Dress As Metaphor in Diasporic Fiction
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Dress as Metaphor in Diasporic Fiction YASMIN BEGUM A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Greenwich for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy January 2018 DECLARATION I certify that the work contained in this thesis, or any part of it, has not been accepted in substance for any previous degree awarded to me, and is not concurrently being submitted for any degree other than that of Doctor of Philosophy being studied at the University of Greenwich. I also declare that this work is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise identified by references and that the contents are not the outcome of any form of research misconduct. Yasmin Begum …………………………. 4th June 2018 Dr Justine Baillie ………………………….. 4th June 2018 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Faculty of Architecture, Computing and Humanities colleagues at the University of Greenwich for their support. I am indebted to Dr Justine Baillie whose continued encouragement I am grateful. My thanks especially to Mon, Sulaiman and Ishaq whose love and attention I cherish. Finally, this thesis is dedicated to the memory of my father who taught me to think beyond gender and whose kind and wise words ground and inspire me. iii ABSTRACT This thesis examines the significance of dress in literary constructions of gendered, especially female, diasporic identities and examines patterns of dressing as strategies that allow for engagement with a grander narrative that takes into consideration history and politics, mapped through changes in dress, during and post colonisation. The thesis is primarily concerned with the metaphorical uses of dress in literary, political and cultural discourses. More broadly, the thesis is concerned with how shifts in style, as presented in literature, reflect and inform transitions in social structures in South Asia, and its diasporic communities, in the aftermath of colonialism and in the contemporary context of transnationalism. Writers examined span the colonial period to the twenty-first century and are drawn from a broad geographical range; their texts inform an understanding of dressing patterns as politically, socially and historically constructed across time, geography and literature. I first establish a theoretical framework with which to explore the contexts for modes of dressing and their literary and cultural representation. Chapter one provides a history of South Asian dress to illustrate how the notion of cultural authenticity is problematised through an understanding of centuries of exchange and the hybrid forms of colonial encounters. In subsequent chapters, I examine the work of Santha Rama Rau, in particular her memoir Home to India (1945), and the dilemma in articulating Indian identity. Attia Hosain’s Sunlight on a Broken Column (1961) reveals an emerging, modernist feminism at the juncture of Indian independence. Chapters four and five focus on diasporic communities in Monica Ali’s Brick Lane (2003) and Nadeem Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers (2004) and representations of conflict, identity and dress. Finally, Kamila Shamsie’s novels are considered in chapter six as contributions to a world literature that attempts to transcend the enduring colonial legacy of constructed and debilitating nationalisms. iv CONTENTS List of Figures vi Timeline vii Maps of South Asia viii Abbreviations ix Frontispiece x Introduction: perspectives and context 1 Chapter one: Dress in South Asia: viewpoints and frameworks 39 Chapter two: Tradition and Authenticity: Santha Rama Rau’s Home to India (1945) 78 Chapter three: Global Sentiments: Attia Hosain’s Sunlight on a Broken Column (1961) 118 Chapter four: Centre-Periphery Transgressions: Monica Ali’s Brick Lane (2003) 164 Chapter five: Divisions in Diaspora: Nadeem Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers (2004) 193 Chapter six: Memory and Transnational Utopias: Kamila Shamsie’s fiction 225 Conclusion 258 Bibliography 266 Appendix: Alexandra Shulman correspondence 285 v List of Figures Frontispiece: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Beloved (1866) Fig. 1: The “Dreadnought” Hoax participants (1910). Fig. 2: Mughal Dress: Portraits of Sovereigns and ladies. Fig. 3: Nivi style: Mistress and pupils, Government Normal School, Bombay. Fig. 4: The Art of Saree Wearing. Fig. 5: Jyananda Nandini Devi. Fig. 6: Hindu girl from Sindh (1870). Fig. 7: Princess Sudhira of Cooch Behar in Nivi style sari (1910). Fig. 8: Princess Sudhira of Cooch Behar in European dress (1910). Fig. 9: ‘Origin of Species’, The Indian Charivari (1874). Fig. 10: Taken from Indian Pictures drawn with Pen and Pencil (1891). Fig. 11: An image of a ‘baboo’, The Indian Charivari (1873). Fig. 12: ‘Baboo Jabberjee B.A.’, Punch (1895). Fig. 13: Santha Rama Rau, The Adventuress (1971). Fig. 14: Gandhi in London (1931). Fig. 15: Attia Hosain on her wedding day (1933). Fig. 16: Attia Hosain with Mulk Raj Anand (1940). Fig. 17: Letter from Mountbatten to Prime Minister Clement Attlee (1946). Fig. 18: Nehru, in a portrait gifted to Pamela Mountbatten (1948). Fig. 19: Jinnah, in a portrait in Lincoln’s Inn (1965). vi Timeline 1600 East India Company is formed by British Royal Charter. 1772 Ram Mohan Roy born (d. 1833). Calcutta established as British capital in India. 1828 Ram Mohan Roy founds the Brahmo Sabha movement to initiate socio- religious reform. 1835 Macaulay’s Minute on Education Act passed. English is made official government and court language. 1857 Sepoy Mutiny/Great Indian Mutiny is the first major Indian revolt. 1858 The British government takes over the governance of India in the name of the Crown from the East India Company. 1861 Rabindranath Tagore born (d. 1941). 1869 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi born (d. 1948). 1885 Indian National Congress established. 1889 Jawaharlal Nehru is born (d. 1964). 1905 First Partition of Bengal strongly opposed. Boycott of British goods initiated in Swadeshi movement. 1906 Muslim League political party formed. 1913 Rabindranath Tagore wins Nobel Prize in Literature. Attia Hosain born (d. 1998). 1919 Jallianwala Bagh (‘Amritsar’) massacre. Gandhi demands full independence from British rule. 1923 Santha Rama Rau born (d. 2009). 1939 World War Two breaks out. 1940 Muslim League calls for the creation of Pakistan. 1945 United States drops nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. World War Two ends. Home to India published. 1947 India gains independence on 15 August and Britain exits India. Partition of country into India and Pakistan. 1961 Sunlight on a Broken Column published. 1966 Nadeem Aslam born. 1967 Monica Ali born. 1971 Civil war after East Pakistan demands autonomy. Bangladesh created out of former East Pakistan. 1973 Kamila Shamsie born. 1978 General Zia-ul-Haq sworn in as President. 1979 Hudood Ordinance enacted. 2001 Terrorist attack in the United States of America by Al-Qaeda. 2003 Brick Lane published. 2004 Maps for Lost Lovers published. 2006 Kartography published. 2009 Sheikh Hasina Wazed of the Bangladesh Awami League secures a second term as Prime Minister. Sheikh Hasina was the first woman Prime Minister from 1996 to 2001. Burnt Shadows published. 2014 A growing tide of Hindu nationalism sees Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party, (BJP) sworn in as Prime Minister. 2017 Shahid Khaqan Abbasi of the Pakistan Muslim League becomes Prime Minister. vii Maps of South Asia viii Abbreviations Home to India - HI Sunlight on a Broken Column - SBC Phoenix Fled - PF Distant Traveller - DT Brick Lane - BL Maps for Lost Lovers - MLL In the City by the Sea - CS Salt and Saffron - SS Kartography - K Broken Verses - BV Burnt Shadows - BS References to primary texts will be given in parenthesis in the main body of the thesis, using the above abbreviations followed by page numbers. ix Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Beloved (1866) x Introduction: perspectives and context The frontispiece, Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s The Beloved (1866), is illustrative of the intersections of gender, ethnicity and dress that are the concerns of this thesis. Returning the male gaze of her beloved, the bride’s luminous beauty finds relief against the racial ambiguity of the bridesmaids and the sexual ambiguity of the black page. The painting’s biblical inscription, taken from The Song of Solomon, ‘she shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework’, provides the source of Rossetti’s inspiration and indicates the significance of dress. In dressing King Solomon’s bride in Japanese kimono fabric and Peruvian headdress, Rossetti presents the female figure as ‘other’ whilst simultaneously representing her western beauty.1 Dress, here, becomes metaphorical for beauty, sexuality and colonial conquest rather than merely visible and universal ornamentation. The painting is an illustration of reciprocal cultural exchange in patterns of dress and the images they create. Dress has metaphorical significance in the construction of gendered identities that are historically, socially and politically informed. Traversing time, religious and geographical borders, modes of dress constitute a performative function in negotiations of authenticity, patriarchy and nationalisms. 1 Jan Marsh notes ‘the growth of an influential if specious discourse on “race classification” in the Western world whereby racial difference was systematically promoted to justify European superiority, through a descending chain of proclaimed perfection that placed the European “race” at the pinnacle and the African as lowest on the evolutionary scale. The inclusion of the finely painted child, and indeed, the global play of racial references