White Colonial Women in E.M.Forster's A Passage to India and Joseph Conrad's Nostromo

Abstract

This study examines the role of white colonial women in E. M. Forster's A Passage to India (1924) and Joseph Conrad's Nostromo (1904). These works do not try to underestimate the colony pictured as "savagen and "primitiven but instead describe the inner conflict and deprivation of white colonialists. I interpret these novels as self-critical works of white male writers to find alternatives to the colonial experience. Therefore, it is important to see how these efforts are represented in the novels and whether these are successful. Interestingly, these novels endow the role of reflecting and criticizing to "white women." Miss Quested and Mrs Moore in A Passage to India, and Mrs Gould in Nostromo take on the important role of the observer who comes from outside the colony and observes its pitfalls.