Which India is it?

By: Yocelin De Lira

From all the plates, plate 14 “Coaduwar Gaut” fits the description of Dean Mahomet’s India the best. Dean Mahommet depicts the beauty of India in such paradise, yet he also depicts the ugly truth of India as well. The ugly truth of India is at the state of war. He begins his depiction of the beauty of India with his open admiration of India, “ The garden beautifully diversified with the gayest flower disfussing their fragrance on the blossom, their fragrance on the blossom of the air” (79). By depicting the blossom of the flower he is describing and hiniting to the rebirth of India. He is referencing the blossom of the future of India. However the current state of India is not the exact paradise he is trying to sell, which Dean Mahomet is aware and admits to the current state of India. He admits the ugly truth of war struck India, which has led to India full of famished and starvation. He admits this, through his own personal accounts of India. He begins to admit the reality of India through his letter as he depicts his earlier life. He depicts the famish due to drought.  He depicts this in the following quote, “ I remember to have seen numbers perish by family and want of rain, dried up the land and all the fruits of the earth decayed without moisture.” (44).  Coaduwar Gauts illustrates the dryness of the air the most. The mixture of yellow and bluish sky gives off the feeling of dryness. The color of the leaves seems dry and overall the whole paint gives off the climate of hot and dry. Which I believe fits the description of Dean Mahomet’s description of India’s climate. The tent in the middle of the picture can be seen as a guard post and the people sound can be assumed as soldiers which fits the war-stricken India Mahomet depicted. 

Silver Lining

Arlyne Gonzalez

Dean Mahomet critiques war-torn India, emphasizing the cities and their destruction following the war. Mahomet mentions his marches through several cities, noticing their “salubrious air, fascinating landscapes, and innocence of its inhabitants” (79). Mahomet is immersed in the beauty and tranquility that India encompassed before the consequences of the war. Throughout his letters, Mahomet adopts a positive attitude and that is projected by the imagery he describes in letter 1: “The people of India…are favoured of all that can cheer the mind and allure the eye…finely drawn by the pencil of Milton…the garden beautifully diversified with the gayest flowers diffusing their fragrance on the bosom of the air…the bowels of the earth enriched with mines of gold and diamonds”. Mahomet is embracing the beauty of India, as an attempt to erase the horrid ruins that demolished India’s landscapes. The deliberate allusion to John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” was Mahomet saying that the ravages of the war did cause India to lose its paradise-like landscapes, however, Mahomet adopts an optimistic outlook and dwells on a utopia. With that being said, the painting, “Coaduwar Gaut” by Thomas and William Daniell successfully depicts Mahomet’s description of India. In other words, Mahomet mentions that the people of India can be cheered up when they set their eyes on something beautiful. The painting encompasses a display of nature, from giant trees to green hills. The painting projects a peaceful and welcoming ambiance. The painting’s atmosphere reiterates Mahomet’s assertion of how the people of India “are favoured of all that can cheer the mind and allure the eye” (Letter I). In other words, Mahomet wanted to fixate on India’s landscape as a way to forget the ravages of war and keep in memory how India was previously. Mahomet is highlighting how much power nature can hold over man-made wars and by further observation, the painting is consumed by giant trees and green rolling hills. The trees are bigger than the people. In other words, it can be argued that Mahomet carries the notion that people are insignificant and small when it comes to nature. Also, in the painting, people are sitting underneath a giant tree, it appears the tree’s branch is sheltering them. This also entails how nature does not need people, but rather people need nature as a reminder that there is beauty in the world, even after wars because nature is inevitable. Mahomet is glamorizing a utopian paradise to encourage the people of India to adopt a positive attitude, because eventually there is a silver lining after a horrid occurrence, in this case, war.

Destroying the Landscape of India (War)

Dean Mahomet criticizes war through his prose descriptions of war-torn India, marking the serenity cities and places have prior to war, and the destruction and sadness they feel following war. Mahomet’s short elegy, the apostrophe to “destructive war” in which he describes the atrocities of war and their repercussions on the people they effect is subtly remarked about even before the apostrophe occurs in the text. Mahomet details his march through several cities, marking their “salubrious air, fascinating landscapes, and innocence of its inhabitants” (79), the delightful country and climate of Alahabad (85), and Oude, the “place of constant resort” (88). He uses positive imagery to highlight the beauty and peacefulness of India before the ravages of war, something that is made evident by the immediate atrocities that befall Mahomet and his regiment post-eden description. Mahomet notes in the very next letter how his army engaged with another and after several had been slain, his general returned with a prisoner, raped her, killed her, and then died himself from festering wounds (90). This marks a turn in Mahomet’s novel; his landscapes of a serene India become scarcer and scarcer, and Mahomet remarks that in writing about the landscapes and events that happen before him are “such an awful scene forms a subject for the pencil of the most sublime artists” (113). Mahomet contrasts the beauty and peace of India pre-war with the “desolation” and “ruffian violence” (123) to critique war and its effects on the landscape of India. War destroys the landscape of India, wasting it with a ruthless hand.

There is Chaos in War

War is considered to be a destructive mechanism. This open warfare mechanism is an invitation to a period of revolution and, synonymously, chaos.  This is due to the negative impacts it has on the soldiers involved, the civilians that are observing, and the land that is mutilated.

There is much trauma that rises from warfare. The way I see it, there is much trauma to be observed from the people involved: the victims, and the offenders. The victims – those who come out wounded, tortured, raped, a witness to awful moments. And the offenders – the torturers, the rapists, the ones that inflict the pain making awful moments. In the novel The Travels of Dean Mahomet the narrator recounts his travels through territories as an officer in the British East’s army. Sake Dean Mohamet expresses a series of observations for why war leads “whole Empires to the grave.”

Dean Mohamet notes in his narrative the grand burial of “the gallant Captain Gravely” in chapter XX. It was just a few short lines at the end of the chapter, though I feel as if it captured what the good Dean meant by his thoughtful observation of war leading Empires to the grave. The narration goes as follows:

“Seapoys were killed.”

Captain Gravely was killed.

The Captain had a rather graceful funeral.

And the town of Lecknow is then considered.

And then the “military force” is thrust in the readers face.

During this consideration, the town is painted to be thriving and full of life. When I closed my eyes and pictured the town of Lecknow, figures were dancing, a market was found along the streets, industrial buildings and companies flourished. Somewhere the militia of sorts comes casually strolling through the town with their weapons of choice, “fire-locks, bows and arrows, spears, daggers, swords, and shields.” This scene effectively reflects the beauty of a well developed Empire, and then promptly reflects the invasive nature that is war. When the militia invades, there are expectations of war. And when war occurs, chaos is born. After the dust clears up, a soldier can look around, and the once beautiful Empire is no longer recognizable.

War in Everything

Looking specifically at Sake Dean Mohamet’s Letter XXXIV for as the main focus for understanding his sentiments towards war and war-torn Indian landscapes it can be inferred why he believes war can lead “whole Empires to the grave?” (123). Taking into consideration the passages leading up to his inclusion of the poem we the readers are immediately drawn to images of war within Gochipour (or Ghazipur) and the little village of Bellua “where the motley crew were assembled within a small mud fort, seemingly determined to maintain an obstinate defence” (122). Here, the reader is given a tiny sliver of information of the opposing side of war, but at the same time we can see complications arise in terms of how the opposing side is perceived as “an undisciplined rabble” (122). Said complications can be assumed by the way in which Sake Dean Mahomet explains the encounter as “After withstanding the fire of our musquetry with a degree of courage not to be expected” and the remaining men “sent Deputies to the Captain, requesting a cessation of hostilities, which he granted on receiving the most solemn assurances, that they would peaceably return to their respective employments” (122). The composition of this passage in particular says much not only about Sake Dean Mohamet’s loyalty for his Captain but also calls into question his sentiment towards the men from areas around and in India despite their status as opposing forces. When brought back to the context of the poem and its relation to what he asserts with the phrase that war leads “whole Empires to the grave” it can become more transparent that his reason for perceiving this is deeply rooted with the first lines of the poem. “Alas! Destructive war with ruthless hand/ Unbinds each fond connection, tender tie/ And tears from friendship’s bosom all that’s dear” here we can see the tensions of war stem more from knowing your enemy was once a friend which can potentially be the reason that Sake Dean Mohamet feels that war takes everything to the death, since it destroys lives, relations, and friendships regardless of the side you find yourself on.

 

 

Telescoping Artist into Audience: a Pilgrimage for the Dead

The literature covered thus far involves a blurring of the diegetic world that confounds the writer with her/his readership due to sociological restrictions and political manifestations that dominate the contexts from which each writer speaks. In #PittsandOrientalism, Pitts’ reader- an imagined, British merchant or conqueror, is affected by the listing of material life; food, language, & customs are transcribed by the author, for the audience. Pitts continues his account, as we read in #TurningTurk, and transcends from observer to participant as the “dileels” took “us” to the Mecca pilgrimage. Note that our present-day reader is disappointed by Pitts’ discrimination and Orientalism, and yet, intrigued by his self-determined transformation into Turk; this signifies our own insertion of present day issues of classism, sexism, etc. into the same narrative that existed in these writers’ ontological re-contextualizations of a foreign society.

Let us compare the #OttomanMuslimWomen & #FemaleReproduction notions of Lady Mary Montagu’s Turkish Embassy Letters in which the author interprets her surroundings while wearing the lens of British subjugation. She foreshadows a Hellenistic ideal in her embellishment of Latin inscriptions; she expresses a longing for a European painter to capture the scenes that occur in this exotic expedition. The post on #GreekHellenism likens Lady Mary to a Lord Byron in that both authors signify the glory of ancient Greece. In response to the student post entitled, “Symbiosis: Trading Children for a Life of Ease,” an attack against the student was not only made to describe a misinformed reader, but also a solution to the problem of the discriminatory author was found. Present-day readership resonates a contempt for the derogatory descriptions by Lady Mary about the dress of the women, about the languidity of the Turks, and this becomes romanticized in Lord Byron’s love-triangle poem. Our class accepted the notion of the characters signifying a Hellenistic poetry in which  Hassan, Leila, and The Giaour each represent the Ottoman empire, ancient Greece, and European civilization, respectively. The reader himself becomes part of this style of poetry, and this is where I coined the term, “love parallelogram” to signify a geometric representation of audience participation. The rhombus is a form of parallelogram indicating a multidimensionality evident in “The Giaour” through the multi-narrators; this ultimately invites the reader to formulate a critical understanding of the story’s conflict. A misinformed reader is thus likely to telescope the author’s narrative into a relevant affair. This brings the love triangle to a new dimension: and thus we are involved with the triangle, despite our detachment as readers who exist hundreds of years into the future. We now have power as readers who are responsible for the outcomes of our very interpretations of Orientalism, but how can we trust ourselves to fairly envision these works of literature when our own context is one plagued by systemic exploitation, sexism and elitism?

Acceptance vs. Invocation: the Implications of “Arise, and make again your own”

Both Lady Mary and the narrator of Lord Byron’s “The Gaior” lament the loss of classical Greek civilization upon visiting Greece. However, it seems that Lady Mary errs on the side of bittersweet acceptance that the civilization has passed, whereas in “The Gaiour,” it is clear the narrator is not quite ready to move on and accept that the antiquity he so loves is “living Greece no more” with the same “quixotic” grace as Lady Mary (line 91). Though Lady Mary is “infected by the poetical air” and “admired the exact geography of Homer,” Lady Mary also admits that she spent her time “as ever Don Quixote had on Mount Montesinos,” understanding that she was admiring something that was no longer there. She laments, “Alas! Art is extinct here!” but it still appears that she took great pleasure in seeing the sights around her. While the world of Homer is extinct, it seems (as we discussed in class) that Lady Mary perhaps only nominally blames the Ottomans for the end of classical Greece and accepts the natural rise and fall of empire.

In “The Gaiour,” the narrator also laments the loss of ancient Greece. Greece is feminized, and lamented as if it were a beautiful, dead, young woman. The metaphor is extended to include a detailed description of the physicality of death. It is much more dramatic than Lady Mary’s “Art is extinct here!” but it is generally still a profound lament for the loss of classical Greece. Lady Mary and the narrator divert when the narrator’s invocation for “These scenes—their story not unknown–/ Arise, and make again your own” (line 114-115). While Lady Mary has accepted the fall of classical Greece, the narrator of “The Gaiour” is issuing an invocation for the heroes of Greek antiquity to rise from the “loveliness of death” and “attest it many a deathless age” (lines 94, 127). While it could be argued this is more drama, it is alarming to me because we are aware that Byron actually joined the Greek uprising, possibly to fulfill some prophetic attempt to revive the classical Greek hero he mentions at the poem’s beginning. This invocation isn’t innocent like Lady Mary’s lamentation is, but rather a call to arms against present day Ottomans, who at the name of fallen Greek heroes in such an epic battle will “quake to hear” (120). I believe that Byron identifies with Greek antiquity (in a way that Lady Mary doesn’t) and probably considers them European, whereby the Ottomans are the evil “other” that aided in “each step from splendour to disgrace” (137). It is in this way that we can discuss Byron’s work as orientalist.