The Effects of Colonialism on the Colonizer in a Passage to India

E. M. Forster’s novel, A Passage to India, is a look into the lives of both the colonizer and the colonized. While the plight of the colonized is tragic, filled with degrading images of subjugated civilizations and noble people reduced to mere laborers, it is the colonizer, the British of India, and their rapid change from newly arrived colonist to rigid and unforgiving ruler that draws my interest. The characters constantly comment on these changes that occur to the British once they adjust to the imperialist lifestyle. In the second chapter of the novel Hamidullah, a Muslim character, remarks to his friends, “Yes, they have no choice here, that is my point. They come out intending to be gentlemen and are told it will not do. . . . I give any Englishman two years. . . . And I give any Englishwoman six months” (Forster 7). Miss Quested constantly worries about becoming this caricature of her former self and also recognizes the changes in her husband-to-be, Ronny, as he fits into the British ruling class lifestyle. Fielding looks at the uncaring people his compatriots have become and marvels as he befriends an Indian Muslim. Is it possible that colonialism has an effect on the colonizer as well as the colonized?