are Indian) may watch them act, but
they also maintain that their husbands should avoid
befriending any Indian man. The British school-
master, Cyril Fielding, “had discovered that it is
possible to keep in with Indians and Englishmen,
but that he who would also keep in with English-
women must drop the Indians.” While the husbands
attempt to maintain that status quo of Victorian
gender relations in the colony, the women in the
novel, specifically those like Mrs. Callendar, Mrs.
Burton, and Mrs. Turton, dictate the relationships
that they will have, or more fairly, will not have
with the Indian men. These women’s insistence
that Indian men are troublesome and dangerous
determines much of the colonial strife between the
colonizers and the colonized and leads to the panic
after Adela’s experiences in the caves.
Forster portrays the memsahibs as stereotypi-
cal Anglo-Indians who are afraid of Indian men
and believe that they must be protected. Forster,
however, demonstrates that women need not fear
Indians because, during much of the novel, Adela
Quested attempts to befriend the Indians. Instead
of treating the Indians as inferior people, she disre-
gards the gender roles placed on her. Soon after her
arrival in the colony, Miss Quested visits the college
with Professor Godbole, Dr. Aziz, Cyril Fielding,
and Mrs. Moore. As Fielding shows Mrs. Moore
around the college, Adela remains with Godbole
and Aziz. Adela does not show any discomfort with
the two Indian men. It is only when Ronny Heaslop,
Adela’s fiancé, confronts Fielding, explaining that he
“oughtn’t to have left Miss Quested alone” because
he doesn’t “like to see an English girl left smok-
ing with two Indians,” that Adela’s actions cause
concern. While Adela demonstrates that Indians
and British women can try to befriend one another,
Ronny the bureaucrat attempts to maintain the strict
gender boundaries devised by the memsahibs. The
relationship Adela forges with the Indians cannot
withstand the pressure of the other British women.
She experiences discrimination from them, and her
challenge to the stereotype eventually debilitates her
and forces her to return to England. Thus, not only
are relationships between different genders chal-
lenged and challenging, but the expectations held by
those of the same gender generate stress.
Danielle Nielsen