Comparing Relationships in E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India and Virg

Comparing Relationships in E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India and Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India and Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse are concerned with the lack of intimacy in relationships. Forster’s novel is set in English-run India, the difference between race and culture being the center of disharmony. Woolf’s novel is set in a family’s summer house, the difference between genders being the center of disharmony. Despite this difference of scale, the disharmonies are much the same. Unity and intimacy are intertwined in both novels. Whereas the definitions of intimacy vary with each person, all of the characters strive for unity through their relations with others. The difference in ideas of intimacy are what prevent unity from being achieved. For the Indians, intimacy is a sharing of possessions and personal information that acknowledges equality. For the English, intimacy is similarity of background and allegiance. Thus, Heaslop tells his mother that he made a mistake by asking one of the Pleaders to sm oke with him because the Pleader then told all the litigants that he was in with the City Magistrate (Forster, 20). To the Pleader, this sharing of cigarettes and leisure time is an act of intimacy because it seems an acknowledgement of equality. To Heaslop, this is only a friendly act of social convention because equality is based on race and class, is something inherent, not given. The idea of intimacy as unity is a strain throughout A Passage to India. When Aziz thinks of his wife on the anniversary of her death, he wonders if he shall meet her in an afterlife, but does not have specific faith in an afterlife. He believes that â€Å"God’s unity was indubitable and indubitably ... ...ziz is frustrated that his attempt at conciliation is not successful. Unity requires intimacy because intimacy is an acknowledgement of equality. Only when one transcends limitations of gender and race, extends oneself beyond social codes that emphasize division can true unity be achieved. Both authors end their novels with an insinuation of a future that will be friendlier to intimacy and unity: Lily finally achieves unity in her painting and the final words of the land to Aziz and Fielding are â€Å"’No, not yet†¦No, not there.† (Forster, 282). Sometime, somewhere the English and the Indians will unite and man and woman will achieve gendered unity within the self. Works Cited Forster, E.M. A Passage to India. London: Everyman’s Library, 1991. Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse. Introduction by D.M. Hoare, Ph.D. London: J.M. Dent and Sons Ltd., 1960.