Toes

The quote “[t]he man who doesn’t toe the line is lost … If you leave the line, you have a gap in the line” struck me as particularly meaningful when thinking about issues related to modernism and empire (160).

The statement was made by McBryde as a word of caution to Fielding for being on the side of the Indians. In McBryde’s opinion, Fielding’s disregard for conforming to the standards and rules established by the Anglo-Indian community in Chandrapore will result in his expulsion, hence “lost”. The second part of the quote is McBryde’s obvious hinting at Fielding’s obligation and duty to his own kind.

In the colonial enterprise where everyone is obliged to “toe the line”, there is certainly “no room for – well – personal views” (160). Everything is based on the collective, which in a sense erases unique individual identities. The “wife of a small railway clerk” who was “generally snubbed”, becomes a symbol of “all that was worth fighting and dying for” with her “abundant figure and corn-gold hair” (170). The body is idealized and transformed into a symbol that makes it “all worth fighting and dying for”. All sense of the individual is erased from the body. Leaving the “line” results in a “gap”, a space that can be exploited and used against the collective. The anxiety that the hegemony of colonial rule will be threatened is a significant concern for the colonists. This is certainly a direct opposite of modernism, which celebrates the individual and rejects any rigid categorizing. And it is in this polarity (Empire / Modernism), that I find interesting, albeit in a nebulous way for now.

If we view “the line” as (Victorian?) literary tradition, modernist writers are certainly the culprits that do not “toe the line”. In leaving “the line”, they created “a gap in the line”, which I see it as an opening up of a space for multiple perspectives and voices. To allow for “a close approach to objective reality by means of numerous subjective reality by means of numerous subjective impressions received by various individuals” (Auerbach). Yet, there is also a sense of “los[s]”, with no omniscient meaning to be derived and no conclusions to be arrived at.

Linking the two points I have tried to make, I see the employing of the modernist technique as a possible/adequate way of addressing the issues of colonialism. Rather than taking sides (imperialist vs anti-imperialist), it opens up a gap to engage readers in formulating their own viewpoints and opinions. The ambivalence in A Passage to India has been astutely commented on by Jean, which I think is the main point of the novel. It is a “passage”, rather than Destination India.