The Narrator as Female India

A Passage to India has a seemingly unknown narrator whose omniscience allows readers to understand all aspects of this text - from detailed descriptions of the land to the inner thoughts of Indian and English characters alike. The narrative suddenly shifts from the consciousness of one character to the other. But when India specifically is being described in the novel, it seems that the narrator takes on the identity of a feminine India. It almost seems like India is describing ‘herself’ and by her narrative voice gains authority over the story. No one among the natives or the British can describe her as well as she does it herself; the characters’ failure to effectively encapsulate India in words becomes an oppression on her and she takes control by offering her own imagery and portrayal.

If one looks closely at the language, it becomes clear that the land is living and takes up the form of the female body. In one of the earliest descriptions, “Houses do fall, people are drowned and left rotting, but the general outline of the town persists, swelling here, shrinking there like some indestructible form of life”, the land is not just an object of in-habitation, it is alive: “swelling” and “shrinking” mimic breathing; one can see the parallel to a heaving chest as the lungs inhale and exhale.  India “heaves a little, is flat again” showing that there is a body which specifically takes up the female form. It is a curvaceous body with varying landscapes such as flat land, hills, rocks and caves.

The narrator can also be taken to be India because she is the only one who provides such accurate and intimate descriptions of her own body. Many characters throughout the course of the novel try to describe India and specifically the Marabar Hills. Adela and Mrs. Moore constantly look for a satisfactory and accurate description of India from Aziz and he is never able to meet up to their expectations. It is only India, the honest and reliable narrator that gives the reader a good picture. She is all-knowing of the past “Marabar Caves are older than anything else on Earth and present of India and can describe it in the best words; “the pageant of birds in the early morning, brown bodies, white turbans, idols whose flesh was scarlet or blue – and movement would remain as long as there were crowds in the bazaar and bathers in the tanks”. Therefore, this female India is watching and observing all the time and she is the only one who can accurately inform the reader of her body.