Description
This book interrogates and historicises eighteenth-century British women writers’ responses to India through the novel and travel writing to bring out the polyvalent space arising out of their complex negotiation with the colonial discourse.
Though British women enjoyed their privileged racial status as the utilisers of colonial riches, they articulated their voice of dissent when they faced the politics of subordination in their own society and identified them with the marginalised status of the colonised Indians. This brings out the complicity and critique of the colonial discourse of British women writers and foregrounds their ambivalent responses to the colonial project.
This book provides detailed textual analysis of the works of Phebe Gibbes, Elizabeth Hamilton, Lady Morgan, Jemima Kindersley and Eliza Fay through critical insights from the idea of the Enlightenment, postcolonial theory and feminist thought. It also foregrounds new perspectives to colonial discourse vis-à-vis the representation of India by locating the dialogic strain within the British narratives about India.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1 British Women Writers and India Vis-à-Vis the Context of the Enlightenment
Chapter 2 "Enchanting Quarter of the Globe": Representation of India in Phebe Gibbes’s Hartly House, Calcutta
Chapter 3 "A Presumptuous Effort": Representation of India in Translations of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah
Chapter 4 "My Indian Venture": Representation of India in Lady Morgan’s The Missionary: An Indian Tale
Chapter 5 Mapping the Gaze of the British Women Travellers: Representation of India in Jemima Kindersley and Eliza Fay
Conclusion
