When the English visit the Marabar caves on Marabar hills, they had previously expected something important, something mystical and momentous to take place. But when Mrs. Moore calls out in the cave, the only sounds that echo back are not her own voice, but a meaningless "boum" (page 137). This meaningless has been foreshadowed since the beginning of the chapter, where Mrs. Moore and Adela wake up experiencing a certain apathy that "most of life is so dull" (page 124). Mrs. Moore feels during the train ride that "people are important, the relations between them are not" (page 126) and even the sky on page 128 is anticlimactic when it changes ("they awaited the miracle... the sun rose without splendour").
But the "boum" or "terrifying echo" had an impact on Mrs. Moore: "for an instant, she went mad, hitting and gasping like a fanatic" (page 137). Whereas previously the lethargy that had infected the group of people symbolized the meaninglessness of human relations, now the very meaninglessness of language or meaning is under attack, and in this modernist chaos everything is equated to a sterile and monotonous sound, be it "hope, politeness, the blowing of a nose, the squeak of a boot" (page 137). Even though she dismisses the echo as it is after all not evil, this incident about the inability to produce meaning, meaning that endures, subtly undermines all of Mrs. Moore's stable belief systems including Christianity as she feels later that "nothing has value" and it all "only amounted to 'boum'" (page 139). After being deeply affected during this excursion, Mrs. Moore ceases to be an active figure in the plot and even dies before her ship reaches England.
Fielding, whose conversations with Aziz were always interjected with "tangles like this still interrupted their intercourse... a pause in the wrong place, an intonation misunderstood, and a whole conversation went awry" (page 258) also intuitively manages to grasp the crisis at hand when confronted with the artificiality of the club that reverts to its former artificial self as if Aziz's trial had never happened: "it is no good... everything echoes now; there's no stopping the echo... the original sound may be harmless, but the echo is always evil" (page 260). Meaninglessness simply multiplies, and "life went on as usual, but had no consequences, that is to say, sounds did not echo or thoughts develop... everything seemed cut off at its root, and therefore infected with illusion" (page 131).
But the "boum" or "terrifying echo" had an impact on Mrs. Moore: "for an instant, she went mad, hitting and gasping like a fanatic" (page 137). Whereas previously the lethargy that had infected the group of people symbolized the meaninglessness of human relations, now the very meaninglessness of language or meaning is under attack, and in this modernist chaos everything is equated to a sterile and monotonous sound, be it "hope, politeness, the blowing of a nose, the squeak of a boot" (page 137). Even though she dismisses the echo as it is after all not evil, this incident about the inability to produce meaning, meaning that endures, subtly undermines all of Mrs. Moore's stable belief systems including Christianity as she feels later that "nothing has value" and it all "only amounted to 'boum'" (page 139). After being deeply affected during this excursion, Mrs. Moore ceases to be an active figure in the plot and even dies before her ship reaches England.
Fielding, whose conversations with Aziz were always interjected with "tangles like this still interrupted their intercourse... a pause in the wrong place, an intonation misunderstood, and a whole conversation went awry" (page 258) also intuitively manages to grasp the crisis at hand when confronted with the artificiality of the club that reverts to its former artificial self as if Aziz's trial had never happened: "it is no good... everything echoes now; there's no stopping the echo... the original sound may be harmless, but the echo is always evil" (page 260). Meaninglessness simply multiplies, and "life went on as usual, but had no consequences, that is to say, sounds did not echo or thoughts develop... everything seemed cut off at its root, and therefore infected with illusion" (page 131).
No comments:
Post a Comment