Colonial Representations of India in Prose Fiction :: Essays Papers

Colonial Representations of India in Prose FictionAs in representations of the other British colonies, India was used by colonial novelists as a tool of displacement of the individual and re-affirmation of the metropolitan whole. There are three methods by which this effect is achieved. The low gear method displays an unqualified reliance on a culture too remote to be approached except physically a hero or champ in a pre-mutiny novel is at conversancy to escape to India at a moment of crisis, rearrange his life to his advantage and return to a talented ending and the establishment of a newly delimitate metropolitan life. Dobbin of Thackerays Vanity Fair (1848) and Peter Jenkins of Gaskells Cranford (1853) exemplify this well. Even the child Bitherstone of Dickens Dombey and Son (1848) regards India as his salvation.The second method demonstrates the wave-particle duality of the post-mutiny era. We are told by Patrick Brantlinger that the earliest work of fiction to deal with the mutiny is The Perils of Certain English Prisoners, a collaboration by Dickens and Wilkie Collins in the Christmas 1857 edition of family line Words . Wilkie Collinss The Moonstone (1868) revolves around the theft and reclamation of the Koh-i-Noor and creates an ambiguous point of antagonism between Brahmin and Englishman. The Brahmins cannot be said to be wholly right or wrong in their dealings with the stone and it is the British Ablewhite who is portrayed in the most one-dimensional path and who is cast almost as penumbra to the issues redefining the credit of the former. However, merely eleven years after the Mutiny, Collinss Indians remain at all times a threatening nominal head subject only to the most tenuous duologue- the reader must not forget that they belong to the realm of the non-rational. Collins Brahmins, unaware that they are observed, participate in magical rites and his Hindus, en masse, typify Romantic notions of Mans example union with Nature. As re-affirm ation, they reconfirm the relationship between the central characters.The third method again demonstrates the duality of the post-mutiny era but with more emphasis on reconciliation. Later novels such as Rudyard Kiplings Kim (1901) or E. M. Forsters Passage to India (1924) attempt to remove either the Indian character from the confines of previous stereotype or the Anglo-Indian character from the confines of automatic moral superiority.Colonial Representations of India in Prose Fiction Essays PapersColonial Representations of India in Prose FictionAs in representations of the other British colonies, India was used by colonial novelists as a tool of displacement of the individual and re-affirmation of the metropolitan whole. There are three methods by which this effect is achieved. The first method displays an unqualified reliance on a culture too remote to be approached except physically a hero or protagonist in a pre-mutiny novel is at liberty to escape to India at a moment of c risis, rearrange his life to his advantage and return to a happy ending and the establishment of a newly defined metropolitan life. Dobbin of Thackerays Vanity Fair (1848) and Peter Jenkins of Gaskells Cranford (1853) exemplify this well. Even the child Bitherstone of Dickens Dombey and Son (1848) regards India as his salvation.The second method demonstrates the duality of the post-mutiny era. We are told by Patrick Brantlinger that the earliest work of fiction to deal with the mutiny is The Perils of Certain English Prisoners, a collaboration by Dickens and Wilkie Collins in the Christmas 1857 edition of Household Words . Wilkie Collinss The Moonstone (1868) revolves around the theft and reclamation of the Koh-i-Noor and creates an ambiguous point of antagonism between Brahmin and Englishman. The Brahmins cannot be said to be wholly right or wrong in their dealings with the stone and it is the British Ablewhite who is portrayed in the most one-dimensional manner and who is cast alm ost as penumbra to the issues redefining the character of the former. However, only eleven years after the Mutiny, Collinss Indians remain at all times a threatening presence subject only to the most tenuous negotiation- the reader must not forget that they belong to the realm of the non-rational. Collins Brahmins, unaware that they are observed, participate in magical rites and his Hindus, en masse, typify Romantic notions of Mans ideal union with Nature. As re-affirmation, they reconfirm the relationship between the central characters.The third method again demonstrates the duality of the post-mutiny era but with more emphasis on reconciliation. Later novels such as Rudyard Kiplings Kim (1901) or E. M. Forsters Passage to India (1924) attempt to remove either the Indian character from the confines of previous stereotype or the Anglo-Indian character from the confines of automatic moral superiority.