Forster's Ambiguity in A Passage to India/ Ambiguite de Forster Dans A Passage to India (Report‪)‬

Published in 1924, A Passage To India aroused much criticism at the time. Forster admits that he takes the title from a poem of Walt Whitman. The opening of Suez Canal in 1869 generates Whitman's enthusiasm to explore the East. With an optimistic vision, Whitman writes: Whitman shows in the lines his strong will for connecting the East and the West. He believes that the building of Suez Canal will bridge the gap between the West and the East, that the West and the East will hence be firmly united as one just like a bride and a bridegroom in a marriage. Though Forster derives the novel's title from the poem, he is not as optimistic as Whitman in the marriage of the West and the East.