A Passage to India: Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

The Bridge Party is awkward and unsuccessful. The Indian guests gather together on one side of the tennis lawn, while the English stand at the other. Mrs. Moore and Adela watch the segregation sadly. Mrs. Turton and Ronny discuss the guests, saying that “no one who’s here matters” and making fun of the Indians wearing European clothing.

Some English women arrive and join the English group. They discuss the production of Cousin Kate, and which play they will put on next year. Any kind of art is considered “bad form” to the “Public School attitude” of the expatriates. Mrs. Moore notices how bland and conventional Ronny’s opinions have become. Years earlier he had hated Cousin Kate, but now he praises it in order to not offend anyone.

Mr. Turton arrives and makes his wife go meet the group of gathering Indian women. Mr. Turton looks over the group of men and assumes the various self-serving reasons why each has come to the party. Mrs. Turton takes Adela and Mrs. Moore to visit the Indian women. Mrs. Turton assures the two that they are “superior to every one in India.” She shakes hands with everyone and says a few words in crude Urdu, and then asks Mrs. Moore and Adela if they’re satisfied.

One of the Indian women speaks up in English, and Mrs. Turton is surprised that they know the language. Adela is excited, and tries to have a conversation with the women, but they are too polite and shy to be drawn in. As they are about to leave, Mrs. Moore impulsively asks one of the women, Mrs. Bhattacharya, if she and Adela can visit her at her home. Mrs. Bhattacharya agrees, and they decide to come on Thursday. Mr. Bhattacharya promises to send a carriage for them. It seems possible that the Bhattacharyas are delaying a planned trip to Calcutta for the sake of the visit, but they insist.

Meanwhile Mr. Turton makes his rounds, shaking hands and telling a few jokes, but then he returns to the English side of the lawn. On the Indian side, most of the men are grateful to be invited, but for different reasons. Cyril Fielding is at the party, and he wanders about socializing with the Indians. He even stays on the Indian side of the lawn to eat. He hears about Adela and Mrs. Moore’s friendliness to the Indians and is pleased by it.

Mr. Fielding finds Adela and tells her that the Indians appreciated her kindness. He invites Adela and Mrs. Moore to tea, and Adela gladly accepts. She says that the whole “Bridge Party” has made her ashamed, as almost all the English have been very rude to the Indians. Fielding offers to invite an old Indian professor at the College to tea as well, as he might sing something. Adela mentions Dr. Aziz, and Fielding says he will invite him too.

Adela looks out at the Marabar Hills and suddenly starts to dread her future married life with Ronny. She doesn’t want to become like the other English expatriates at the club, socializing only with each other “while the true India slid by unnoticed.”

After the party Adela, Ronny, and Mrs. Moore go to dinner with Miss Derek (an English employee of a local Indian ruler) and the McBrydes (the superintendent of police and his wife). They eat traditional English food, “the food of exiles.” During the meal Adela thinks of the other young expatriates like herself who eventually become as conventional and insensitive as all the rest. She promises herself that she will “never get like that,” but she recognizes that this will be almost impossible unless she has allies. She thinks sympathetically of someone like Fielding. Miss Derek, the dinner guest, works for a Maharaja, a native Indian ruler who is allowed by England to govern his own province.

After the guests leave and Adela goes to bed, Ronny asks Mrs. Moore about Adela. Mrs. Moore says they’ve mostly just talked about India, and she suggests that Ronny should spend more time alone with Adela. Ronny protests that people would gossip. He explains that it’s different in the English community in India – everyone must strictly follow conventions or else they will be gossiped about and ostracized as not “quite their sort.”

Mrs. Moore says that Adela feels that the English are not pleasant to the Indians. Ronny dismisses this as a “side-issue,” saying that the English are here to uphold peace and justice, not to be pleasant. Mrs. Moore says that the English seem to be posing as gods with this attitude. Ronny then goes on a rant about the difficulties of his position, and how the British have a very hard job to do in India that has no room for pleasantness. The narrator explains that Ronny does have a difficult job, which he does without any expectation of gratitude, and that his intentions are good.

Mrs. Moore disagrees with Ronny, saying that the English are in India to be pleasant to the Indians, as God demands pleasantness and love between all the peoples of the world. Ronny waits until she has finished talking about religion and decides to forgive her arguments because she is getting old. Ronny approves of religion only “as long as it endorsed the National Anthem.” He goes off to bed. Mrs. Moore regrets bringing God into the conversation, for her Christian God has seemed less powerful to her ever since she came to India.