Tami Cheshire
ENG 339 - Literary Genres
Term Project
June 11, 2003

          My first reaction of The Jewel in the Crown was excitement. I was a little worried about the length of it, but I thought maybe it would be quick to read. I like reading books that cause a person to think and this book seemed as though it was going to do just that. However as I started reading the book, there were several questions stirring in my mind that I was not able to answer. It was almost taking away from being able to read the book and enjoy it. I did not understand why the entire first section was written from Miss Crane‘s point of view. I could not figure out why she was given such a large part when she seemed to play such a small part with the actual main characters, Daphne and Hari Kumar. Also the part that she played in the story did not appear to have anything to do with the rape of Daphne Manners. After all “this is the story of a rape" (3). The next thing I noticed while I was reading the book was Ronald Merrick. He was the only character that we were told about and given points of view from other people about him, but we were never given his point of view of things. The reader never goes into the head of Ronald like they do Hari, or Daphne. I thought it would have made more sense to dedicate a part of the book to his thoughts rather than Miss Crane's thoughts since he played a large role in the rape and in Daphne’s life. Another thing I thought about while reading the book was what makes it historical fiction? Since I was reading the book for a historical fiction class, I wondered what made the book be classified as historical fiction. I also wondered if Scott wrote the book intending it to be historical fiction. I believe these three questions make up the main elements of The Jewel in the Crown. These are the questions that most people have when they are reading the book, so these are the questions that are most commonly written about.

Part One: Miss Crane

          While I was reading about Miss Crane’s past, I found myself continually questioning the point of it and why this was important to the story, since “this is the story of a rape (3).” Once I hade finished the section of Miss Crane, I was

intrigued as to why Scott would begin his book this way. I thought perhaps in some way this section was necessary to show the violence that was happening in the country at that time. There seemed to be more violence to people who chose to travel in mixed company. Miss Crane was traveling with an Indian and he was beaten to death because of it. However, Miss Crane was not harmed physically in the least bit.

          According to the critics, part one with Miss Crane, is vital to the story because, the image of Miss Crane sitting in the rain, holding the head of a dead Indian, sums up much of what Scott’s tetra logy offers. This scene supplies us with the sense that the British can no longer protect who they were appointed to protect. The British can longer preserve order, but they are also responsible for the destruction it creates (Gorra). According to Margaret Scanlon, if the rape story fails as history, it can begin to function as a myth with historical significance. Important themes can be drawn into it, such as the relationship between the English Class system and colonial racism.

          It is also necessary to have the section of Miss Crane in the book because it seems to be Scott’s style to tell the reader first what the story is really about, then sideline the reader into another story that conveys the broader mythological context. He tells us the story of a murder. Miss Crane’s story is meant to represent the failure of liberal progressive ideas (Scanlon).

Part 2: Ronald Merrick

          As I was reading The Jewel in the Crown, I noticed I was being introduced to several different main characters and eventually I was given the story from their point of view. I thought this was an effective method of writing by Paul Scott, however, I noticed the reader was never given Ronald Merrick’s point of view. I thought he would be a key character to have spoken and give his side of the story. He played a very key role from the time we are first introduced to Hari Kumar at sister Ludmilla’s, to the night of the rape, and finally the arrest of Hari Kumar, which Ronald seemed to be waiting for throughout the entire story.

          According to Michael Gorra, Scott never writes from Ronald Merrick’s point of view, because Merrick is our dark side. He represents an alluring darkness made visible. If the reader would be allowed to enter in Merrick’s mind, it would reveal something sad about us. Merrick sees India as a chance to climb. He believes in the white mans right to rule, and the contempt of the strong for the weak on which imperialism depends. The reader is also meant to see the persecution of Hari Kumar as Ronald Merrick’s resentment of the Indian’s public school accent (Scanlon). Gorra also points out that Scott connects the nature of Merrick’s power to his sexuality. Merrick has so repressed his own homosexuality that it can emerge only as a sadism sanctioned by his official position. Hari describes the interrogation that took place between Hari and Ronald, “He had his hand between my legs,” and this description is ended with Merrick smearing blood across Hari’s genitals.

Part 3: Historical Fiction 

          Since I was reading this book for my historical fiction class, I stopped and asked myself why this book was considered historical fiction. What elements are in this book that may not be in another that make it historical fiction? I also wondered if Scott actually sat down with the intention of writing a historical fiction novel, or if that is just what happened. To answer my question I decided I should find out what historical fiction is. I turned to the articles we used during the first week of class to try to determine what historical fiction meant.

          According to Brenda Hoffman, historical fiction is stories that take place in the past. Stories that have elements that can’t be proven historically, but suggest a way things did happen. Historical fiction has authentic settings and characters, but some of the things may not be true.  Hoffman also goes on to explain that there are two kinds of historical fiction. With the first kind, there is no historical event or person in the story. With the second kind, both the setting and the supporting characters are factual. After reading these two definitions I decided that The Jewell in the Crown fit best into the second definition.

          According to Orville Prescott, the story of The Jewel in the Crown was inspired by actual events that took place in August of 1942 in the city of May[a]pore in northeastern India. The crime that actually took place was the rape of an English girl in the Bibighar Gardens. The characters names in the story may not be factual but the event the book is modeled after and the characters that took part in the story are factual.

          Margaret Scanlon believes that Scott carries the process of assimilating history to fiction to the point where history seems almost subsumes. Scott is allowed to draw diverse historical elements into a novelistic story and explore an alternative idea of history. Janis Haswell states in her article titled “Images of Rape and Buggery: Paul Scott’s View of the Dual Evils of Empire,” Scott believes that India is the place where the British came to an end of themselves as they were. The English were alive enough to know that they are not living, but pondering, seeking new definitions of almost every aspect of human exchange. Karl Ackerman brings up the image of a girl running in the shadows of the Bibighar Gardens. He states that this represents for Paul Scott the whole feeling of the British in India and the feeling of India itself. An immense flat land, strangely forbidding, somehow incalculable, ugly and beautiful.  

          Even though every critic from the time Scott wrote the book has interpreted it as historical fiction, Scott had another idea. Scott insistently rejected the term “historical fiction.”  His method seemed to rely on intuition and scholarly research. He was blocked in an effort to gain access to files on the Indian National Army. He did not persist because “as a novelist...the reluctance interested me almost as much, if not more, than the archives would have done (Ackerman 2).” Scott has said that “writing is not observation -it is feeling (Ackerman 2).” His creative energy was fired by emotion by such events as encountering a British women during the war who yelled at him for attempting to carry her suitcase, shouting, “No, No. It’s because people like me always had our bags carried for us that what happened to us happened" (Ackerman 2). 

Conclusion

          After reading what Paul Scott has said about his own novel not being historical fiction, is seems to me the only reason it is still able to be called historical fiction is because of his death in 1978. If Scott were alive today, I believe he would fight as much as he could to not have his book classified as historical fiction. However, even though he did not set out to write the book as historical fiction, it may have just ended up that way. Things do not always turn out the way that we want them to.

Works Cited

Ackerman, Karl. “Paul Scott: A Life of the Author of the Raj Quartet.” Smithsonian, Feb93, Vol 23 Issue 11 P 133, 2p, 1bw.

Gorra, Michael. “Paul Scott: A Life of the Author of The Raj Quartet.” New Republic, 5/20/91, Vol. 204 Issue 20, p47, 4p.

Haswell, Janis. “Images of Rape and Buggery: Paul Scott’s View of the Dual Evils of Empire.” Studies in the Novel 33.2 (summer 2001): 202 (22p) Rpt. EBSCOHost Academic Search Elite [Online Subscription Database]: Item No. 4722939. The Gale Group-Thomson Learning, 2003.

Hoffman, Brenda. “Historical Fiction Criticism & Evaluation.” Historical Fiction. Internet School Library Media Center. URL: http://raven.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/histfic.htm.

Mahoney, Blair. [Rev.?]The Raj Quartet: The Jewel in the Crown, by Paul Scott. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Prescott, Orville. "Empire, Race and `The Cycle of Inevitability.'" The New York Times, July 29, 1966: 29. Rpt. Gale Literature Resource Center [Online Subscription Database]. The Gale Group, 2003.

Scanlon, Margaret. Ch. 6: “Paul Scott’s The Raj Quartet.” Traces of Another Time: History and Politics in Postwar British Fiction. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, [date?].

© 2003, Tami Cheshire
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Ca. D.
ENG 339 - Literary Genres
*Term Project
June 11, 2003

The Truth in Historical Fiction

            “Historical fiction is those stories that take place in the past. The stories have those elements that can't be proven historically, but it suggests a way things did happen. Historical fiction has authentic settings and characters, but some things may not be true. Some writers have written historical fiction but have combined with other genres such as historical fantasy, historical tall tales, and historical mysteries. Some of these stories attempt to reassess or reinterpret the past while others do not. Historical fiction can provide an escape from the present, time travel, or examples of human decisions and their consequences. “

-Brenda Hoffman

            William Wallace is a man of great discussion among writers of historical fiction.  In 1996, Mel Gibson directed the movie Braveheart which portrays the life of William Wallace.  There are many discrepancies between the movie and actual history.  This contrast was created because the movie was based upon The Wallace by Harry the minstrel (Blind Harry).  There are many compilations about Wallace’s life, “The Wallace story is not a singular, but a plural.  It is not a book, it is a phenomenon.  The Wallace myth is a collective.  It is a gathering of many stories which overlap and borrow content, style and substance from one another” (Morton 134).  Graeme Morton, Peter Reese, James Mackay, and D.J. Gray all have books written about the life of Wallace.  All examine the role of Blind Harry’s book in contribution to inaccuracies of historical accounts of Wallace.  Through these books, an online summary of Wallace’s life, and an examination of the motion picture Braveheart, the truth about William Wallace can be found.

            Blind Harry’s account of William Wallace was first published almost two hundred years after Wallace’s death.  The story is a four hundred page piece written in rhyming couplets.  Blind Harry meshed popular accounts and hearsay with actual historical events to tell the story of Wallace (Reese 8).  Blind Harry himself is an unknown figure who is supposedly a man blind from birth who wrote.  Some argue, “Whoever wrote The Wallace was clearly educated and well traveled-it is not the product of someone who was either lowly born or who led a sheltered and narrow life, handicapped by the lack of sight.”  Despite the seeming knowledge of the author, the historical context of the book is plagued by confusion and inaccuracy.  Lord Hailes criticized the book, “It would be lost labour to search for the age, name, and condition of an author who either knew not history, or who meant to falsify it” (Morton 36, 43, 48).  Since the movie is based upon this book, the movie itself contains many fallacies. For instance, there is no evidence that the Lords were allowed right to “jus primae noctis.”   The entire scene where the newly married couple’s celebration is interrupted when the English lords take the bride captive for this right is a complete fabrication.  In addition, Wallace is placed in situations and given behaviors that are inherently untrue, but were added to achieve dramatic effect.  At the end of the movie, Princess Isabelle speaks to Longshanks, “A child who is not of your line grows in my belly.”  There is no historical evidence of Wallace ever having an affair with her.  In addition, although there is historical evidence in earlier Scottish history of Pictish warriors painting their faces, the Scotsmen of Wallace’s time would not have done so.  Another example of false custom is the brown tartans worn in the Williams village.  According to John and Linda Anderson, who run the MacBraveHeart website, “The tartans used were specifically developed for the movie.”  All of these discrepancies confuse readers about the true life and character of William Wallace. 

The most accurate and detailed account of the history of Wallace is offered in Mackay’s book and at www.highlanderweb.co.uk/wallace/index.html where a summary of the book can be found.  In the opening chapter of his book Mackay writes, “Much of the history of William Wallace is derived, directly or indirectly, from the epic poem composed by Blind Harry in the fifteenth century, more than a century and a half after Wallace met his death in 1305” (Mackay 14).  According to Mackay, Harry claimed to have used a manuscript composed by Wallace’s friend John Blair as his source for his piece.  The problem is that Blair’s manuscript has never been found and critics question how closely Harry followed Blair’s work.  Mackay does justify the physical description offered by Harry that Wallace was six foot seven inches, “In an age when the average height of a fully grown man was not much over five feet, to judge by the clothing and armour surviving from the period, William was truly a giant of a man” (Mackay 29).

The online summary goes through the history of Wallace and points out the discrepancies of the movie storyline.  In the opening of the movie, Wallace is given the news that his father and brother had died in battle. Part of that is true because Wallace’s father did die during a battle at Loudoun Hill in 1291. The father and brother had fled their home because their names were not on the list of those paying homage to Longshanks.  However, his brother Malcolm did not die then, and Wallace was almost twenty then.  Wallace had no uncle Argyle either.  This character was actually based on the three uncles that Wallace did stay with over the course of his life.  Two of the uncles taught him the skills of the church since it was expected of Wallace, the younger son to make a Career in the Church.  The other uncle was “…blinded, disabled and enfeebled through loss of blood in some previous skirmish he had with the English.”  This untruth also negates the scene in the movie where young Wallace meets Murron at the burial of his father and brother.  Murron is the movie character who is supposed to be Wallace’s love Marion Braidfute.  The move shows the two marrying in secret, but the two “… never married as William believed that romance and war did not mix.”  There is no record of Wallace having children, but some historians argue that Mary gave birth to a daughter.  Marion was murdered shortly after the birth when Englishmen burnt her house down in response to her attempt to slow their pursuit of Wallace (Reese 43).  Other issues within the movie are the facts that Wallace’s mother was not dead and that he had another younger brother named John.  The movie is accurate in portraying Wallace as a man who believed in liberty and freedom, “William’s passion and love of liberty which would become the basis for his glorious career can also be credited to his uncle priest who inculcated the very values and essence of freedom and liberty within his mind.” 

            The movie is also accurate in having Wallace watch years of horrors as the English gradually overtook Scotland.  However, the online summary provides evidence that Wallace did not join the fight against the English until his was gave himself no other choice but to do so.  There were three fights that made Wallace a wanted outlaw.  The first fight was against Selby who made fun of Wallace’s attire.  Wallace responded by stabbing Selby through the heart.  The second fight was when a group of English soldiers tried to take Wallace’s fishing catch.  They attacked him and Wallace responded by beheading one, hacking the collar bone of a second soldier, and striking another soldier so forcefully that his arm fell to the ground.  The third incident was when Wallace accepted the challenge of an English churl who claimed that no one could harm him.  The surrounding Englishmen attacked Wallace, and in response Wallace killed all five men.  By then Wallace was hunted by all due to the high price placed on his head.  He could hide no longer, so he decided to join the fight for Scotland’s freedom. 

            The last and final discrepancy between the movie and actual history is the time frame of the events.  This quickened pace is obviously due to the limited length of the movie.  The first difference is that there was a five year period between the incident at Irvine and the Battle of Stirling.  The summary suggests that Wallace spent this time seeking revenge for his family by ambushing the English whenever he could.  The second difference pertains to The Battle of Stirling which took place in 1314, but did not immediately result in freedom.  In 1328 a treaty was finally signed acknowledging Scotland’s independence.

            One thing the movie did not include, perhaps due to the gruesome nature, was how Wallace’s corpse was spread about the country, “Wallace’s head was placed on a spike and carried to London Bridge . . . His right leg was taken to Berwick, the left to Perth, his left arm to Stirling, and his right arm hung above the bridge at Newcastle-upon-Tyne ‘over the common sewer’” (Gray 152).

            The life of William Wallace is one of myth, legend, and truth.  He was a man of strength and character.  Whether Harry was accurate or not, other historians like Morton, Reese, Mackay, and Gray have found accurate historical information about the true life Wallace led and the heartache he endured.  Wallace set an example for his fellow Scotsmen, “Wallace fought and beat the English, he was betrayed before suffering an unfair trial and a barbaric execution.  He was and is Scotland’s political martyr.  That’s all we need to know, and the historian can tell us where evidence is stronger and where it is not-but that doesn’t alter the story, does it?  Historians just want to spoil the story, but they can’t break it, right” (Morton 134.)  This quote exemplifies the beauty of historical fiction.  The purpose of this genre is to tell the story of history by using fiction while incorporating factual elements.  The main goal is to tell a story, not make the historical details exact.  There has to be truth to some of the historical pieces, but the extent of how many details must be included and how accurate those details must be is left to the discretion of the writer.  Braveheart is a film piece of historical fiction because the movie tells the story of William Wallace with the use of fact and fiction.  By comparing the movie to the actual history of Wallace, one can understand that the movie succssfully told the story of him although all the historical events of his are not portrayed with complete facts. 

 

WORKS CITED

Braveheart.  Dir.  Mel Gibson.  Perf.  Mel Gibson.  Paramount Pictures, 1996.

Gray, D.J.  William Wallace:  The King’s Enemy.  London:  R. Hale, 1991.

Mackay, James A.. (James Alexander).  William Wallace:   Brave Heart.  Edinburgh:  Mainstream

            Publishing Co.,  1996.

Morton, Graeme.  William Wallace:  Man and Myth.  Stroud:  Sutton, 2001.

Reese, Peter.  Wallace:  A Biography.  Edinburgh:  Canongate, 1996.

*Term Project included submission of a PowerPoint presentation & a Table of Scottish Kings, which could not be reproduced on this web page. ~ Cora Agatucci

© 2003, Held by student [Ca.D.]
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Christine Dilworth
ENG 339 - Literary Genres
Term Project
June 11, 2003

Study Guide and Critical Introduction—A Bildungsroman and its Link to Postcolonialism
in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Novel Nervous Conditions

Works Cited

© 2003, Christine Dilworth
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© 2003, Tanya Earp
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© 2003, Amber Kinzer [Anderson]
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© 2003, Adam Lapierre
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© 2003, Lisa Lazarescu
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© 2003, Jan Vrbata
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