Oriental Underpinnings in A Passage to India: Islamophobia at Work in Marginalization ofDr. Aziz

Abstract

Fiction rooted in religious subjects has been a much-debated issue in literary tradition,
and this article is to explore the oriental underpinnings in the marginalization of the
Indian characters in A Passage to India by E.M. Forster, with a specific focus on the
Muslim characters. The work is based on standpoint of orientalism with special emphasis
on Islamophobic attitudes. The endeavor of the research is to study working of
orientalism in A Passage to India to reveal that Forster has tried to depict orientalist
attitude of the Westerns, together with exemplification of Islam and Muslims as
stereotypes and marginalized figures in the work. The researchers have used Belsey’s
textual analysis method to explore the primary text- selected for the current research. The
study is going to be an original contribution to the literary fields and depiction of Muslim
character in the work of fiction.