Britain has been a player on the international stage for centuries. From Henry VIII to Shakespeare to Charles Darwin, Britain is responsible for much of the world’s history and has served as an international leader in culture, science, art, and warfare. It is perhaps the most storied nation in modern history. But today it is no longer a world power, and has declined from a premiere player on the world stage to a nation struggling to regain its glory of old. Its decline, like the decline of the Roman Empire, can be traced through the literature of the past century, as novels and stories can often work as time capsules representing the era in which they were written. Britain’s still-powerful nation in the early Modern period is contrasted with a Britain that has begun to decline as it moves toward the modern era in two informative, entertaining works of the past century. E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India portrays Britain as an arrogant international power with the strength necessary to colonize vast amounts of foreign lands, namely India, while Frank O’Connor’s “Guests of the Nation” portrays Britain as a modest state whose nonsensical tit-for-tat execution exchange with Ireland exposes the degree to which it has fallen.
E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India, written during the height of British imperialism, is a work which portrays the power and global influence of Britain in the early 20th century as it examines the British colonization of India. The work also demonstrates the arrogance and haughtiness that was representative of the British mindset that accompanied the nation’s status as a global power. The British Empire had been a dominant international power for centuries, colonizing areas in Africa, Asia, the Americas, and numerous other regions, and the nation’s holdings were so vast that the famous phrase “the sun never sets on the British Empire” was a very accurate statement. Forster’s work reinforces Britain’s global power, as the nation’s role as a global force is central to Forster’s work.
The work depicts the British imperialists in India as superior and necessary. They are condescending, racist, and self-righteous. The British feel a sense of entitlement in India, as if it is their duty to colonize and watch over a people they do not understand or feel genuine compassion for. When Mrs. Moore questions her son, Ronny, about his rude treatment of Indians, he explains the British mindset, saying “I am out here to work, mind, to hold this wretched country by force…We’re not pleasant in India, and we don’t intend to be pleasant. We’ve something more important to do” (52). Ronny, like the majority of the British inhabiting India, is arrogant and condescending toward the Indians and feels a sense of entitlement to the land even though it and its inhabitants are foreign to him. The British have acquired such great power and influence that they feel the world belongs to them, and feel that it is their duty to supervise and rule over other peoples. The British see the Indians living in a culture that is different than their own, and since their sense of British superiority leads them to believe they themselves are the model of proper living, believe that the Indian culture is deficient and in need of British supervision. The British act as a parent keeping order in a nation full of children, and defend their condescending nature as a necessity for keeping order in a land of disorderly natives.
The British are not naturally inclined to dislike the Indians, however, but are trained to think condescendingly toward the Indian population. The newly-arrived British “come out intending to be gentlemen, and are told it will not do” (7). Just as Ronny explained to his mother that the British are in India to keep order, not to be pleasant, the British explain to their newly-arrived countrymen the expected condescending treatment of the native population. Mahmoud Ali, Hamidullah, and Dr. Aziz discuss that new British arrivals to India are initially intimate and friendly with Indians, but after they are patterned to condescend to the natives by their fellow countrymen, they become cold and discourteous: “They all become exactly the same, not worse, not better. I give any Englishman two years…And I give any Englishwoman six months. All are exactly alike” (7). Mrs. Moore, too, is reminded that she is superior to Indians and must act accordingly at an Indian party, where she is explained that “You’re superior to them, anyway. Don’t forget that. You’re superior to everyone in India except one or two of the Ranis, and they’re on an equality” (42). The British characters living in India are patterned to accept a belief of superiority and entitlement that allows them to justify ruling India with a rude, arrogant manner that would have been considered inappropriate and unacceptable in England. Britain’s status as a world power gives it the strength necessary to control India, but the necessity of British characters to constantly remind one another of their racial superiority proves that the notion is more tradition than truth, and that newcomers to India need to be trained in order to accept the notion of superiority as fact.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the work, however, concerns Forster himself. Though the work is a criticism of the British in India, Forster never suggests that the British should abandon India altogether. The work implies that it would be wise for the British to be kinder and more sympathetic to Indians, as it would lead Indians to open up to the British and generate more genuine communication between the sides, but never does it suggest that the British are wrong in occupying them. The novel ends with Fielding and Aziz embracing one another, wanting to be friends. But the atmosphere of India at the time would not allow it-“No, not yet” (362)-and the two men must wait for a new day in India to be friends. The novel suggests that there can be no friendship between the oppressor and the oppressed, as the tension created from that relationship is too great to be overcome, but Forster contradicts this as he ends the work with an optimistic view of a British India of the future, not an independent India. This is an even more telling example of the British mindset in the era, as Forster’s own British arrogance and prejudices are revealed. The conclusion of the novel suggests Forster feels his country is unjust not because it occupies another people but that the treatment of his nation toward another people is unproductive and unbecoming of a proper civilization. Forster feels that same sense of entitlement that many of the British in his novel feel-he just feels they should be a bit more polite about it.
Frank O’Connor’s “Guests of the Nation,” published a few years after Forster’s work, portrays a humbler, less powerful Britain that is caught in a senseless war with neighboring Ireland. O’Connor, unlike Forster, is from Ireland, and writes about a Britain of a later date and from the outside looking in. His view of Britain is devoid of the arrogance and self-righteousness which dominated the British mindset, and it presents a much different look at Britain. The Britain portrayed in O’Connor’s work is petty, as it exchanges killing of hostages with Ireland, and is far from the international power that reigns supreme in India. The two British captives, Belcher and Hawkins, are very passive characters who are happy in the life that is given to them-very unlike the take-charge British occupying India. The men “never had any idea of escaping and were quite content to be where they were,” and put themselves on the same level as the Irishmen who hold them captive, playing cards together and becoming like a family (343). The British regard themselves as equals to the Irishmen, and becoming “pals” with them, and have not the arrogance or condescending nature that defined the British in Forster’s work (349). Hawkins goes so far as to reject his British values-“I’m through with it…I don’t believe in your stuff, but it’s no worse than mine”-in his attempt to persuade the Irishmen to spare his life. The pride and honor that once accompanied the British mindset are gone in this story, as Britain has degraded its own dignity by taking part in such an absurd exchange of blood with its neighbor country of Ireland.
The two British characters in the story are representative of Britain’s most recent periods-Belcher being the once-great Britain and Hawkins being the modern fallen Britain. Belcher is a large, physically strong man. He is characterized as a willing, diligent worker; a quiet, efficient man who would be at the old woman’s heels “carrying a bucket, a basket, or a load of turf…any little thing she wanted, Belcher would have ready for her” (343). He symbolizes the hard-working, efficient side of the Britain of old here, as he works without politely, powerfully, and without excess speech. He is also sharp strategically, as he is noted for his incredible skill at playing cards, symbolizing the swift intellect of the former Britain. And in the end, Belcher accepts his fate silently and dies with as much dignity as the situation would allow.
Hawkins, however, represents a Britain that is no longer the premiere world power and fallen to the level of struggling in trifles with small neighbors such as Ireland. Hawkins is characterized with some of the worst traits a human could possess. Unlike Belcher, he is extremely lazy. He speaks poorly with “a deplorable tongue,” and the narrator explains that he had “never met a man who would mix such a variety of cursing and bad language into any argument” (344). He talks too much-“he talked enough for a whole platoon”-and argues about religion for hours on end, never coming to any conclusion about the matter (344). And “When [Hawkins] had no one else to argue with, he got stuck in the old woman,” and as the old woman is representative of Ireland, Hawkins getting stuck arguing with the old woman represents Britain’s fallen status as it is forced to start a petty quarrel with Ireland to exercise what influence it has left in an attempt to boost its dwindling self-esteem. And in the end, Hawkins dies in shame as he denounces Britain in an attempt to save his own life and begs the Irishmen to let he and Belcher live. Hawkins is representative of everything that is wrong with Britain, and demonstrates the decline of international dominance of Britain as it began to move toward the modern era. The nation has become modest and susceptible to other national forces, as the characters of both Hawkins and Belcher demonstrate.
E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India portrays Britain as an arrogant international power with the strength necessary to colonize vast amounts of foreign lands, namely India, while Frank O’Connor’s “Guests of the Nation” portrays Britain as a modest state whose nonsensical tit-for-tat execution exchange with Ireland exposes the degree to which it has fallen. The two works portray two different Britains: Britain the international player, and Britain the modest once-great nation. Forster and O’Connor were writing from different cultural backgrounds, and those backgrounds are influential in the writers giving two very different depictions of the same nation. When read sequentially, the two works provide a wonderfully entertaining, highly informative historical look at a once-great nation on the decline, and help explain how Britain reached its status in the world today.
Works Cited
Forster, E.M. A Passage to India. New York: Harcourt, 1984.
O’Connor, Frank. “Guests of the Nation.”
