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Chapter 4 - E. M. Forster’s Nonhuman Bundle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2022

Derek Ryan
Affiliation:
University of Kent
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Summary

This chapter focuses on E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India (1924) to explore Forster’s repeated, if sometimes reluctant, interest in modes of animality that threaten to unravel his humanism and complicate what critics, most notably Edward Said, have claimed to be his orientalising descriptions of the country and its people. It begins by looking at Forster’s depiction of beetles and wasps in the novel, examining how his later paratextual notes, added in 1942, undercut taxonomic precision. When placed in the context of the rise in popular entomology, Forster’s ‘unentomological’ approach to insects emerges as an important aesthetic feature of the novel. In part, it signals Forster’s hesitancy to impose western systems of knowledge on India, while it also differentiates his use of beastly language from writings by René Maran and Mulk Raj Anand. Bringing in intertextual material from Forster’s earlier novel Howards End (1910) and later account of visits to India, The Hill of Devi (1953), the chapter goes on to explore how he stages encounters with vaguely understood animal figures in which his anti-imperialism becomes, ironically, clearer.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • E. M. Forster’s Nonhuman Bundle
  • Derek Ryan, University of Kent
  • Book: Bloomsbury, Beasts and British Modernist Literature
  • Online publication: 01 December 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009182997.005
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  • E. M. Forster’s Nonhuman Bundle
  • Derek Ryan, University of Kent
  • Book: Bloomsbury, Beasts and British Modernist Literature
  • Online publication: 01 December 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009182997.005
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • E. M. Forster’s Nonhuman Bundle
  • Derek Ryan, University of Kent
  • Book: Bloomsbury, Beasts and British Modernist Literature
  • Online publication: 01 December 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009182997.005
Available formats
×