Copyright by Miriam Rafia Murtuza 2010
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Copyright by Miriam Rafia Murtuza 2010 The Dissertation Committee for Miriam Rafia Murtuza certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: "Play Up, Play Up, and Play the Game": Public Schools and Imperialism in British and South Asian Diasporic Literature Committee: ____________________________________ Mia Carter, Co-supervisor ____________________________________ Barbara Harlow, Co-supervisor ____________________________________ Kamran Ali ____________________________________ Linda Ferreira-Buckley ____________________________________ Syed Akbar Hyder ____________________________________ Gail Minault "Play Up, Play Up, and Play the Game": Public Schools and Imperialism in British and South Asian Diasporic Literature by Miriam Rafia Murtuza, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2010 Acknowlegements The road I have traveled while researching and writing this dissertation has been long and bumpy. Accordingly, this project would never have reached completion had it not been for the liberal assistance of a legion of people, only a fraction of whom I have room to mention here. First, I would like to express my gratitude to my dissertation supervisors, Mia Carter and Barbara Harlow, who kindly took me under their wings more than a decade ago and who have profoundly shaped my worldview as a scholar and a citizen. I would also like to thank my dissertation committee members—Kamran Ali, Linda Ferreira-Buckley, Syed Akbar Hyder, and Gail Minault—for their generosity in sharing their time and expertise. I have appreciated the understanding of Wayne Lesser, the Graduate Advisor of the English Department. Everyone at my workplace, St. Stephen's Episcopal School, has been wonderfully supportive of my doctoral endeavors, for which I am grateful. Numerous friends have aided me in myriad ways over the years, from babysitting my children to reading my drafts. In particular, I would like to thank Colleen Hynes, Jeanette Herman, Virginia Raymond, Jodi Edgerton, and Clea Bunch, who have functioned variously as my editors, cheerleaders, and counselors. My parents have provided unflagging support, both intellectual and emotional, for which I cannot thank them enough. Finally, my husband, son, and daughter have been unbelievably patient and encouraging; my debt to them can never be repaid. iv "Play Up, Play Up, and Play the Game": Public Schools and Imperialism in British and South Asian Diasporic Literature Miriam Rafia Murtuza, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2010 Supervisors: Mia Carter and Barbara Harlow This dissertation examines literary representations of the intersection between British imperialism and British and British-modeled public schools. I categorize British writers who have addressed this nexus in their literary works into two groups, idealists and realists, based on their views of British public schools, imperialism, and the effectiveness of the former in sustaining the latter. I present two examples of idealists, Henry Newbolt and the contributors to the Boy's Own Paper, followed by two examples of realists, Rudyard Kipling and E. M. Forster, who have often been viewed as opposites. I then provide an example of a South-Asian diasporic realist, Selvaduari, who builds upon the critiques of British realists by revealing the contemporary offspring of the marriage between British public schools and imperialism. By analyzing works by idealist and realist authors, I demonstrate the importance of public schools and school literature in promoting and sustaining as well as critiquing and condemning imperialism. v Table of Contents Introduction Should "A Pack of British Boys … Have Been Able To Put Up a Better Show"?: The Idealists and Realists of Imperial School Literature………………………………….1 Thomas Arnold, Thomas Hughes, and Tom Brown: The Nascence of Imperial School Literature, Muscular Christianity, and Idealism……………………………………………………………………...13 Contexts and Genealogies of Imperial School Literature………………………..22 Criticism and Interventions………………………………………………………40 Overview of Chapters……………………………………………………………45 Chapter One "The Voice of a Schoolboy Rallies the Ranks": The Idealism of Henry Newbolt…………………………………………………………50 "Homo newboltiensis or Newbolt Man" and Newbolt, the Man………………...56 "The Best School of All": The "Streetwalking" of Public-School Ideals……..…63 "Clifton Chapel": The Idealists' Creed…………………………………………...66 "An Essay on Criticism": A Dialogue with Kipling……………………………..71 "As If They Were Children's Games": A Twinge of Realism………………...…81 Chapter Two "A Boy's Own Creed": The Idealism of the Religious Tract Society's The Boy's Own Paper…………………...85 An Overview of The Boy's Own Paper…………………………………………..91 The Religious Tract Society and "Christian Tone"………………………………95 Advertisements, Competitions, and the Readership of The Boy's Own Paper…………………………………………………………...100 vi "Play up, Play up, and Do Your Bit," or "We Are Praying for That Glorious Time When All Men Will Play 'Cricket'"……………………….104 "A Victim of the Thugs": The Idealists' Imperial Anxiety……………………..111 "Look to It, Boys of England": The Intrusion of Realism into The Boy's Own Paper…………………………..119 Chapter Three "The Flannelled Fools at the Wicket [and] the Muddied Oafs at the Goals": The Realism of Rudyard Kipling……………………………………………………….130 "Ten Years at an English Public School Do Not Encourage Dreaming": Education, Emotion, Imagination, and Romance in Kipling's "The Brushwood Boy"………………………………………………………….141 We've Got to Get into the Army or—Get Out. … All the Rest's Flumdiddle": Education and Realism in Kipling's Stalky & Co……………………………….148 "The Best Schooling a Boy Can Get in India": Alternative Education in Kipling's Kim………………………………………...165 Chapter Four "Well-developed Bodies, Fairly Developed Minds, and Undeveloped Hearts": The Realism of E. M. Forster…………………………………………………………...188 "With a Bible in One Hand, a Pistol in the Other, and Financial Concessions in Both Pockets": Forster's "Notes on the English Character"……………………………………..195 "Boys Can't Love the School When They Hate Each Other": Forster's The Longest Journey………………………………………………….201 "All England Were Closing Round the Wickets": Forster's Maurice…………..204 "Turtons and Burtons": Forster's Passage to India……………………………..213 vii Chapter Five "The Best School of All," Reprised: The Realism of Shyam Selvadurai…….………...235 Selvadurai "Introduc[es Him]self in the Diaspora"…………………………….235 Contexts and Criticisms………………………………………………………...238 The Education of a "Funny Boy"……………………………………………….240 "Black Tie's Bad Side," or "The Future Ills and Burdens of Sri Lanka"……….247 "The Best School of All," Reprised, or "This Fellow Really Loved School"…………………………………………....251 A Genealogy of Ethnic Genocide, or "Prize-Giving" in Sri Lanka…………….258 "How to Play the Game," or Love in a Time of Ethnic Nationalism…………...261 Conclusion "Dangerous Books" for Boys and Girls?: Idealist Literature's Twenty-first Century Comeback…………………………………..271 Appendix A Selected Poems of Henry Newbolt……………………………………………………..283 "Vitaï Lampada"………………………………………………………………..283 "Clifton Chapel"….…………………………………….…………………….…285 "An Essay on Criticism".…..……………..………………………….…………286 Appendix B Rudyard Kipling's "The Islanders"……….…………………………………………….290 Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………293 Vita………………………………………………………………………………...…...315 viii Introduction Should "A Pack of British Boys … Have Been Able To Put Up a Better Show"?: The Idealists and Realists of Imperial School Literature Perhaps undeservingly, I consider myself an expert on William Golding's Lord of the Flies (1954); I have not studied the novel in a graduate-level course, nor have I devoted a chapter to it in my dissertation, but I have taught the novel twenty-seven times to a total of nearly five hundred eighth-grade students over the course of my twelve years as a middle-school teacher. Indeed, I view the book an old and trusted friend, for I can rely on it to propel even the most concrete-thinking students to a higher level of understanding of abstract literary concepts, especially symbolism, theme, and irony. Given my perceived intimacy with Lord of the Flies, I was surprised to find upon returning to it after a seven-year hiatus while I was in graduate school that I saw the novel in a new light. During the first eight years that I had taught the novel, I possessed only a moderate knowledge of the history of the British Empire and little familiarity with British public schools; hence I had failed to realize that at a time when the British Empire was collapsing, Golding had made a stinging critique of the authoritarian and imperialistic mindset inculcated by British public schools. Golding had understood in the 1950s what my graduate work had taught me fifty years later, namely that British public schools were intimately connected to the British Empire. While lamenting the savagery lurking within all humans, Golding also critiques the savage tendencies of authoritarianism and violence that British public and grammar schools foster. Like his father, Golding taught at a grammar school, and because such 1 schools modeled themselves upon British public schools,1 Golding would have been well acquainted with the public-school ethos. The character Jack had held higher positions of authority—as head boy (head of the prefects) and head chorister—at his public school than any other boy on the island,