Journal #1

December 24, 2009

Happy Christmas Eve!!!

I think it is very intriguing that the setting is in India. India in the 1924 as told in the book was imperialized by the British. It could be from anywhere else in the world but he decided to write about India I did some research on E.M Foster and discovered that he had wrote the book based on his real life experience in India.

Foster could have decided to write the typical racism or friction among the blacks or Africans and whites but he opens a new world by revealing the racial tensions between the whites and the Indians which sheds light to how universal and varied racism is.

India is a land that is known to represent tranquility, harmony, and history that has been kept for thousands of years. Suddenly these invaders (the British) barge in to India to disrupt the peace and tranquility that India has acquired. Even in the place of holiness (the mosque) they still continue to segregate one another and act rudely towards each other.

India has its own character that holds mystery that many of the British and Indians are still trying to fathom. Even as the British tried to change India in to another England, the settings never loses and succumbs to the British thinking and also reveal new things of the Indian culture each day.

The setting also leads to a culture clash between the eastern and western cultures. British try to implement their laws on the Indians, but the Indians hold fast to their traditions and cultures as the British continue to impose their laws and traditions on them. The British try and judge the Indians based on their appearance and put labels on them. The Indians on the other hand look beyond appearances and into every detail of a person from the way they speak, the tone of their voice, and the gestures they make.

The British are not shown as tyrants, although they do fail to understand Indian religion and culture.

The name of this first chapter is the mosque, which is also one of the first settings where the racism and hatred is seen so blatantly. The mosque is a place where people from different cultures can come together as one and forget about their differences to worship one God. Even though there are notable differences this first chapter does represent the setting of the mosque because both the British and the Indians do try and make an effort to come together in union just as they would at a mosque. An example of this could be seen from Adela, Mrs. Moore, and Mr. Fielding’s efforts to step out of their usual British boundary and learn more about the Indians and their culture

I thought that the British would never be able to resolve their issues and I may never witness a British person befriend with an Englishmen but after reading and visualizing Mr. Fielding and Aziz talking to one another maybe there is hope as India always brings a sense of hope.