Chapter 22
1. Summarise Adela’s physical and mental
states as reported in Chapter Twenty-two.
What does Forster intend us to feel about her
now?
2. Describe Mrs Moore’s actions and words.
How is she behaving? What is your
response to how her character has
developed by this point?
Chapter 23: Mrs Moore leaves
India
All of Chapter 23 is focussed on the preparations
for and detailing of Mrs Moore’s departure.
Forster imbues Mrs Moore’s departure in
Chapter Twenty Three with considerable
significance and profundity.
By what methods does he achieve this?
Chapter 23
Forster imbues Mrs Moore’s departure in Chapter Twenty Three with considerable
significance and profundity. By what methods does he achieve this?
• Spirituality
• The universe
• The impossibility of understanding or containing or
classifying or controlling India.
Chapter 24
• This is a perfectly balanced chapter
presenting both
the preparation for
the trial
&
the trial
itself

Mrs Moore is mentioned in the first sentence so her presence remains very
strongly in the narrative.

Adela returns to Christianity as Mrs M has abandoned it – its futility is made
clear, however

There is a strong sense of two sides but with drifters between… (Fielding)
“Thermometer at 112” p.199
“where there is officialism every
human relationship suffers” p.200
• “He [Mr Turton] retained a contemptuous affection
for the pawns he had moved about for so many
years, they must be worth his pains.” p.200
p.203
“He pointed out that—from one point of view—it
was
good that an Indian was taking the case. Conviction
was inevitable; so better let an Indian pronounce it,
there would be less fuss in the long run.”
(Ronny on Das)
p.203 cf p.155
• “It'll make them squeal and it's time they did
squeal.”
p.204 Mrs Turton
“Exactly, and remember it afterwards, you men.
You're weak, weak, weak. Why, they ought to crawl
from here to the caves on their hands and knees
whenever an Englishwoman's in sight, they oughtn't
to be spoken to, they ought to be spat at, they ought
to be ground into the dust, we've been far too kind
with our Bridge Parties and the rest."
Look at note on page 364
Important that Forster is using real-life reference
points in order to empower his didactic efforts.
• Mrs Moore’s presence is still being felt – pages 205 & 207
• “Mrs Moore was far away at sea”
• “Mrs Moore’s departure”
McBryde’s theory p.206
“Here Mr. McBryde paused. He wanted to keep the
proceedings as clean as possible, but Oriental
Pathology, his favourite theme, lay around him, and
he could not resist it. Taking off his spectacles, as was
his habit before enunciating a general truth, he
looked into them sadly, and remarked that the darker
races are physically attracted by the fairer, but not
vice versa— not a matter for bitterness this, not a
matter for abuse, but just a fact which any scientific
observer will confirm.”
• “Beneath her were gathered all the wreckage of her
silly attempt to see India—” p.207
Adela’s doubts – p.207
• And then the comedy of the man being turned out after
interruption. This functions as a warm up to the ridiculous
pantomime of all the English climbing onto the platform
(and then climbing back down). The trial IS a “farce” as it is
later called.
p.209
• “From where she sat, she could see the renegade
Mr. Fielding. She had had a better view of him from
the platform, and knew that an Indian child
perched on his knee.”
p.210
• Mrs Moore becomes “Indianized” as “a Hindu goddess”,
“Esmiss Esmoor”, because she has the power to do ‘right’
and she to them represents fairness, honesty and justice –
partly because she’s absent…
• (It’s ironic, of course, that we are soon to find out that she’s actually dead –p. 231.)
p.211
• “this is English justice, here is your British Raj.”
• “I am not defending a case, nor are you trying one.
We are both of us slaves.”
• “this trial is a farce”
p.213
• “when Adela came to give her evidence the
atmosphere was quieter than it had been since the
beginning of the trial. Experts were not surprised.
There is no stay in your native. He blazes up over a
minor point, and has nothing left for the crisis.”
Adela’s uncertainty p.215
• "I'm afraid I have made a mistake."
p.216
• “I withdraw everything”
• "The prisoner is released without one
stain on his character;”
• IS HE??!
“…no one remained on the scene of the fantasy but the
beautiful naked god. Unaware that anything unusual had
occurred, he continued to pull the cord of his punkah, to gaze
at the empty dais and the overturned special chairs, and
rhythmically to agitate the clouds of descending dust.”
p.217
What is the significance of
the Punkah-wallah?