The Re-Writings of Conrad’s Heart of DarknessAurae in E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India: A Comparative Study

Abstract

This dissertation discusses the relationship existing between A Passage to India and Heart of Darkness by focusing on the process of rewriting in fiction. In terms of a range of critical theories, it throws light on the similarities and divergences operating between the two pieces of writing. Thus, Forster’s text is discussed as a response to and a repetition of Conrad’s. The point here, however, is not merely to show the way Forster’s novel echoes Conrad’s, but the way that discourses, as a set of statements involving certain assumptions and insights about specific issues, are transposed into one another. In this connection, the main focus is on how Forster uses his novel not only to reject the period’s prevailing values in life and art, but also to defiantly assert his difference and re-appropriates this rebellious tone to criticise the Western mind. The two novels are examined and made to interact with each other in terms of dialogical and intertextual principles......