"The Reception" by Maria Barrett

Résumé du document

This is an extract from Dishonored written by Maria Barrett in 1996. Thanks to the title "Reception", we can know at the first sight that this text relates an invitation and a kind of meeting. This story deals with relationships and reactions between the different characters and reveals the situation of India during the 19th century. In the first part, I will talk about the established hierarchy; indeed, we can underline some elements that show the orderliness context. Then I will tackle the provocative criticism and the flaws of the hierarchy.

So, first of all, I will explain how the various behaviors of The Colonel Mills, Mrs Mills and Indrajit Rai manifest the established hierarchy that was organized in India and in the United Kingdom during the 19th century. There are two different kinds of domination showed by their behaviors, first the submission of the Indians to the British because of the colonization and then the submission of the women to the men during the Victorian era.

Extraits

[...] So all his acts aim at show how many respectful he is toward them and he tells it line fifteen "How good of you to come; you do a great honor to me and my family". The repetition of the notion of honor when he introduces his son reveals clearly his feelings. From my point of view, he is really sincere with the colonel really, he respects him, he wants to make a good impression on the colonel and the striking example is line twenty nine when "he had begun to sweat anxiously". [...]

[...] "The Reception" by Maria Barrett The text that I have to present is an extract from Dishonored written by Maria Barrett in 1996. Thanks to the title "Reception", we can know at the first sight that this text relates an invitation and a kind of meeting. This story deals with relationships and reactions between the different characters and reveals thanks to them the situation of India during the 19th century. In a first part, I will talk about the established hierarchy; indeed, we can underline some elements that show the orderliness context. [...]

[...] We can also take the example of the incitement that he shows when he "keeps his hand extended even though it was ignored" line twenty-three in order to reveal to everybody who was around that the colonel was refusing his attempt for approach. These examples were just inconspicuous manifestations of his refusal. When he expresses really what he thinks about colonization of India, he is not conscious that the colonel, his father and all the guests are able to listen to him. In his opinion, Indian had too much internalized their submissive position and they should rebel to rise up against British. From his point of view, British domination doesn't make people of India happy and should be contested and destroyed. [...]

[...] Indeed, the colonel, with his behavior, well represents attitude of British towards Indians. Moreover, in fact, the one's attitude define how do the others had to cringe. We can see how superior he feels and how scornful he is line sixteen when he doesn't even reply to his host and above all because he doesn't even look at him as if he wasn't face to him, as if he doesn't exist at all. According to his reaction when Jagat "held out his hand and looked directly" at him line twenty-one, we can conclude that he is really attached to the forms and traditional hierarchical relations with Indians what shows how narrow-minded he is. [...]

[...] They had just to go unnoticed and that was all. They were as an accessory indispensable for a british officer during his business trip but useless at the same time. II. A provocative criticism The behaviors of the three first characters that I talked about, show firstly how hierarchical were the relations between British and Indians and secondly the order established between them. At the contrary, the comportment of Jagat, the maharajah's son runs counter to this order. He is totally against this hierarchy and those one who represent it. [...]