Only connect if you can, that is an examination of humanism and connection in a passage to india and howards end

Cultural difference is not the same as differences of political power, but in A Passage to India the two are so intertwined that it becomes diff[cult to tell whether culture, or power, o

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"Only Connect "If Youl Can, That Is:

An Examination Of Humanism and Connection In A Passage to India

and Howards End

by Nandita 0 Batheja

Professor Stephen Tifft, Advisor

A thesis submitted in partial fblfillment

of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors

in English

WILLIAMS COLLEGE Williamstown, Massachusetts

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart my advisor, Professor Tifft, for being there through my every crisis, doubt, draft, frantic email, victory, and setback, as well as for his endless guidance, support, and Snack Bar chats that I have come to see as the real substance of my thesis experience I would also like

to thank Professor Pye for the many classes of revelations and laughs he has provided, along with the advice he has given me for all my essays to "just have fun." Finally, I would like to thank my dearest friends and fellow thesis writers Emily Cohen and Margaret Moore who struggled along with me like snails in sand, my honors colloquium class for their solidarity and feedback, and my patient family and friends who let me know I was loved, and would always be,

regardless of the state of my prose

Symbols for the Future page 77

Works Cited page 80

Introduction: Making a Project of Connection

The phrase "only connect "may serve as the epigraph to E M Forster's Howards End, but it does just as well to prelude the lift~ and work of the man himself

As an author and as a human being, Forster was troubled, inspired, and plagued by this seemingly straightforward two-word task He ruthlessly examines human

connection through his work, asking the questions: can we connect, and if we can,

how and with what stipulations? What do these connections mean, and if they cannot exist or they break down, where does that leave us?

Forster approaches these questions by looking at the challenge of connecting across social, political, cultural, and racial boundaries The novels I focus on, A Passage to India and Howards End, vary in the type of obstacles and charged political environments they present, but in both, Forster posits humanism as the primary

potential way to form connections He wades through various humanistic concerns, looking for the ones that are genuine and productive versus limiting and perhaps even hypocritical While Forster edits, revises, questions, pushes, and at times even

denounces humanism within and between both novels, the basic terms of his

humanism remain the same He struggles to remain faithful to a simple, individualist, Western notion of human beings that values every person as an individual,

consequently also valuing that person's rights to equality, justice, and well-being In addition, he advances a belief in universal compassion, understanding, and love, recognizing the vulnerability and capacity for empathy inherent in every human 1

bemg

1

W J H Sprott writes that Forster himself defines the humanist as having "four leading characteristics-curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race"

Although Forster grounds his humanism in universality, he inevitably

encounters the risk of imposing Western ideology and thus Western power on the East in A Passage to India As Lidan Lin says of Forster's ideology: "[it] is primarily rooted in the humanist perception of cultural identity, a perception that tends to

reinforce cultural distinctiveness, difference, and distance [ ] and in so doing

provides the epistemic basis for the historical emergence of colonial expansion."2 Forster, however, recognizes these limitations; he knows them well as he faces

similar complications with his characters in A Passage to India Any Englishman's desire to connect to an Indian may be overridden by or read as his exercising of

Western power over the Orient As Said says in Orientalism, "Orientalism imposed limits upon thought about the Orient[ ] For Orientalism was ultimately a political vision of reality whose structure promoted the difference between the familiar

(Europe, the West, 'us') and the strange (the Orient, the East, 'them')[ ] the

Oriental becomes more Oriental, the Westerner more \V"estern."3 In the West's

attempt to befriend, understand, or access the East, even if under good intentions, it instead enforces the imbalance of power and pushes the East further away Thus, whoever defines also encages the Other in his definition and makes the Other that much more inaccessible

Forster's novels are not only wrapped up in complications ofOrientalism, but because both humanism and connection rely so heavily on notions of individualism,

(Sprott, 75) For an account of how Forster implemented these traits as a person and in his

Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1969), 73-80

2

Lidan Lin, "The Irony of Colonial Humanism: 'A Passage to India' and the Politics of

Posthumanism," ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature, 28.4 (1997):133

3

Edward Said, Orienta/ism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 43-46

potentially destabilizing psychical versions of the Other are just as embedded and implicated in the texts In fact, the problem of the colonial Other at times seems to be superseded by deeper, fundamental issues of a psychical Other, which at times

appears to be a Lacanian self However, while these issues are all certainly present and while many critics choose to pursue a theoretical reading of Forster's texts, my thesis only pursues those theories insofar as Forster applies them to his non-

theoretical, fictional world Forster so rigorously and self-critically examines the many types of Others as a novelist that in many ways, he achieves nuances,

complications, and illuminations of the Other that a tht:~oretical reading might not be able to access

Though he is necessarily wrapped up in the complications of Othering or Orientalizing simply by writing about the difficulties connection faces when bridging two groups, "Forster needed no critics to tell him of the ambiguities, contradictions and limitations in his intellectual stance."4 He sets up his entire project of writing about connection in order to understand honestly and realistically the conditions of the world and how they prevent, facilitate, and affect connection In fact, as a

testament to his commitment to reality and to working truthfully through the

problems of connection, Forster interrupts A Passage to India and Howards End with

sudden, unpredictable, yet traumatic crises that aggressively challenge the very

ideologies he believes in and puts forth as potential solutions As soon as Forster's humanism looks as though it will work out, he shocks the plot, his characters, and his

readers with an extreme situation in order to test fully that humanism and to expose any and all of its limitations

Before turning to Forster's texts, I would like to note briefly the split structure

of this thesis I begin with A Passage to India and follow it up to the crisis of the Marabar Caves, because it so richly examines the possibilities and limitations of humanism within a complex web of culture, politics, and religion However, because

of the interesting but specialized and complicating racial factors of the East versus West divide, before completely dissecting the crisis of the Caves, I turn to Howards End for a clearer understanding of the way power works as a dividing boundary Cultural difference is not the same as differences of political power, but in A Passage

to India the two are so intertwined that it becomes diff[cult to tell whether culture, or power, or both, are getting in the way of connection Howards End thus helps move

us forward in terms of understanding the challenges power creates as well as the ways humanism works to move past those challenges With those clarifications, I then return to A Passage to India to work through the afternmth of the Caves crisis and into last section of the novel, in which Forster pushes farther than he has in any previous work to break his conceptions and ideologies down for one final time, determined to see what useable fragments remain and what kind of solution, if any, can be built with them

Chapter One: The Secret Understanding

Aziz's encounter with Mrs Moore in the mosque early in A Passage to India encompasses the humanist approach towards connection that is the dominating theme throughout "Mosque." Aziz reflects on a Persian inscription he had seen once "But those who have secretly understood my heart I They will approach and visit the grave where I lie" and feels particularly moved by the words: "The secret understanding of

the heart! He repeated the phrase with tears in his eyes."5 The idea of this very

simple, intuitional way of connecting is exactly the type of humanism that Mrs

Moore, Fielding, and Adela attempt throughout "Mosque." Through these characters, Forster appears to suggest that humanism is the most important, compassionate way for human beings to connect, and may also be the only way for people to come

together in societies built on and split by complicated socio-political boundaries

Mrs Moore enters the novel immediately after Aziz thinks about the secret understanding of the heart, and she serves to illustrate exactly what this idea looks like through her interactions with him First, when Aziz explains his mistake in accusing Mrs Moore of not taking her shoes off, he says, "so few ladies take the trouble, especially if thinking no one is there to see," to which Mrs Moore replies,

"That makes no difference God is here" (18) Although "God is here" may come from her Christian philosophy of God's universality, it equally speaks to Mrs

Moore's focus on essence instead of form: mosque or church, it is the heart and spirit

of religion that matters, it is God himself more than the way that God is represented She applies the same type of thinking to people when Aziz exclaims, "You

5

references to A Passage to India in this chapter will be given parenthetically by page number

understand me, you know what others feel" and "Ratht~r surprised, she replied: 'I don't think I understand people very well I only know whether I like or dislike them" (21 ) On one hand, this type of humanism can be read as imposingly Western, individualist, even bourgeois, in that it assumes a value and priority to the individual that places it above any type of collective It also carries an air of charity that is most apparent with Adela; for instance, Ronny worries that "she'll begin wondering

whether we treat the natives properly" (33) However, the basic notion of not

worrying about how to understand or define a person and instead connecting to who they are through their hearts is something that can be understood and acted upon universally Aziz responds to Mrs Moore's statement by calling her an Oriental, but

it seems that they connect through an approach that is neither Western nor Oriental, that purports to be something common to any human being

Though neither Fielding nor Adela is seen as Oriental, they use the same kind

of apolitical humanism, the "secret understanding of the heart," to approach and connect to people, even if not spiritually as Mrs Moore does When Adela complains that she wants to see the real India and Ronny asks, "'Fielding! How's one to see the real India?' 'Try seeing Indians,' the man answered, and vanished" (25) Fielding implies that the heart of a country is in the heart of its people, and to get to know them is simply to see them as they are When he is at the Bridge Party, he is the only one who does not have trouble socializing, talking, and moving freely from the

English side to the Indian side Without self-consciousness, Fielding treats Indians and Englishmen the same way, steadfastly standing behind that belief that people can

understand one another through their hearts and not only through shared cultures, languages, and practices

Even though Adela is more ignorant than Fielding and Mrs Moore, especially

as she does not arrive in India with any intellectual or intuitive idea of how to interact with the people there, she subscribes to the same approaches as Mrs Moore and Fielding She is "desirous of seeing the real India," which shows her good intentions and her inner yearning to witness fully a new culture: she asks for the Bridge Party not to put the Indians on display or to make a political move, but because she listens

to Fielding and simply wants to befriend Indians, to be on the same level as they are and to learn from them (25) Admittedly, her insistence on seeing the "real India" equally exposes her Orientalist fetishizing of the East, but humanism's focus on a universal inner being aspires to allow individuals to connect despite their politically charged misconceptions or stereotypes

The initial successful meeting between Aziz and Mrs Moore in fact seems to prove that that this humanistic approach can connect Indians and Englishmen even if there are political boundaries separating them Mrs Moore cannot ask Aziz in to the civil station because Indians are not allowed; all the same, Aziz leaves the interaction

"happy[ ] he seemed to own the land as much as anyone owned it" (22) Yet when

in the same individualist, compassionate spirit Adela pushes for the Bridge Party for the sake of making friends and learning about India, it turns out that although "Miss Quested now had her desired opportunity; friendly Indians were before her, and she tried to make them talk,"" she failed, she strove in vain against the echoing walls of their civility" (43) Adela could be unable to connect because of her Orientalist

attitude Her conscious intention to connect to the Other side only enforces the

confining power positions colonial sets up However, '·'Mrs Moore was equally unsuccessful" at the Bridge Party (43)

Despite the premise of accessibility and universality of "the secret

understanding of the heart," the Bridge Party shows that it is not always enough to overlook the socio-political boundaries of colonial India "The Bridge Party was not

a success" because it is a physical manifestation of the power dynamics inherent in politics, which are especially apparent in colonialism (38) Turton returns to the

"English side of the lawn," and every response from the Indians is a political one:

Many ofthe guests[ ] were genuinely grateful To be addressed by

so high an official was a permanent asset[ ] Others were grateful with more intelligence The Nawab Bahadur [ ] was moved by the mere kindness that must have prompted the invitation He knew the difficulties [ ] But others [ ] were firmly convinced that Turton had been made to give the party by his official superiors ( 45-46) Whether sending or accepting the invitation, walking from one side to another, or eating Indian versus British food, every action has political implications, obscuring what may come genuinely from the heart and turning everything into a symbol of colonial power structures Even when the humanist characters try with the best intentions to ignore the power separation at work, even when they are not politically involved, they are still implicated within a colonial power dynamic and unable to reach the Indians through "a secret understanding of the heart."

The failure ofthe Bridge Party is perhaps unsurprising, as Aziz, Hamidullah, and Mahmoud Ali anticipate the strong boundary of political power in their early discussion over "whether or no [sic] it is possible to be friends with an Englishman" (7) Aziz says of the English, "They all become exactly the same I give any

Englishman two years[ ] And I give any Englishwoman six months," indicating

that a barrier develops between Englishmen and Indians, that the inherent social,

cultural, or environmental difference that separates them is not inherent (7) Nothing

is wrong with the hearts and intentions of both sides; in fact, Hamidullah recalls the warm reception he received in Cambridge and insists that friendship between Indians and Englishmen is possible, but he qualifies: "I only contend that it is possible in England" (7) The problem lies in the fact that the Englishmen "have no chance here [ ] They come out intending to be gentlemen, and are told it will not do" (7)

Inequalities arise from social, cultural, and environmental difference only once they are framed in the colonial context; British friendship cannot be sustained together with British colonial rule, since their power relies on a hierarchy that subjugates Indians

Somewhat ironically, the Muslims' discussion of :friendship parallels the way the British talk about humanism and about Indians: they both agree that friendship would be the ideal but that it simply is not possible under colonialist conditions At the mosque, Aziz calls Mrs Moore an Oriental for saying she only knows what she does and does not like; however, in their discussion about friendship, it seems that the Muslims are themselves more like Western intellectuals than Orientals They all have undergone Western education and their attempts at friendship, then failures, then general resignation are similar to those of the British officials Turton originally shares his stamp collection and his carriage rides with Indians, but now he will not even stand on the same side of the Bridge Party as them Muslims and Englishmen

do share a form Western discourse that leads them to similar forms of humanism, and

both also value friendship and equality, but there remains a stubborn gap between them inscribed by colonial power

It is true that the separation of power can sometimes be seen to aid humanist efforts in an institutionalized, non-intuitional way Ronny is an example of the

"typical" British official who acts unconcerned with personal friendships and with connecting to Indians because his main job is to maintain the system of justice that guarantees the equal treatment of those Indians When Mrs Moore and Adela

question the way Sahibs treat Indians, Ronny snaps, "I am out here to work, mind, to hold this wretched country by force I'm not a missionary or a Labour Member or a vague sentimental sympathetic literary man I'm just a servant of the Government[ ] We're not pleasant in India, and we don't intend to be pleasant We've something more important to do" (52) It is this form of order that allows for a system that ensures basic human rights However, as Mrs Moore thinks in response, "One touch

of regret [ ] would have made him a different man, and the British Empire a

different institution" (53) Inabilities to connect are not due to the mere existence of different political positions; they are caused because of the way those positions bleed into an individual's entire identity It would be one thing to be a government official who is an official at work, and just another person after hours, but in colonial India, people become inseparable from their political and social position

Even though Aziz, Hamidullah, and Mahmoud Ali agree that friendship is not possible, Aziz (who speaks the most strongly about the matter) goes on to befriend Mrs Moore and Fielding As persistent as the dividing force of political power is, it seems the impulse to break that divide, to understand the other side and to connect

with other groups, is equally strong And when Fielding throws the tea party at his house, it feels like the successful version of the Bridge Party Adela still struggles because of her Orientalist attitude and her conviction that there is some essential

"real" India to see, believing that "when she knew [ Aziz] better he would unlock his country for her" (73) However, Mrs Moore and Fielding are able to achieve some type of success because once they are out of a politically structured environment, their desire to understand the heart is not overshadowed by having to see everything through political lenses Said claims that simply in acknowledging the Orient, one reinforces power inequalities because of the Western terms that define Orient

According to him, politics are just a manifestation of a whole mentality of Othering that creates a hierarchy of control and power.6 However, Fielding and Mrs Moore ignore political and definitional terms entirely, managing for the moment to

circumvent the problem of ever-present power relations

The success of this basic humanism is not to say that the characters can

entirely keep the political "out," so to speak In fact, when Aziz asks if Adela is a post-impressionist and Fielding replies, "'Post Impressionism, indeed! Come along

to tea[ ],"'because of the always underlying politics, "Aziz was offended The remark suggested that he, an obscure Indian, had no right to have heard of Post

Impressionism-a privilege reserved for the Ruling Race" (70) However, Aziz, like Fielding, cares most about "truth of mood," as he recognizes Fielding's sincere, non-political intentions, and "before he could finish the sentence the stiffuess vanished from it, because he felt Fielding's fundamental good will His own went out to it" (76, 70) At the same time, "Fielding saw that something had gone wrong, and

6

Said, 43-46

equally that it had come right, but he didn't fidget, being an optimist where personal relations were concerned, and their talk rattled on as before" (70) It seems the

Muslim and the English characters have finally figured out how to work under the same humanist ideology in a way that can move past issues of power, even though they cannot erase or completely defeat them

The tea party ends with the characters as friends and with future plans for a trip to the Marabar Caves, but even though the characters manage to sidestep

boundaries of political power, the gathering is not an entirely smooth event of

connection Despite the diffusion of political tension, cultural confusion arises in a way that, this time, has nothing to do with the political Instead, what prevents

connection are "muddles": innocent mix-ups that are unavoidable and unpredictable precisely because of unrecognized cultural difference Mrs Moore and Adela arrive

at the tea party in fact having come from a muddle They were waiting for the

Bhattacharyas' carriage to pick them up for a visit as they planned during the Bridge Party, but the carriage never came Mrs Moore asks Aziz to explain the

disappointment, saying, "it must be some point oflndian etiquette" (72) But before the conversation moves much further, Fielding immediately dismisses the event as:

"'Some misunderstanding,' [ ] seeing at once that it was the type of incident that had better not be cleared up" (72) Throughout the tea party, Fielding is the only one who seems cognizant of the constant confusions and who reads the potential danger

in them Yet despite his attempts to steer conversation away from muddles, they continue to arise throughout the chapter In fact, the discussion about the

Bhattacharyas leads to one about Hindus, which ends in a talk about mysteries and

muddles Adela claims she hates mysteries, Mrs Moore says she likes mysteries but not muddles, Fielding declares they are both the same thing, and finally, Aziz, overly excited and a bit confused, bursts out an invitation to his home: "'There'll be no

muddle when you come to see me,' Aziz said, rather out of his depth" (73) Mixed up

by the discussion yet following the inclinations of his heart, Aziz extends his

invitation as contribution to the conversation only to realize he has gotten himself in a muddle by doing so: "Aziz thought of his bungalow with horror It was a detestable shanty" (73) Significantly, it is this muddle that causes Aziz to invite them all

instead to the Marabar Caves, the place that will turn into such a muddle that it

explodes into a pivotal crisis

Though the tea party erupts in small muddles throughout that Fielding tries hard to move past and manages, more or less successfully, to get the other characters

to move past as well, Godbole's song at the end of the ehapter presents a twist to the concept of cultural muddle First, it shows that cultural muddles are not only

confined to an East-West dichotomy, but more importantly, what starts off seeming to

be yet another cultural muddle turns more profoundly into a disturbing mystery that may be more fundamentally threatening In typical Godbole fashion, once everyone has said goodbye, he arises to detain them with the Hindu song he had mentioned earlier No one understands it except the servants, so Godbole explains:

I placed myself in the position of a milkmaiden I say to Shri Krishna,

"Come! come to me only." The god refuses to come I grew humble and say: "Do not come to me only Multiply yourself into a hundred Krishnas, and let one go to each of my hundred companions, but one,

0 Lord of the Universe, come to me." He refuses to come This is repeated several times (85)

After his explanation, the only one who responds is Mrs Moore, who asks, "But He comes in some other song, I hope?" (84) Godbole denies her hope: "he refuses to come," which leaves the rest of the party in "a moment of absolute silence No ripple disturbed the water, no leaf stirred" (85) First, the fact that no one, including Aziz, grasps the meaning ofGodbole's song shows how cultural difference and muddles lie beyond the political divide of East versus West Though Said speaks of Orientalism, his ideas apply to any type of difference: even within India, Indians mystify, discount, and Other one another Aziz constantly dismisses Godbole "Godbole was a Hindu and did not count" which is no different from the way Ronny dismisses all Indians (143) There is no political power difference between Aziz and Godbole, yet there is still the tension of power in the way Aziz views and treats God bole in that he writes him off as a strange, bizarre Hindu

More troubling than this pervading cultural Othering, however, is the mystery

of God bole's song and his following rebuff of Mrs Moore's question, which

represents a humanist attempt to connect to Godbole She tries to console him and to make sense of his religious song, but in responding "no" to her question, not only does Godbole decline to bond over a shared understanding, but he destabilizes the very ground of Mrs Moore's Christian humanism Suddenly it seems that she might not be able to have a "secret understanding of the heart" with Godbole because love may not be as universal nor as available as she thought This would potentially be more of a fundamental threat to connection between people than even the strong and overt structures of politics and power The silence following Godbole' s "no"

solidifies the ominous tone of this potential failure of humanism to enable people to

connect In the silence, the foreboding claim lingers that though all are waiting for friendship, connection, and love to come as well, and though they sit there calling for

it, it will not come

Leading up to the trip to the Marabar Caves, muddles continue to arise, but Godbole's ominous song, like the God in it, does not at first seem to come into

fruition By letting go of the muddles, looking past the political, and not pursuing confusions, mix-ups, and cultural difference, Aziz, Fielding, Mrs Moore, and even Adela start to become friends Even though Fielding misses the train because of Godbole's Hindu ceremony, the trip to the Caves begins in high enough spirits In fact, even though Mrs Moore has a considerably overwhelming and negative

experience in the first cave, she manages to come out of it and still genuinely care about Aziz: "'Yes, I am your friend,' she said, laying her hand on his sleeve, and thinking, despite her fatigue, how very charming, how very good, he was, and how deeply she desired his happiness" (164) But in spite of Mrs Moore's initial,

immediate calm, the Caves have confronted her, and us, with the most defining and devastating crisis of the novel: a crisis of humanism itself

Something happens in that first cave that deeply affects and then plagues Mrs Moore, and by time Adela gets to her last cave, she too undergoes a crisis and breaks down In the first cave, Mrs Moore experiences extreme disorientation and a kind of physical assault in being pushed around blindly, bumping into things and feeling unknown objects on her But what seems to upset her and to later remain with her the most is "a terrifying echo" that makes her physical experience relatively insignificant:

The echo in a Marabar cave [ ] is entirely devoid of distinction Whatever is said, the same monotonous noise replies [ ] "Bourn" is

the sound as far as the human alphabet c:an express it[ ] Hope, politeness, the blowing of a nose, the squeak of a boot, all produce

"bourn." Even the striking of a match starts a little worm coiling [ ] And if several people talk at once, an overlapping howling noise begins, echoes generate echoes, and the cave is stuffed with a snake composed of small snakes, which writhe independently ( 163) When Mrs Moore reflects on what happened, "the echo began in some

indescribable way to undermine her hold on life Coming at a moment when she chanced to be fatigued, it had managed to murmur, 'Pathos, piety, courage-they exist, but are identical, and so is filth Everything exists, nothing as value"' (165) Even though Mrs Moore does not define others and pays no attention to the political positions they hold, she still relies on notions of individuality, identity, and a system ofhierarchy insofar as she has an order of values and morals The notion that

everything is echo therefore confuses the entire way she understands herself and the world around her The threat of the echo literally undermines her sense of who she is Jacqueline Rose aptly describes the basis of such a crisis in her Lacanian discussion

of the instability of identity: "The 'I' with which we speak stands for our identity as subjects in language, but it is the least stable entity in language, since its meaning is purely a function of the moment of utterance The 'I' c:an shift, and change places, because it only ever refers to whoever happens to be using it at the time."7 The echo Mrs Moore experiences is thus the experience of the "][" as an unstable identity that only exists moment by moment It has no essence, lasting only in the second of its utterance, existing in language and nothing more If there is no concrete "I," there are

no essential personalities, identities, or hearts that can connect in the first place This

is why the experience with Godbole and his song confuses Mrs Moore and poses a

7

Sexuality (New York: W.W Norton & Company, 1985), 3 L

threat to her: her love should be universal and should alllow her to reach any and

everyone Yet Godbole, without being confrontationaL, does not respond to that love,

in the same matter-of-fact way that God does not respond to his calling and come

While Mrs Moore struggles to stomach the unstable notion of everything being identical, "suddenly, at the edge of her mind, Religion appeared, poor little talkative Christianity," and she completely breaks down (166) Once "she knew that its divine words[ ] only amounted to 'bourn' [ ]She sat motionless with horror[ ] She lost all interest, even in Aziz, and the affectionate and sincere words that she had spoken to him seemed no longer hers but the air's" (166) More than seeing herself through the Western concept of the individual self, Mrs Moore identifies most strongly as a Christian She understands her self and ht~r life through her Christianity,

and this requires a belief that some things do have more value than others If

everything amounts to "bourn," Mrs Moore's Christianity no longer stands If God is the same as filth and good is the same as evil, what me:ming or value can be left in the world? Worse than an attack on her sense of a stable self is the echoes' threat to the existence of Christianity Left without a self and without a religion in which to ground that self, Mrs Moore turns into a bitter nihilist, abandoning the humanism that originally seemed to be a universal given, an inherent regard for people that could not

be lost.8

The crisis Adela undergoes in the Caves, though it is spawned by the same echo, differs considerably from Mrs Moore's At stake for Adela is the confrontation with an Other apart from a political, social, or cultural one Adela too relies heavily

on superficial concepts of core identities in expressing her desire to see the "real" India, and throughout "Mosque" there have been many indications that her

assumptions of India are likely to be overturned What is left to be explained, though,

is why Adela experiences the crisis of an unstable identity as a sexual assault why does she not simply have a major breakdown in realizing the instability of her self and her concepts of other people? Juliet Mitchell's explanation ofLacan's definition

of subject illuminates the crisis of the echo and may help explain Adela's experience

of sexual assault: "Lacan's human subject is the obverse of the humanists' His subject is not an entity with an identity, but a being created in the fissure of a radical split The identity that seems to be that of the subject is in fact a mirage arising when the subject forms an image of itself by identifying with others' perception of it "9 Adela is so entrenched in an understanding of the self as an unshakeable whole that it seems possible she experiences that "fissure of a radical split" in the Caves without recognizing it: the sexual assault could very well be Adela encountering the Other that is herself, or rather, her "mirage." Right before she goes into the cave, Adela first realizes she does not love Ronny and then wonders about Aziz She thinks:

What a handsome little Oriental he was, and no doubt his wife and children were beautiful too [ ] She did not admire him with any personal warmth, for there was nothing of the vagrant in her blood, but she guessed he might attract women of his own race and rank, and she regretted that neither she nor Ronny had physical charm (169)

From desiring to know the real India to desiring the physical charm that Aziz has, to (subconsciously) desiring Aziz himself and all that he represents (the "real" India, the unknowable, the Other), Adela has been aching for a kind of ravishment since her arrival in India She attributes the sexual attack to Aziz, the obvious face to attribute

9

Mitchell and Rose, 5

to foreign feelings of sexual desire and experience; however, the real encounter is Adela's confrontation with both her own physical desire and the unknowable, foreign Other inside her 10

With no way to brace against the outside, nothing to grasp to ensure a sense of

"me" versus "not me," in facing the constitution of self as precisely "me" and "not

me," Adela, who has heavily relied on these distinctions, is naturally terrified Scared and excited by what are probably the echoes of her own sounds, she experiences herself as the object of"physical charm" she desires others to see her as, and in doing

so, loses her holistic sense of self and fully experiences the violation of that self Her sense of a stable, impenetrable self is literally assaulted by the echo, which breaks that self down and shows her the unknowable Other within 11

The accessible and universal humanism that has thus far attempted to lead one past boundaries of political power, to overcome Saidian Othering, and even to

weather inevitable cultural muddles all by honoring people's good intentions and their impulses to care, connect, and love with their hearts, has now broken down Without the existence of stable identities, how can individuals connect to each other's

"cores," which the Caves threaten to expose as a fantasy? How can a humanism

Adela's own desire and the sexual nature of her experience in the Caves, see Frederick C

Co., 1985), 162-163

11

Wilfred Stone has a similar account of the Caves experience, saying "visitors to the caves are making a return from consciousness to unconsciousness, going back to a prehistoric and pre-rational condition from which they have been released, but which is still a lurking though repressed presence in them all." However, whereas he seems to see the inner Other

as a "condition from which they have been released," I maintain that it is the Other that Mitchell discusses Thus it is in fact a condition that is always present, and it lurks only in so far as Western thought has formulated a widespread concept of self that ignores it See

Standford University Press, 1966), 310

succeed which relies on a falsely stable sense of self and Other in order to connect them? Looking back through "Mosque," we see that Forster has left traces of these issues throughout the section, making it seem as if the humanism that originally connected the characters actually has been leading them blindly What, then, are we

to make of the friendships that have formed, the crisis that Mrs Moore and Adela are suddenly stuck in, and the friendship between Aziz and Fielding that still remains intact? Are they simply avoiding the realization of instability that Mrs Moore and Adela have fully experienced, are they biding time until their humanism also falls apart? Is there any way for humanism to be revised or redeemed so that it can still foster connections, or do the Caves destroy, not only a stable sense of identity, but any hope for human connection as well?

Although these Lacanian issues of identity seem to supersede and subvert the socio-political and cultural challenges to humanism in colonial India, the Caves crisis actually turns around and reinstates with even more force those power dynamics and boundaries It throws friendships back into the realm of the political, not slowing down to care about the new complications of theoretical and psychological threats to identity The trial that results from the Caves serves as an ultimate symbol of the power relations at work, forcing the humanist characters to now assert a political stance and take sides, while it was only by earlier avoiding and ignoring sides that the humanists characters were able to connect in the first place Thus, while the Lacanian notions of unstable identity provide fundamental challenges to the idea of humanism itself, resolving these psychical challenges does not help us move any further past the

challenges to humanism that the dividing forces of the social, political, and cultural still pose

It is possible that both the practical, tangible, political challenges and the abstract, theoretical threats are particularly difficult to settle because A Passage to India is so dominated by the dramatic obstacles to connect across racial and cultural boundaries as well The psychological, cultural, and political are so dependent upon one another that it has become difficult to tell what obstacles exist due to specific cultural circumstance and what obstacles exist as implicit in the human experience Thus, at this point, we turn to Forster's less racially and culturally muddled novel Howards End to look at humanism from another angle By taking away the

complications of colonial power and racial Othering, we can perhaps come to

understand how to reconcile Forster's seeming support for humanism as a mode of connection with his acute understanding of the issues of power and of unstable,

shifting identities

Chapter Two: Starting a Conversation: The Potential and Limitations of

Humanism and Power

In Howards End, Forster's main concern is stili to examine the potential of and value in a driving humanist impulse to connect However, the obstacles and boundaries such connection faces within England are necessarily different from those

in colonial India The biggest structural difference is that the characters of Howards End are not inescapably inscribed in hierarchal socio-political positions because of England's status as a democratic nation As opposed to A Passage to India, where there is no way that an Indian can become an Englishman or that political colonial power could shift from a British official to an Indian one, the institutional power in

Howards End is primarily economic, which means it is possible to move between

power and class positions

In addition to socio-economic flexibility, because everyone in Howards End is English, they do not have the challenge of overcoming fundamental cultural

differences No one is utterly befuddled by another's way of thinking the way the

British and Muslim characters are unable to follow Godbole's logic Granted, just

because the English characters share their nationality, the lack of a cultural boundary does not then imply an inherent connection between English people The characters still struggle to connect across their varying philosophies: the Schlegels subscribe to liberal humanism, the Wilcoxes to materialism and imperialism, and the Basts

fluctuate somewhere in between These ideologies serve as a different type of class distinction However, they are less constrictive and imposing than racial or even economic class because they are not entirely related to the position one is born into

Margaret and Helen choose to belong to their class of bohemian, liberal humanists, and the Wilcoxes choose to value materialism and social power In addition, unlike

socio-economic classes, the ideological classes do not function within a hierarchy of power: being a bohemian humanist does not necessarily grant more, nor fewer, rights and privileges than being a materialist Thus in contrasting the humanists with the non-humanists, Forster seeks to make an evaluative claim about humanism In A Passage to India, all the characters trying to connect are already humanists who

believe they can and should connect In Howards End, Forster questions whether humanism is necessary for connection in the first place and whether it is

paradoxically exclusive Can humanists connect with non-humanists? Is humanism the only way for people to connect past the social, economic, and power boundaries that separate them? If not, if other forms of connection are possible, are they only possible in democratic England or could they potentially work in colonial India as well? Depending on the answers, Howards End can either offer a solution for the broken humanism in A Passage to India, or it can declare connection in India, and potentially connection in all of modem society, to be ultimately unsustainable

The novel begins with the forming then sudden breaking of relationships between the Wilcoxes and the Schlegels Because both families hold similar

economic statuses, Forster highlights the clash between ideologies in their

relationship Though the Wilcoxes tell Helen that "her notions of life were sheltered

or academic; that Equality was nonsense, votes for Women nonsense, Socialism nonsense, Art and Literature, except when conducive to strengthening the character, nonsense," she delights in their denunciation ofher entire way of life, because "The

energy ofthe Wilcoxes had fascinated her, had created new images of beauty in her responsive mind."12 Helen does not completely change her principles and notions of life, but she connects to the Wilcoxes all the same, happily disregarding her ideas and, at least outwardly, accepting theirs Margaret approaches the Wilcoxes with more skepticism, but she also understands Helen's affection for and fascination with them In fact, this inspires her to question the value of her own liberal humanism:

The truth is that there is a greater outer life that you and I have never touched a life in which telegrams and anger count Personal relations, that we think supreme, are not supreme there There love means marriage settlements, death, death duties [ ] This outer life, though obviously horrid, often seems the real one there's grit in it It does breed character Do personal relations lead to sloppiness in the end? (28)

They both end up deciding that "personal relations are the real life, for ever and

ever," but by being unafraid to question their ideology, the Schlegels are at least open

to other ideologies and thus to realizing what might keep them from connecting with people who value the outer life (28) The priority they ultimately give to personal relations, combined with their particular inclination to analyze and understand the world around them, pushes them to seek these personal relationships and overcome the boundaries that keep them from connecting with others

In addition to opening up potential for connection by making personal

relationships a primary value, humanism also seems to be a way of guarding against

an inconsequential and empty life Helen says, "I felt for a moment that the whole Wilcox family was a fraud, just a wall of newspapers and motor-cars and golf-clubs, and that if it fell I should find nothing behind it but panic and emptiness," and though

12

E M Forster, Howards End (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), 17 All further references

to Howards End in this chapter and in the following coda will be given parenthetically by page number

both she and Margaret then concede that they do not really think that of the Wilcoxes, they do take seriously the threat of "panic and emptiness" (26) This threat can be

read as an early version of the Caves crisis in A Passage to India: although "panic and emptiness" does not threaten the concept of identity in itself, it does pose a similar risk of realizing that one's life has been empty all along, which is just as terrifying and disruptive of identity That being said, the reassurance the Schlegels find in personal relationships suggests that humanism is one way of preventing this collapse

of one's life They do not entirely discredit the Wilcoxes' lives of "telegrams and anger," but it seems safer to say that forming a life around personal relationships will create a foundation that provides authentic, lasting meaning After all, what does having character and grit mean if one cannot genuinely connect with other people, if there is no one to benefit by that character and grit?

Having posited humanism as the ideology with more promise, Forster turns to evaluate its efficacy against the power structures created by economic and social class During the Beethoven concert, the Schlegels have their first encounter with Leonard Bast Although Margaret immediately recognizes that Leonard is a lower-class citizen through his mistrust when Helen accidentally steals his umbrella, it only bothers her insofar as "it gave her a glimpse into squalor" (36) She pities Leonard but she does not dismiss him because of his class After the concert, she asks him to walk with her, since "she found him interesting on the whole everyone interested the Schlegels, on the whole, at that time and while her lips talked culture, her heart was planning to invite him to tea" (38) It does not matter to Margaret if whom she likes

seems uncultured because she pays attention to her heart as opposed to labels or social standing

Even though the Schlegels' humanism allows them to reach out to anyone regardless of his or her socio-economic status, it does not guarantee a connection with those people Both Margaret and Helen drive Leonard away, Margaret isolating him with her high-culture banter and Helen embarrassing him by accidentally calling his umbrella appalling, thinking it was her own (43) Again, the humanist characters harbor the best intentions, but like Adela, they are not always entirely aware of the way they marginalize and stereotype people unlike them Margaret listens to her heart, but she seems unable to see into Leonard's and to understand more about him than what his socio-economic class tells her She does not judge him by his class, but neither does she know him beyond it

Connection is not, however, defined by the ability to know another person completely or connect with him in the Mrs Moore way through a "secret

understanding of the heart." Margaret and Helen value personal relationships, but that is not the same as spiritual connectedness or intuitional understanding In fact, the Schlegels are considerably more cerebral than the humanist characters in A

Passage to India, and it is this analysis and conscious effort to move past

socio-economic boundaries that allow them to implement their humanism For instance, even though she drives Leonard away the first time she interacts with him, Margaret continues to meditate on his situation and use it to understand further her own

limitations Soon after meeting him, Margaret acknowledges: "You and I and the Wilcoxes stand upon money as upon islands It is so firm beneath our feet that we

forget its very existence[ ] The poor cannot always reach those whom they want to love, and they can hardly escape those whom they love no longer" (63) Recognizing that her thoughts come from her money, insofar as her finances have given her the stability, society, and privilege to have and maintain her humanist ideology, Margaret understands better just what boundaries lie between her and Leonard It helps her move past another level of ignorance, which provides the space for empathy and understanding

Yet though Margaret grows in her understanding of Leonard's situation, and though Leonard would like nothing more than to be part of Margaret's intellectual, humanist class, Margaret's increased sympathy and Leonard's desire to "come to Culture suddenly" do not create a mutual bond strong enough to connect them as friends (52) By focusing so much on the theory of the end goal establishing

"Justice" for Margaret and reaching "Culture" for Leonard they end up reaching out past each other instead of towards each other As a result, the more they try to be friends, the more their relationship, and Leonard's life, suffers In a genuine hope to save Leonard from economic ruin, the Schlegels insist he quit his job, based on Mr Wilcox's advice Leonard follows their advice, ends up losing the job he gets instead, and finds himself in total poverty Meanwhile, as the Basts are "evicted from not paying their rent[ ] Helen had begun bungling her money[ ] For weeks she did nothing Then she reinvested, and[ ] became rather richer than she had been before" (268) The way that the Basts and the Schlege:ls seem incapable of crossing classes is almost like comedic theater: Helen is unable to mess up her money, and the Basts are unable to make something out of their money

Because Leonard is so specifically trained for his job, he is doomed when he loses it and the only other job he can get This can be easily read as a problem and symptom of England's economic institutions As Leonard rather honestly realizes:

"the angel of Democracy had arisen, enshadowing the classes with leathern wings, and proclaiming: 'All men are equal-all men, that is to say, who possess umbrellas,' and so he was obliged to assert gentility lest he slipped into the abyss where nothing counts and the statements ofDemocracy are inaudible'' (47) He understands that this land where "everyone is equal," is a place where "everyone above a certain economic class has the opportunity to be equal." Thus despite the desire to connect on both sides, Leonard and Margaret cannot override the economic power structures of

England As Margaret later admits with Mr Wilcox, '''if wealth was divided up

equally, in a few years there would be rich and poor again just the same" (163) The stratification of economic classes is inevitable Even though England does not have the power dynamics of colonial India and even though Leonard can technically rise in class, he seems as stuck in his economic position as the Indians are in their racially defined, politically inferior ones

While the Schlegels' humanism may ward against "panic and emptiness" by valuing human connection and ignoring the boundaries of social class, it is not much more successful than the Wilcoxes' life of"telegrams and anger" in that neither succeeds in reaching beyond economic classes In Mr Wilcox's case he chooses not

to, saying of Leonard, "You must keep that type at a distance Otherwise they forget themselves Sad, but true They aren't our sort, and one must face the fact" (151) Margaret and Leonard initially wish, believe, and even attempt otherwise, but they

eventually arrive at the same conclusion Leonard thinks, "Oh, it was no good; this continual aspiration Some are born cultured; the rest had better go in for whatever comes easy To see life steadily and to see it whole was not for the likes of him" (57) After meeting Leonard a few times, Margaret also thinks, "Culture had worked

in her own case, but during the last few weeks she had doubted whether it humanized the majority, so wide and so widening is the gulf that stretches between the natural and philosophic man, so many the good chaps who are wrecked in trying to cross it" (120) Ironically, the characters prove surprisingly connected in their internal

thoughts, feelings, and understanding, but that connection does not translate into their interactions with each other

Perhaps there will always be rich and poor, and perhaps friendship is futile; as Margaret concedes, "On the whole, she sided with men as they are Henry would save the Basts, as he had saved Howards End [Mrs Wilcox's ancestral home], while Helen and her friends were discussing the ethics of salvation His was a slap-dash method, but the world has been built slap-dash[ ]" (241) It seems there is no use

in trying to pass by the power structures that arise no matter the society The world is not, in the end, built upon connections and friendship; it stands upon the Wilcox's telegrams and anger and on the maneuvering of sociaL, economic, and political power Leonard also realistically thinks, "Death, Life, and Materialism were fine words, but would Mr Wilcox take him on as a clerk?? Talk as one would, Mr Wilcox was king

of this world, the superman, with his own morality, whose head remained in the clouds" (250) Personal relationships, art, "panic and emptiness" and "telegrams and anger" do not matter, in the end, to a lower-class citizen who desperately needs a job

so he can support himself and his family Humanism ils fine when it comes to

encouraging connections, but people require a basic amount of financial stability before they can worry about connection In the end, even though Mr Wilcox does not care for personal relationships or humanism, Margaret is able to connect with him (unlike with Leonard) as she is unhindered by differing economic positions Because

of England's democracy, power manifests itself through money, as opposed to

imperial politics as it does in the colonies, but the outcome is the same Those in positions of power can connect and befriend one another, but those at the mercy of a greater power struggle to cross the confines of their position and genuinely connect with others around them

Giving up on friendship in a world dictated by power structures does not have

to be the final conclusion, though In fact, in Forster fashion, just as it seems that everyone has more or less settled into their friendships and social positions, a crisis occurs to challenge the limitations of humanism while also breaking apart concepts of humanism, power, and structure so that they can be redefined: Helen seduces Leonard and gets pregnant, thus precipitating the spiral effect that brings Helen and Margaret back together and that slowly undoes the Wilcoxes' ruling power Once Margaret tricks Helen into returning from her sudden move to Germany (which she only does

in order to keep her freedom as she would be scandalized and shunned if she stayed in London) and realizes Helen is pregnant, the sisters unite again in full force

Energized by her sister, Margaret stands up against Mr Wilcox to assert her

remaining humanist and cultured beliefs, and in the end, he gives her Howards End and promises that Helen and Leonard's son will inherit the land after them

Thus Forster uses crisis as a way to show that even when everyone seems helplessly split apart, there is still a way for a version of connection to occur, even if

it is an imperfect one Foucault has a definition of power that, perhaps surprisingly, can be ascribed to encourage attempts of friendship even if they are ultimately

unsustainable:

We must make allowance for the complex and unstable process whereby a discourse can be both an instrument and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling-block, a point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy Discourse transmits and produces power; it reinforces it, but also undermines and exposes it, renders it fragile and makes it possible to thwart it.13

In Forster's novels, it is possible to read friendship as a type of discourse; through the multiple gestures of friendship, the intertwining mix-ups, and even the failures, power

is expressed, represented, and reinforced, but it is also ignored, undermined, and weakened Perhaps the strongest example is the relationship between Helen and Leonard Emaged by the social injustice and the misfortune they have caused him by trying to help, Helen takes it upon herself to "fix" Leonard's situation and to have Mr Wilcox restore his employment In response to Mr W'ilcox's unhelpful, uncaring response, Helen works herself into a fit and only then ends up sleeping with Leonard, getting pregnant, and leaving her society entirely to live in Germany In addition, by bringing Mrs Bast along in her attempt to force Mr Wilcox to help, Helen makes possible the revelation of Henry's old affair with Lanoline Bast, and thus suddenly undermines Mr Wilcox's social standing and power he gains from that At the very end, Leonard ends up dying when arrives suddenly to check up on Helen and Charles accidentally kills him by hitting him too hard with a stick and causing books to fall on

13

Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), 101

top of him Mr Wilcox also ends up as good as dead, having become "pitiably tired" and having completely succumbed to Margaret and her demands (358) Thus, on one hand, the friendship attempted between the Schlegels and the Basts strongly

reinforces the socio-economic boundaries that separated them to begin with, leaving Leonard and Lanoline in poverty; yet it simultaneously "undermines and exposes" economic power in that Leonard's son ends up being the main inheritor of the

Wilcoxes' estate: Mr Wilcox establishes that the estate is completely Margaret's and explains to the rest of the family that "she intends when she dies to leave the house to her to her nephew" (357) Mr Wilcox stutters, but he does not go back on his word Thus through Leonard's death, even though he may not physically have ever become part of the Schlegels' circle, he does do so indirectly through his son It is only

through the failed friendship and connection that, somehow, all the characters end up

in completely redefined positions of power and entirely connected to and intertwined with one another, at least insofar as they all become family

Foucault indirectly illuminates a strong reason to strive for friendship, then, as

it serves as a way to shake and redefine boundaries of power, even if it

simultaneously solidifies those boundaries in the process However, having reason to attempt friendship does not serve as justification for necessarily pursuing humanism

Is the attempt to make friends all one needs to foster meaningful connection or is there something to humanism as an ideology that is imperative to retain? Throughout the novel, the Schlegels' humanism is imperfect, but does that mean there is nothing redemptive or salvageable in it when trying to connect people across boundaries? On one hand, Leonard ironically meets his death due to the Schlegels' humanistic

insistence on helping, showing that even ideologies that mean to care for the

individual and about connection between individuals may only end up harming and isolating them in the end In an account of Leonard's attempt to connect to the

Schlegels' world, David Medalie ascribes Leonard's ultimate failure to the

non-humanists of modem society, saying that "The Schlegels, it is true, wish to look past what he is and consider instead who he is and what he could be: they wish, in other words, to consider him in purely humanistic terms The difficulty is that no one else does, and so their efforts are futile."14 He is right in that the Schlegels wish to look

past what Leonard is, but the fact is that in this case, the problem lies within the

Schlegels and within Leonard, not the views of people around them Though the Schlegels say they want to help Leonard, and though Leonard says he wants to be in the Schlegels' world, both are so focused on the idea and theory of the other side that they do not care about each other as people As Margaret admits when she and Helen return from their women's group meeting where they debated how to help the Basts, but ultimately decide not to follow up with them, "It's no good, I think, unless you really mean to know people We got on well enough with him in a spirit of

excitement, but think of rational intercourse We musn't play at friendship" (135) Leonard serves their purposes fine as a topic of economic injustice, as a subject of

interest, of the lower classes reaching for something more (whether security or

culture), but he will not do as a friend; they do not see him and want to connect with him simply as he is

What do we make, then, of the Schlegels' humanism? Is it actually as full of

"panic and emptiness" as the life of "telegrams and anger"? Is friendship more

14

possible if one subscribes to the Wilcoxes' way of life because it at least gives one the power to move through society, and thus to have the chance to be a beneficent

wielder of that power instead of someone who takes advantage of it? Is it better to be the "superman" that Mr Wilcox is than to be the equal friends that the Schlegels try

to be, who only end up hurting those they mean to help?

Throughout most of this discussion, I have framed power as a challenge and

an obstacle to humanism's ability to connect individuals Thus, looking at the

relationship between the Schlegels and the Basts, it would seem safe to call it a

failure: there is no genuine care between the individuals, no lasting relationship, and

no shared connection (even though the Schlegels and the Basts do understand each

other separately, as we see through their reflections about one another) The

Schlegels seem resigned to Leonard's restrictive socio-economic class while Leonard seems equally resigned to the Schlegels' inaccessible upper-class access to culture and intellectualism Both feel they will not end up being friends because their lives, daily experiences, and even ways of communicating are too different to give them common ground

Returning to Foucault, however, we may be able to redefine the terms of humanism so that this seeming failure of connection due to boundaries of socio-

economic class may be repainted as the very thing that actually produces connection

In "Foucault on Race and Colonialism," J C Young quotes a different aspect of Foucault's thoughts on power:

What gives power its hold, what makes it accepted, is quite simply the fact that it does not weigh like a force, which says no, but that it runs through, and produces, things, it induces pleasures, it forms

knowledge, it produces discourses; it must be considered as a

productive network which runs through the entire social body much more than as a negative instance whose function is repression.15

As Foucault describes, power does not have to be the obstacle; it may in fact be a productive force that fosters connection in spite of the structures that power itself creates The Schlegels may decide that friendship with Leonard is futile, and Leonard and Margaret may conclude that his fighting his way into culture is useless, but still,

"In the presence of these women Leonard had arrived, and he spoke with a flow, and exultation, that he had seldom known" (125) Despite their inabilities to cross the boundaries between their social classes and to connect on a cultural level, with these women Leonard does transcend his class and rise above the superficial talk of culture

he believes represents the Schlegels' class Even if the Schlegels cannot connect with him in this transcendental state, when Leonard tells them about what he ironically considers his dull, uneventful walk in the woods, they recognize in him "something that was greater than Jefferies's books the spirit that led Jefferies to write them" (126) To them, more significant than understanding culture is connecting to its meaning: culture for culture's sake is an economic achievement, but to experience the emotional source of culture is to connect with it more than any amount of formal education could facilitate Thus, though Leonard cannot rise into the "cultured

heaven" he believes the Schlegels live in, in a way, he reaches something more

authentic and genuine than he would have had he joined that liberal, cultured society Significantly, it is through his struggle against socio-economic and cultural power, in which he appears to fail, that Leonard accesses the heart of culture and generates the kind of knowledge and productive energy Foucault describes

15