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Foreshadowing
Genre
Explanation and Analysis:
A Passage to India can also be considered psychological fiction. It emphasizes the thoughts and various internal hang-ups of the central characters, examining their inner thoughts, feelings, and motivations. All of these considerations are of equal interest as the external action that plays out over the course of the entire narrative. Not only does this technique create a sense of intrigue, but it also brings out the tensions between social groups and reveals the ugly political reality of the British Raj.
More generally, A Passage to India belongs to the genre of Realism. Descriptions of the landscape, characters, and their interactions are believable and true to life. The novel contains fanciful imagery and figurative language, as well as a kind of speculative mysticism (especially in the Marabar Caves), but it does not contain outright magic, nor does the narrator claim that fantastical events occur. The ceremonial birth of Krishna in Part 3 verges on magical realism, but the narrator makes it very clear that this is simply because there are various elements at play within the ceremony to make it feel mystical or divine. At no point, though, does the narrator suggest that the god Krishna is actually being born, so this episode doesn't change the fact that the novel is, as a whole, a realist work.
Related Themes:
