"Oh, why is everything always my duty? When shall I be free from your agitations?" mutters Mrs. Moore as she collapses into the delirious madness of spiritual despair (228). After being EM Forster's most sympathetic character throughout most of A Passage to India, she is suddenly immobilized after her experience in the Marabar Caves; his point of view, his thoughts, and even his language degenerate into withering cynicism and virtually incoherent ramblings. Indeed, the last of these apparently irrational monologues convinces Ronny that his mother has completely fallen; he sends her back to England, believing that India has distorted his sense of reality. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Looking more closely at one of these thought-based monologues, however, we see that Mrs. Moore experienced a realization that completely obliterated her distinctly "English" set of values. By analyzing the structure of these thoughts, the new ideology that drives them, and the possibility of their resolution, we discover that Mrs. Moore's revelations and the transformation that follows arise from a surprising anti-vision. The undifferentiated echoes of the Caves have convinced Mrs. Moore that her value system is prosaic and worthless, and her final collapse is the result of her deeper realization that without the superficial tendencies of everyday life she is left with nothing at all. Moore seems to rehash endlessly in his final conversation with Ronny and Adela, one short passage standing out that calls for further interpretation: Oh, why is everything always my duty? When will I be free from your troubles? Was he in the cave and were you in the cave and so on...and a Son is born to us, a Child is given to us...and am I good and is he bad and are we saved ? and put an end to all the echo. (228)Observing the structure of these thoughts, the interrogative pattern clearly deserves attention. What makes Ms. Moore ask such vague questions? More importantly, is she getting answers? One might suspect that his questions are either rhetorical or delusional. Yet there is clearly a structure: the entire monologue is a statement rather than a question. Instead of leaving these inquisitive thoughts open, the echo ends everything. A question mark means nothing, a question itself means nothing, the echo (and everything that echo represents) puts an end to all curiosity, to all discovery, to all possibility of a new perspective. In a sense, Mrs. Moore realizes that her own ideas are futile since the echo will indiscriminately erase any thoughts she produces. It is in this realization that the source of his despair lies: his constant questions regarding spiritual depth and understanding must be echoed rather than answered. The echoes themselves seem resistant to critical interpretation, but Ms. Moore's earlier explanation: "everything exists, nothing has value" proves remarkably lucid (165). All thoughts, no matter how meaningful or mundane, are indistinguishable when reflected on the walls of the Marabar Caves. “Everything exists” in the sense that it persists without definition, without aesthetic or spiritual texture; but at the same time, “nothing has value” since everything is denied in this echo (165). The superficial order of his culture – and its pattern of values ​​– is completely obliterated by the chaos and disorder reflected in the echo. Her only choice is to retreat into herself, an entity she has neither nurtured nor examined in her lifeanterior. As a result, she collapses into frustrated despair and empty remorse, realizing that she has neither the strength nor the perspective to continue living. Looking again at the passage, Forster's use of pronouns also proves important in understanding the structuring of Mrs. Moore's thought process. . When these pronouns are highlighted, the questions appear phrased to emphasize them: Oh, why is everything still _my_ duty? When will I be free from your troubles? Was he in the cave and were you in the cave and so on...and a son is born to us, a child is given to us...and I am good and is he bad and are we saved? (228)Mrs. Moore deliberately uses these pronouns to emphasize the essence of his antivision. First, the pronouns illustrate the progression of her realization: she moves from the idea of ​​her own duty to that of another human and finally to the collective whole. In a sense, Ms. Moore discovered the isolating nature of her experience in the caves. Not only are his own thoughts and feelings worthless, but so are the thoughts and feelings of Ronny, Adela, Aziz, and everyone around him. Indeed, she cannot look to others for strength, she almost feels obligated to muster enough inner strength for herself and the rest of those who are unenlightened. Additionally, pronouns emphasize how crucial the words “I,” “we,” and “we” are to the value system that Mrs. Moore and, indeed, the rest of British culture uphold. The British conscience finds its center in personal values. interest, collective duty and, above all, the dogma of personal and collective salvation. Yet the Caves' rejection and negation of this consciousness destroys Mrs. Moore's conception of her world. In fact, she found herself confronted with a fundamental principle of Hinduism: the highest experience requires an abrogation of the self and is unable to recover from the intensity of the vision (Flod, 75). Interestingly, the source of Mrs. Moore's ultimate despair lies in her inability to find an adequate substitute for pronouns: she perceives the echo in terms of her own ego and therefore cannot develop a more universal perspective. Additionally, Ms. Moore's extensive use of pronouns reflects her awareness of the falsity of the interactions. Aware that her value system has no inherent importance, she also sees only superficial banalities in the feelings and beliefs of others. Personal interactions then become simply aimless (and ineffective) discourse between two artificially constructed sets of values. This loaded passage also contains nuances of the British and Christian ideology that Mrs. Moore abandons, as well as references to the Hindu ideology that she abandons. can't accept. The experience in the Caves forces Mrs. Moore to reject her two most sacred conceptions of values: the existence of spiritual absolutes and the idea of ​​interpersonal love. Among the former, Mrs. Moore discovers that Christian principles are, in one sense, inadequate; his religious beliefs are based on the belief that God is always present in the form of physical force. But his central question reflects his sudden disillusionment: “and unto us a Son is born, unto us a Child is given...and am I good and is he evil and are we saved?” and putting an end to all the echo” (228). Even in the most basic and foundational doctrines of Christianity, Ms. Moore now sees nothing more than meaningless rhetoric. Christian dogma depends on the search for a divine presence; the prophecy of the Resurrection, for example, calls for a real physical reinvigoration of theLord. Hinduism, on the other hand, emphasizes the absent aspect of God and finds transcendence only in the intangibles. Yet Mrs. Moore cannot accept the possibility that absence implies presence. She understands that her life's concerns about her personal salvation are futile and misdirected, but she finds no source of redemption in this formless and indefinable echo. Its religious ideology is based solely on spiritual absolutes: the glorification of Jesus who was "born" and "given" to absolve man's sins, the guiding force of divine judgment, and a vigorous commitment to achieving salvation and avoiding death. damnation. Interestingly, as Mrs. Moore grew older, her attachment to these absolutes hardened; she found it “increasingly difficult to avoid” mentioning the name of God (65). In a sense, she has come to India to find God manifested physically and is therefore broken when she discovers that her relentless search for His presence has been doomed from the start. (Suddenly, her seemingly profound assertion in the mosque that "God is here" appears remarkably literal and painfully simplistic.) Realizing that the motivations and questions that guided her life have been mirrored and blunted by the echo, Ms. Moore repudiates Christianity. Yet she cannot repudiate her own ego and therefore finds herself in a precarious void between her old self-centered principles and Hindu enlightenment. Lacking a stable perspective and fully aware that time is running out, Mrs. Moore cannot find the inner strength to continue living or save those she loves. The first two questions of the passage explicitly address Mrs. Moore's disillusioned renunciation of interpersonal relationships. and more broadly, his rejection of love. Suddenly, Mrs. Moore's entire conception of personal interactions is transformed; no common bond truly exists between people, and human understanding exists only as a rhetorical myth. Love, whether between family, in a “church” or in a “cave”, exists purely as a construction that disappears in the amoral and blind echo of the caves. Ms. Moore must accept a fundamental truth that animates the Hindu faith: love is more abstract, more intuitive, more distant from the desires of the individual than from that of the Christian. Love is not a derivative of the self, but rather an intangible force completely detached from the precise order of Western philosophy. Once again, the echoes convince Mrs. Moore that “Everything exists, nothing has value”; as a result, his concern for others turns into weary cynicism, impatience, and ultimately indifference (165). Suddenly, nothing connects her to Aziz, Adela or even Ronny; she cannot pass on her enlightenment to others because she cannot even begin to accept it herself. In fact, the only thing Ms. Moore can do is mutter out loud various condemnations of Westernized thinking. In particular, his attacks focus on the idea of ​​"marriage" (or "love in a church"). Convinced that "the human race would have become one person centuries ago if marriage had been useful," Ms. Moore attempts to convey the view that although men have practiced "carnal embrace" for centuries, they are far from truly understanding each other. (224, 149). (This view is of course surprisingly accurate when placed in the broader context of Forster's account.) The "ought" and "fuss," mentioned in the stream of consciousness thoughts above, are directly related to this idea of ​​a fundamental misunderstanding in human interaction (228). Why believe in moral duty or waste time loving others when it will ultimately lead toworthless frustration? If duty, marriage, or relationships had “any use,” universal understanding would have produced a single consciousness, “one person.” Achieving nirvana would involve deep human understanding, rather than the realization that the self exists only as a social construct and therefore meaningless. Yet the question remains: Can Ms. Moore resolve these conflicting ideologies and at least find some form of redemption? Indeed, the echo that, ironically, silences everything that is proposed to it annihilates Mrs. Moore's values ​​and undermines her strength. She withdraws not only from the crisis that immediately presents itself to her, but also from life itself; she seems trapped in a spiritual death long before her physical disappearance. So it's no surprise that she refuses to get involved in the Adela-Aziz melee; in fact, she treats the whole situation with contempt: “Was he in the cave and were you in the cave and so on…” (228). Ms. Moore struggles to put her convoluted thoughts into words, but the meaning is clear: the events of that fateful day ultimately mean nothing in the larger scheme. Why is it important, she implies, that if Adela was in the cave with Aziz or if Adela was alone in the cave, the echo dissolves all questions of time, space, and even physical presence. This abrogation of time and space is a key element of Mrs. Moore's despair. After struggling with questions of religious absolutes, social duty, and even personal obligation, she realized that the echo ends everything, including her unfulfilled life. Part of this final disillusionment involves his abdication of a previously strict moral code. The echo of the caves convinces her that “everything exists” outside of a moral framework; nothing has “value” since morality cannot be assigned (165). So not only does Aziz's imprisonment have no moral repercussions, but Adela's lies are also blunted by the echoes. In fact, Mrs. Moore is fully aware of Aziz's innocence, but the obligation to bear his moral burden is intolerable. His previously unshakable convictions fade into withered meekness and ultimately, pedestrian death. But what about this death? Is Mrs. Moore ultimately important as a character since her final thoughts (as in the passage above) are not translated and are therefore virtually meaningless? The irony, of course, is that Mrs. Moore is immortalized in the posthumous song “Esmiss Esmoor,” a hollow echo that indirectly saves Aziz. Even though she denied any involvement in the legal proceedings and even destroyed all ties with Aziz and Adela before her death, she still manages to play a crucial role in the trial; it is his influence that brings Adela back to reason and truth. She becomes the indefinite, transcendent idol of the Indian people, a divine figure who remains invisible and resistant to questions of time and space (much like Queen Victoria, who is treated with the same attributes earlier in the novel). Strangely, Indians revere Ms. Moore as a symbolic representation of human nirvana, an enlightenment she never even had the strength to pursue. Indeed, Ms. Moore would certainly be horrified that her soul remained only as a meaningless echo that connected the masses behind a cause she believed to be prosaic and unimportant. Ironically, she finally achieves the oneness with the universe she knew was so vehement. important although superficially (and unconsciously). Thus, Mrs. Moore never resolves her own confusion and yet somehow manages to be a spiritual absolute to the people she ultimately abandons. Forster's paradox therefore remains surprising and, 1984.