“Not a Sight, but a Sound”: Listening in E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India

This article examines what happens when we listen to E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India (1924), suggesting that sound has several important functions in the novel, which relate both to the conflicts between the different cultural groupings and to the existential questions that underpin the plot. In making a distinction both between eye and ear, and then between hearing and listening, the article argues that the individual characters are in many ways defined by how they perceive the world around them. The article discusses, first, how eye and ear are contrasted in the novel, suggesting that vision is associated with control and sound with connection. Two central sound “events” are then examined: the echoes in the Marabar Caves and the Hindu celebration at Mau. While the echoes suggest inwardness and seclusion, the article argues that listening in “Temple”—and in the novel at large—offers a path towards connection.