Monday 28 April 2014

X... is for Xenophobia

Two of the novels I'm required to read are British fiction from the time when 'the sun never set on the British empire'. This was the time when the British colonised so much of the world. The British left India with many good things. To be fair, most of it we have managed to destroy since our independence. It won't be long before we lose our cultures and don't adopt any other better culture! Anyway, that's a rant for another day.
So these two novels, namely Heart of Darkness and A Passage to India are set in the British colonies in Africa and India, respectively. The amount of racism and xenophobia is astounding. Here are the British, trying to control and rule through hate. Of course, it is all fiction, but these tales were inspired by the authors' experiences and that's quite something. That might have been one of the reasons for their failure, trying to bring everyone under the system that they believed was right. It should have been propagated with a little more love, but I can imagine how tortured they must have been in the heat! It's 41 degree Celsius here today! 
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This is the twenty-fourth post for the April A-to-Z Blogging Challenge 2014.
Previously, Archaism, British literature, Critical Analysis, Drama, Edinburgh, Faust, Gothic Fiction, Humour, Interpretation, Journalling, Keats, Language, Metaphysical Poetry, Narration, Ode, Papillion(ed), Quatrain, Romanticism, Shakespeare, Tone, University, Victorian Literature, Wilde's Wit

1 comment:

Tony Laplume said...

The British acted like a bunch of thugs. As far as I can tell, the Romans were better. Now everyone assumes that Americans are doing what the British did. I've never heard the cogent argument for it, but that's what people say.