International Journal of Research and Review www.ijrrjournal.com E-ISSN: 2349-9788; P-ISSN: 2454-2237

Research Paper

History and Memory in J. G. Farrell's The of Krishnapur

Sarah Zaré Farjoodi

Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Humanities, University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran

ABSTRACT

Unlike most Victorian novels in which the colonies and colonial matters are kept in the background, J. G. Farrell's , as the title suggests, brings the colonial affair to the fore and depicts the minutiae of an event in Victorian imperial history that brought about lasting anxieties, namely the 'Indian Mutiny' of 1857. Following Astrid Erll‟s study on the event as a shared lieu de mémoire, this essay examines the ways through which the text offers an alternative memory narrative to the British mutiny myth. Through unreliable narration, stereotypical characterization, unsettling the long-held hierarchies, widespread disillusionment, and role reversals, Farrell aims at undermining the British faith in progress and civilization that justified imperial encroachment on Indian land.

Keywords: counter memory, disillusionment, neo-Victorianism, postcolonialism, uprising

1. INTRODUCTION combined critique and strong narrative line In an introduction to J. G. Farrell‟s [i] – the mix J. G. Farrell particularly wanted”. The Siege of Krishnapur and Troubles – the [1] The novel views the events form the two award-winning novels of his „Empire British outpost invaded by the sepoys. The Trilogy‟ [ii] – John Sutherland presents him community holds out for months until as “one of the finest post-colonial novelists finally, while retreated to the banqueting of his time”. [1] He even writes that Farrell hall and in a devastating, grotesque “was well-mixed, genetically, to be the condition, it is saved by the relieving force. obituarist of empire”. [1] Indeed, what It is mainly through the comically corroborates these claims is Farrell‟s trio of disillusioned character of the Collector, who novels pivoting around the theme of empire, believed wholeheartedly in the British on the second of which this study narrative of progress, that Farrell illustrates concentrates. The Siege of Krishnapur is the the decline of the empire. This essay outcome of Farrell‟s brooding over colonial examines Farrell‟s remarkable text as a India. Inspired by what he came across in medium of cultural memory that aims at the British Museum, namely Mark providing a counter memory to the Thornhill‟s Personal Adventures of a prevailing (imperial) narratives about the Magistrate during the Indian Mutiny, and so-called „Indian Mutiny‟. Following Astrid the Siege of , “an iconic event in Erll‟s study on the Mutiny narratives, this British imperial history”, [1] he wrote the study argues that the text does not follow story of the eponymous fictional town under their inherent ideology and, in many siege during the rebellion of 1857. respects, aims at undermining the British Sutherland writes, “The intertwining of faith in progress and civilization that Thornhill‟s personal account with the justified imperial encroachment on Indian commercial rapacities of the land.

International Journal of Research & Review (www.ijrrjournal.com) 134 Vol.5; Issue: 10; October 2018 Sarah Zaré Farjoodi. History and Memory in J. G. Farrell's the Siege of Krishnapur

2. “Indian Mutiny” and the Mutiny necessary. In this regard, the essay draws on Narrative Astrid Erll‟s selective study of these This section engages with the Indian conventions over one and a half centuries. Rebellion of 1857 and the narratives that Studying the „Indian Mutiny‟ as a later aimed at its illustration. What has been shared lieu de mémoire, [v] Astrid Erll, in her known as the “Indian Mutiny” was, indeed, essay, “Remembering across Time, Space, an uprising by the Indians against their then and Cultures: Premediation, Remediation British rulers. It broke out in , and the „Indian Mutiny‟”, relates the northern India as a rebellion of native different memories the term triggers in soldiers who were in the service of the different cultures, epochs, and media. British – i.e. sepoys – Maintaining that different images and and soon spread all over to and narratives have been associated with this Lucknow, joined by civilians, native rulers memory site, she writes: and princes that were disinherited by the For example, the Victorians, and indeed up British. What triggered the rebellion was the to the mid-twentieth century, mainstream sepoys‟ discontent at the new Enfield rifles, British culture associated the term „Indian the use of which they found in sharp Mutiny‟ with images of ferocious sepoys contrast with their religious beliefs – in raping English women, with British order to load it, they had to bite the end of cantonments on fire, with heroic Highland cartridges, which were believed to be soldiers charging into battle, and with lubricated by grease produced from animal narrative plots such as „last-minute rescue‟ fat, that of pigs and cows. [iii] It is needless and „last stand‟, „faith and delivery‟ and to say that what triggered the mutiny was „virtue rewarded‟. [3] merely a repercussion of the problems that Indeed, the person who remembers certain were much more deeply-rooted than the images of the event has to be “part of a greased cartridge issue would indicate. „media culture‟ in which representations of Indeed, the multiplicity of cultural conflicts the „Indian Mutiny‟ are constantly being reaches back to the beginning of the British circulated”. [3] Media (newspaper, literature, „colonial affair‟ in India. The rebels were movie, . . . ) play an ineluctable role in against the British policies that attempted to shaping these memories. After the uprising, change their long-held customs and beliefs. the British newspapers began reporting the They believed these policies among others „treacherous‟ event in detail, and soon aimed at destroying their religion and appeared “the atrocity stories” of rape, converting them to Christianity. Discontent treachery, massacre and mutilation. [3] grew and the cumulative effects of these Elaborating on the possible origins of these factors resulted in the uprising which, stories, Erll writes: “All of these are texts, however, was put down by the British who genres and images which an uninformed had regained power and called for relieving public resorts to in order to imagine and forces from other territories. From the make sense of an exotic and dangerous British perspective, the following atrocities reality which is barely understood”. [3] Thus, committed against the natives were justified she emphasizes the importance of as reprisals for the death of the British premediation, which is “a cultural practice residents and officers. However, in Indian of experiencing and remembering: the use history and cultural memory the events are of existent patterns and paradigms to remembered differently. [iv] Indeed, in order transform contingent events into meaningful to examine the ways the narrative of The images and narratives”. [3] Examining the Siege of Krishnapur could possibly be historical accounts of the period which regarded as revisionist, acquiring appeared right after the outbreak of the knowledge about the conventions of what rebellion, she concludes that along with are known as „the mutiny narratives‟ seems newspaper accounts, they provided the

International Journal of Research & Review (www.ijrrjournal.com) 135 Vol.5; Issue: 10; October 2018 Sarah Zaré Farjoodi. History and Memory in J. G. Farrell's the Siege of Krishnapur material for the literary appropriations of the telling in that by depicting his (colonial) event. What is known today as the “British „gaze‟ and then marking it as (ridiculously) Mutiny writing” has its roots mainly in the wrong, the novel establishes its aim at latter part of the nineteenth century, engaging with the theme of empire. To the manifested in the period‟s “most prominent traveler‟s eyes, it is “surprising” that the literary genre”, the novel. [3] It flourished “dreary ocean of bald earth” surrounding the during the 1880s and 1890s with works like walls “is not quite deserted, as one might G. A. Henty‟s In Times of Peril (1881) and expect”. [4] Albeit: Flora Annie Steel‟s On the Face of the [A]t least to the eye of a stranger, within the Waters (1897). Erll demonstrates that in limit of the horizon there does not appear to literary narratives, for instance in Henty‟s be anywhere worth walking to, unless juvenile fiction, the heroic deeds of the perhaps to that distant town he has spotted; British figures are, more often than not, one part looks quite as good as another. But made bold and celebrated. Such a mode of if you look closely and shield your eyes remembering is “clearly meant to instil from the glare you will make out tiny imperialist values and norms in its young villages here and there, difficult to see readers”. [3] Conversely, British jingoism because they are made of the same mud as and glorified heroic actions have no place in the plain they came from; and no doubt they the Indian memory culture, specifically after melt back into it again during the rainy the Indian independence of 1947. What season, for there is no lime in these parts, no follows is an attempt at reading Farrell‟s clay or shale that you can burn into bricks, The Siege of Krishnapur with regards to the no substance hard enough to resist the aforementioned conventions of the British seasons over the years. [4] Mutiny myth. In other words, this study Therefore, since there seems to be asks how these conventions find expression “nothing that a European might call in this novel. Does the text offer an civilization”, [4] he is all the more alternative memory narrative to the British determined to move towards the white Mutiny myth? To what extent could the text walls. However, to his utter consternation, be considered revisionist? Needless to say, those bricks that are “undoubtedly an this study considers the text as a medium of essential ingredient of civilization; one gets cultural memory. nowhere at all without them”, [4] turn out, as 3. The Siege he gets closer, to be surrounding another The novel opens with a third-person „city‟, a deserted ancient cemetery – “one of narrator depicting the outskirts of the those . . . that are called „Cities of the Silent‟ fictional town of Krishnapur towards which . . . in northern India”. [4] The narrator then a supposed traveler is heading: “Anyone explicitly draws on the similarities between who has never before visited Krishnapur, the two „cities‟ by stressing that though and who approaches from the east, is likely Krishnapur was once an important center to to think he has reached the end of his a large district, in which the company‟s journey a few miles sooner than he representatives led a lavish life, it lost its expected”. [4] The narrator follows: “While importance and now “a visitor might well still some distance from Krishnapur he find himself reminded of the „City of the begins to ascend a shallow ridge. From here Silent‟ he had passed on his way to he will see what appears to be a town in the Krishnapur”. [4] The rest of the novel heat-distorted distance. He will see the illustrates the trouble that set in “towards white glitter of walls and roofs and a the end of February 1857”. [4] The putative handsome grove of trees, perhaps even the hero of the novel, the Collector, is the only dome of what might be a temple”. [4] Indeed, person in the Residency to detect signs of an the way this stranger focalizer‟s account is impending threat, when he finds piles of treated in the following paragraphs is very chapattis [vi] arrayed at different corners of

International Journal of Research & Review (www.ijrrjournal.com) 136 Vol.5; Issue: 10; October 2018 Sarah Zaré Farjoodi. History and Memory in J. G. Farrell's the Siege of Krishnapur his dwelling. The district collector in India around the Residency compound. A poet, had many responsibilities; among them George Fleury – “commissioned by the were revenue collection and cooperation Court of Directors to compose a small with the police superintendent in order to volume describing the advances that maintain order and peace. Yet in a playful civilization had made in India under the use of the term, the text also – and perhaps Company rule” [4] – and his widowed sister largely – refers to Mr. Hopkins‟ fervent Miriam, both of whom have just arrived desire for practically everything presented from England, Dr. Dunstaple (later to be in the Great Exhibition of 1851, the symbol rival to Dr. McNab), his daughter Louise of the British ideals of progress. He decides (with whom Fleury falls in love), and his to take action in order to stave off the “still son Harry (a Lieutenant) all enter hypothetical” threat. Yet again, while he is Krishnapur, where they would soon face the thinking in the hall of the Residency, the plight of the siege. The novel is replete with (already shattered) image of safety when stereotypes in its characterization of the surrounded by the “so very thick” walls „Victorian‟ residents and values: Ladies that “made of enormous numbers of the pink, are constantly worried about their clothes, wafer-like bricks of British India” is mothers that are mainly preoccupied conjured up – “you could see yourself how showing off their “nubile” daughters before thick they were”. [4] The attentive reader „potential suitors‟, balls and picnics, young knows what to expect. officers in scarlet uniforms, “vivacious The Residency holds a “fortnightly young widows” versus “girls of the most meeting of the Krishnapur Poetry Society”, respectable kind”, a “fallen woman”, the founder and the President of which is the phrases like “domestic tragedy”, “utmost Collector. In the room where the British propriety”, and “the soft and milky rabble of ladies sit – poem in hand, waiting to be womankind”. [4] Indeed, the text‟s satirical judged by Tom Willoughby, the Magistrate mimicry of the Victorian past is more – it is “hard to believe that one was in India pronounced in an argument – “conversation at all, except for the punkahs”. This time the of the most civilized sort” [4] – over the Collector thinks of items other than bricks: merits and dimensions of civilization. His eyes roamed with satisfaction Gathered in the Residency for a dinner over the walls, thickly armoured with party, Fleury, the Padre, Mr. Rayne, and the paintings in oil and water colour, with Collector find their ideas on the superiority mirrors and glass cases containing stuffed of the practical and spiritual aspects of birds and other wonders, over chairs and civilization in conflict. In fact, the text sofas upholstered in plum cretonne, over tacitly implies the way the white British showcases of minerals and a cobra floating revere themselves as God‟s superior in a bottle of bluish alcohol, over occasional representatives on earth with a mission for tables draped to the floor with heavy civilization. Hence to them, the only tablecloths on which stood statuettes in question that remains is whether to look for electro-metal of great men of literature, of signs of progress in practical matters or in Dr Johnson, of Moliere, Keats, Voltaire and, spiritual ones. While to Mr. Rayne, the of course, Shakespeare . . . [4] Opium Agent, opium is “progress Little did he know that all these items – exemplified”, [vii] the Collector believes the among them the Bard’s head – were to be increase of revenue is “not simply to acquire used either as substitutes for cannon balls or wealth, but to acquire through wealth, that bricks in order to fend off the approaching superior way of life which we loosely term sepoys. civilization”. [4] As regards the Padre, who is Before leaving for Calcutta to send so worried that Fleury‟s ideas would his wife to England, the Collector orders for culminate in loss of his faith, the text trenches to be dug, and ramparts to be built reveals the extent to which he takes for

International Journal of Research & Review (www.ijrrjournal.com) 137 Vol.5; Issue: 10; October 2018 Sarah Zaré Farjoodi. History and Memory in J. G. Farrell's the Siege of Krishnapur granted imperial Britain's occupation of land imminent and General Jackson‟s lacerated and rapacious plunder throughout the world body on horseback is spotted at the that he even starts questioning why, Residency entrance. The scene, which Earl [the Bible] should have been written Rovit calls “Chaplinesque”, [5] is worth in Hebrew and Greek when English was the mentioning here since it depicts the manner obvious language, for outside one remote through which Farrell presents the events corner of the world hardly anyone could contrary to the aforementioned illustrations understand Hebrew, whereas English was of heroic deeds in the mutiny narratives. spoken in every corner of every continent. While in a previous vignette the Genreal The Almighty had, it was true, subsequently was “escorted by half a dozen native permitted a magnificent translation, as if cavalrymen, known as sowars,” who had to realizing His error . . . but, of course, the help him dismount since he was “portly and Almighty could not be in error, such an idea small in stature” and “could no longer leap was an absurdity. [4] in and out of the saddle”, [4] this time Finally, while impatiently insisting “something was amiss” since “The General, that “every invention is a prayer to God”, instead of waiting to be lifted, had plunged the Collector, Queen‟s loyal subject, calls forward over the horse‟s head and slithered the Great Exhibition “a collective prayer of to the ground. And there he continued to lie all the civilized nations”, and hence a until the _sowars_ came to pick him up”: symbol of mankind‟s progressive movement Blood was running freely from the “towards union with that Supreme Being . . General‟s body and splashing audibly on to .”. [4] the baked earth. The sowars were evidently Soon the news of the mutiny breaks trying to stop the flowing of blood by out. In Meerut, a group of sepoys had shot holding him first one way, then another, as their officers down and were joined by the someone eating toast and honey might try, “badmashes” of the bazaar to attack the by vigilance and dexterity, to prevent it British cantonment. [4] The revolt was dripping. The General‟s blood continued to quelled, however, the mutineers had run patter on the earth, however, and all the way away. The five-hundred-mile distance up the steps and into the hall where he was between the two regions did not assuage the laid down at last, after some hesitation, on a widespread fear of suffering the same rather expensive carpet. [4] plight. Soldiers at Captainganj could easily Such grotesque scenes are abundant follow their fellows‟ scheme in Meerut and in Farrell‟s illustration of the siege which is attack Krishnapur. These anxieties divided yet to come. The news of the massacre at the cantonment into two groups: those who Captainganj brought swarms of people, supported the Collector and his strategies, along with whatever possessions their and those who believed they had to act coolies could carry, to the Residency. As it normal, otherwise the natives would build was his „duty‟, the Collector was now in on their fear and attack them. Some had charge, and walked around giving orders. overheard the natives chatting about Harry, who along with Fleury, had been out restoring the Emperor and reviving the informing planters to come to the Mogul Empire. The Collector mused over Residency, “found that because of his bringing women and children into the sprained wrist he had missed an adventure Residency. However, he was deterred by the at Captainganj”. [4] He, however, managed obstinate, senile General Jackson, whom, to concoct some adventurous story by along with other officers at Captainganj telling his fellows that a musket had been (including Lieutenant Harry), believed there fired in their direction, but that they had was nothing to worry about since „Jack obviously escaped it. Indeed, the idea of Sepoy‟ was not to be feared. These conflicts „adventure‟ is reminiscent of the „adventure seem absurd as the threat becomes more novels‟ written in the nineteenth century,

International Journal of Research & Review (www.ijrrjournal.com) 138 Vol.5; Issue: 10; October 2018 Sarah Zaré Farjoodi. History and Memory in J. G. Farrell's the Siege of Krishnapur specifically those by G. A. Henty, “one of lice in their hair. Accordingly, with the the empire‟s most productive bards”. [4] In spread of cholera “the great cholera Times of Peril, writes Erll, controversy, which had been smouldering The fictive teenage protagonists, the for some time, at last burst into flame”. [4] brothers Dick and Ned, take part in every The two doctors‟ (McNab and Dunstaple‟s) major campaign of the “Indian Mutiny”. dispute over the best possible treatment for They experience the siege and the storming cholera, led to a rift between the community of Delhi; they spend time in the Lucknow members as they did not know which one to residency among the besieged and later take trust, and according to the Magistrate part in General Campbell‟s so called “would inevitably support the man who “second relief”; they even witness the shouted loudest”. [4] Finally, Dusntaple‟s Satichaura Ghat massacre of Cawnpore. [3] insistence on the repudiation of McNab‟s Not surprisingly, they always escape theories and treatment ended up in his death and are safe. In The Siege of Krishnapur, as when in a rant against McNab he however, the view of the “Mutiny” as an deliberately drank an infected liquid, he adventure, is abruptly disabused in the refused to be treated by him. Yet, even after following paragraph. Contrary to Harry‟s his death, the community remains dubious perspective, the traumatized survivors have till the end about whether McNab was right different memories: that one caught cholera by drinking Those of his peers who had escaped with contaminated water. life and limb from the Captainganj parade 4. Afterglow ground did not seem to be thinking of it as In “J. G. Farrell and the Imperial an adventure, those who had managed to Theme”, Earl Rovit includes Farrell among escape unhurt were now looking tired and those “serious novelists” that he associates shocked . . . Strangely enough, they listened with “a more considered embrace of quite enviously to Harry. . . . They wished History” in a period during which “the they had had an adventure too, instead of discipline of History has suffered serious their involuntary glimpse of the abattoir. [4] assaults on its credibility”. [5] However, he No sooner had the sepoys arrived stresses that in The Siege of Krishnapur, than the whole community felt the horror of “Farrell‟s attitude toward British the siege. Bloodshed, amputation, colonialism is neither polemical nor putrefaction, insects and pariah dogs, justifying – neither more nor less rations, and cholera could hardly be judgmental than Dr. McNab‟s careful associated with the heroic image of a British bedside notations on the devastating process subject the Victorians probably had in mind. of the cholera to which his own wife The novel depicts the minutiae of the succumbed”. [5] In fact, Rovit traces the burgeoning conflicts inside the Residency roots of such “radically distanced attitude”, which were no less, if not more, fatal than and in one word perhaps apathy, to Farrell‟s the sepoys‟ attacks. Apart from constant debilitating disease, polio. [5] According to struggle for food and the shrinking rations, Rovit, the period he spent in the lung box many feuds embarked among the ladies who made him move beyond self-pity into a lack did not relinquish their class-bound of feeling for the world altogether. A sign of hierarchies even in „times of peril‟ and had this apathetic outlook in the novel, indicates divided the billiard room accordingly Rovit, is its omniscient narrator who hovers among themselves. Thus the hottest corner above the events and rarely does descend to of the room (and later the banqueting hall) state his own opinion. Meanwhile, as the was allotted to Lucy Hughes, the “fallen present study has attempted to clarify, woman”. The Collector was obliged to visit Farrell inevitably does take side in his their room constantly to calm them down as attempt to distort and counter the heroic they either fought over their servants or the accounts of the so-called „Mutiny‟ and the

International Journal of Research & Review (www.ijrrjournal.com) 139 Vol.5; Issue: 10; October 2018 Sarah Zaré Farjoodi. History and Memory in J. G. Farrell's the Siege of Krishnapur belief in the progressive movement of He had once, as it happened, on British civilization. In fact, apart from what landing for the first time at Garden Reach in has been discussed so far, there are plenty of Calcutta, had the same thought about the signs that the text unsettles the Self/Other human beggars who swarmed at the dichotomy. A major strategy is the way the landing-stage; they, too, had seemed a novel ends in role reversals. During the parody. Yet when the Collector piously picnic scene at one of the opening sections gave to the poor, it was to the English poor, of the novel, the merry British are described by a fixed arrangement with his agent in consuming the contents of their hampers London; he had accepted that the poverty of containing “a real York ham . . . oysters, India was beyond redemption. The humans pickles, mutton pies, Cheddar cheese, ox he had got used to, in time. . . the dogs tongue, cold chickens, chocolate, candied never. [4] and crystallized fruits, and biscuits of all While the pariah dogs resemble the kinds made from the finest fresh Cape flour: poor in India, the civilized dogs obviously Abernethy‟s crackers, Tops and Bottoms, represent the British – there are numerous spice nuts and every other delicious biscuit references to Chloë‟s “golden tresses” you could imagine”, while the “ragged” resembling those of Louise‟s. [4] What is natives are “sitting on their heels at the edge striking, however, is the way this hierarchy of the clearing, gazing at the white sahibs”. is inverted during the siege. In other words, [5] Strikingly, the same scene is repeated as in the case of the picnic scene, the dogs‟ some two hundred and fifty pages later, positions are interchanged. At first, the however with a complete reversal of roles. Collector is worried that the pets starve to After months of living on meager rations, death since, unlike the pariah dogs, they Farrell‟s beleaguered characters, who are cannot devour their (by then deceased) now to the eyes of the native „onlookers‟, masters. As the days go by, he observes the [viii] “just a few ragged, boil-covered change: “What a sad spectacle they made! skeletons crouching behind mud walls”, [4] The faithful creatures were daily sinking use telescopes to glare “for hour after hour” into a more desperate state. While jackals at their cheerful spectators eating, among and pariah dogs grew fat, they grew thin; others, “chapatis, nan, and parathas” as well their soft and luxurious upbringing had not as “richly bubbling curries and glistening fitted them for this harsh reality. If they mounds of rice”. [4] dared approach the carcase of a horse or The dichotomy between the „ragged‟ bullock, or the fuming mountain of offal natives and the „civilized‟ Europeans is even beside the croquet wall, orange eyes, more stressed through the ubiquitous bristling hair and snapping teeth would presence of and constant reference to the drive them away” [4] This transformation animals, specifically dogs. What the culminates in a scene where, after months Collector observes is very telling in this under siege, Fleury sets eyes on Chloë: respect. As he walks through the enclave, he “Chloë‟s golden curls had grown foul and spots two collections of dogs, the (by matted and in places mange had already implication) „civilized‟ dogs, like Chloë, the begun to remove them; a cloud of flies spaniel Fleury bought to win Louise‟s heart, followed her and every few yards she and the “uncivilized” pariah dogs that are stopped to scratch”. [4] When he finds her “dreadful to behold”. [4] “Hideously thin, fur under a sepoy‟s attack, he orders a native to eaten away by mange to the raw skin, kill the sepoy. However, he turns his face endlessly and uselessly scratching, away and is “sickened” by what he timorous, vicious, and very often half observes: unlike Ram, who spent so much crippled”, they are, according to the time killing the sepoy, Chloë “wasted no Collector, “a parody of what Nature had time in bounding forward to eat away the intended”: sepoy‟s face”. [4] This incident comes as a

International Journal of Research & Review (www.ijrrjournal.com) 140 Vol.5; Issue: 10; October 2018 Sarah Zaré Farjoodi. History and Memory in J. G. Farrell's the Siege of Krishnapur great shock to Fleury – obviously like the improvised ammunition”. [4] Once a symbol Collector he shares the same premises about of European civilization, the figures were „civilized‟ dogs – to the extent that he orders now being used as missiles. Ironically Ram to shoot Chloë as well: “He told Ram enough, among all the items presented at the to kill her as well and hurried away to take Exhibition, only his collection of pistols refuge in the banqueting hall and try to erase remain to be used at last. from his mind the scene he had just The fundamental question the novel witnessed”. [4] asks reverberates throughout the narrative. The troubles of the siege come as a In fact, what preoccupies Fleury and the revelation to the Collector and culminate in Collector, and perhaps by extension every a drastic transformation of his outlook ruminant member in the besieged towards the idea of progress and the white community – and finally the reader – is the British sovereignty. This gradual question of how little they know of the „conversion‟ is revealed, among others, in Indian culture and whether Britain‟s his appearance as when after a period of presence in India is worth the candle? At illness he sees his reflection in the mirror, some point in the narrative the Collector is he finds that the hair grown on his chin seen: resembles that of the cynical atheist [D]iscoursing in an objective way on the Magistrate, a former Chartist who has now perplexing question of why, after a hundred lost hope in humanity. When his earthen years of beneficial rule in Bengal, the ramparts started to melt away during the natives should have taken it into their heads rainy season, the Collector‟s “beard to return to the anarchy of their ancestors. continued to grow”, which was a “bad One or two mistakes, however serious, sign”. [4] Indeed, made by the military in their handling of The longer his beard grew the more religious matters, were surely no reason for ginger it became; another bad sign. No rejecting a superior culture as a whole. It longer did he lecture people on the was as if, after the improving rule of the splendours of the Exhibition or on the Romans, the Britons had decided to paint advance of civilization. Civilization might themselves with woad again. „After all, be standing rock still, or even going we‟re not ogres, even though we don‟t backwards, for all the Collector seemed to marry among the natives or adopt their care these days. It was clearly all up with customs.‟ [4] the Collector. But still, he stayed out there A little further, when in the tiger shovelling, confounding the pessimists . . . house visiting Hari – the Maharajah‟s even though his task was clearly hopeless. westernized son whom the collector had [4] kept hostage along with the Prime Minister The Collector is further disillusioned when – he realizes, “that there was a whole way of he finds out that even the Greek pillars, life of the people in India which he would which like the British India bricks gave him never get to know and which was totally a feeling of security, were in fact not what indifferent to him and his concerns”. [4] he thought they were: “These pillars, he Similarly, Fleury – who had reacted to the could not help noticing, were dreadfully Collector‟s idea of „a superior culture‟ by pocked and tattered by shot. He thought retorting “All civilization is bad. It mars the contemptuously: „So they weren‟t marble noble and natural instincts of the heart. after all.‟ He lingered for a moment sneering Civilization is a decadence!” [4]– is in awe at the guilty red core that was revealed when he hears in the air a voice singing “the beneath the stucco of lime and sand. He name of God” and as he sees “an expression hated pretence”. [4] Along with others, he of tender devotion come over his [Ram‟s] lost all of his “possessions” – including his lined face”, he too thinks “as the Collector electro-metal figures – in a “matter of had thought some weeks earlier in the tiger

International Journal of Research & Review (www.ijrrjournal.com) 141 Vol.5; Issue: 10; October 2018 Sarah Zaré Farjoodi. History and Memory in J. G. Farrell's the Siege of Krishnapur house, what a lot of Indian life was things. Truth cannot be resisted!” Yet the unavailable to the Englishman who came text mocks his ideals even as he utters these equipped with his own religion and habits”. words. Right after he finishes the sentence, [4] “a round shot struck the corner of the roof As the siege approaches its end, the and toppled one of the pillars of the fundamentalist Padre‟s views towards the verandah”, making him to add: “Er, that‟s to Exhibition change drastically. During the say, not successfully”. [4] Indeed, the siege, he continually pestered everyone, Collector believed – as did Fleury– that the specifically Fleury, as he believed they had past centuries – the “arid” eighteenth sinned. If he urged them to repent, God century for instance – “were at best only a would show them mercy. Previously a preparation for our own century.. . we have fervent supporter, he now called the gone forward . . . Ah!”. [4] Once more, his Exhibition “The World‟s Vanity Fair”, sigh is accompanied by a round shot. As he shouting “The Crystal Palace was built in narrowly escapes the shot, he thinks the form of a cathedral! A cathedral of alarmed: “This notion of the superiority of Beelzebub!” And now he thought it was his the nineteenth century which he had just duty to “persuade the Collector of his error been enjoying had depended on beliefs he and make him realize that his veneration for no longer held, but which had just now been this Vanity Fair of materialism was itching, like amputated limbs which he misplaced”, [4] and as it happens: could feel although they no longer existed”. [T]he Collector would not have minded [4] As “From the farmyard in which his agreeing with the Padre about the certitudes perched like fat chickens, every Exhibition. He had come to entertain serious night of the siege, one or two were carried doubts about it himself. He, too, suffered off in the jaws of rationalism and despair”, a from an occasional enlightening vision few pages later, he ponders, “We look on which came to him from the dim past and past ages with condescension, as a mere which he must have suppressed at the time . preparation for us . . . but what if we‟re only . . The extraordinary array of chains and an after-glow of them?” [4] This quotation is fetters, manacles and shackles exhibited by remarkable, indeed, in that more than a Birmingham for export to America‟s slave revelation to the collector, it could be read states, for instance . . . Why had he not as a warning to the reader observing the thought more about such exhibits? [4] events at a safe distance, who might face the One more time the role reversal has same plight in looking at the nineteenth happened. The Collector now thinks Fleury century with condescension while was right in stressing the importance of unquestioningly glorifying the ideals of feelings and the spiritual aspects of his/her own age. civilization. However, by that time, Fleury The Collector‟s „last impression‟ of “had given up talking of civilization as a India at the closing pages of the novel, is „beneficial disease‟; he had discovered the roughly the same as the stranger traveler‟s manly pleasures to be found in inventing „first impression‟ at the beginning of the things, in making things work, in getting novel. Saved by the relieving force and results, in cause and effect. In short, he had finally on his way back to England, he identified himself at last with the spirit of comes across the same scene which was the times”. [4] Once, the Collector had earlier described from the perspective of the compared their time with that of their traveler. He sees a pond, two men with two ancestors, and had talked about the bullocks, however, contrary to the traveler‟s irresistibility of their „superior civilization‟. gaze, “As they crept slowly forward over “By combining our advances in science and the plain his eyes searched for those tiny in morality”, he would say, “we have so villages made of mud with their bamboo obviously found the best way of doing groves and their ponds”. [4] In the end, years

International Journal of Research & Review (www.ijrrjournal.com) 142 Vol.5; Issue: 10; October 2018 Sarah Zaré Farjoodi. History and Memory in J. G. Farrell's the Siege of Krishnapur after the siege is over, the Collector meets that this “beneficial disease” [4] keeps Fleury in the streets of London. As if they spreading forever. have exchanged personalities, it is the Collector who says “Culture is a sham”, “a REFERENCES cosmetic painted on life by rich people to 1. Sutherland J. Introduction. The Siege of conceal its ugliness”. [4] Now, it is Fleury‟s Krishnapur. London/New York: Everyman's turn to reject his ideas – as he is the one Library; 2012. p. vii-xxii. 2. Erll A. Memory in Culture. Basingtoke: who now has “a large collection of artistic [4] Palgrave Macmillan; 2011. objects”. He is the new Collector. 3. Erll A. Remembering across Time, Space, and Cultures: Premediation, Remediation CONCLUSION and the 'Indian Mutiny'. In: Erll A, Rigney The critics views on the revisionist A, editors. Mediation, Remediation, and the potential of the novel vary. Apart from Dynamics of Cultural Memory. Berlin/New Sutherland and Rovit, it seems to Marie- York: De Gruyter; 2009. p. 109-138. Luise Kohlke that Farrell‟s comedic outlook 4. Farrell JG. The Siege of Krishnapur. towards the events and his humorous London/New York: Everyman's Library; depiction of the sepoys‟ death fails to 2012[1973]. 1-310. engage the reader‟s conscience. [6] As 5. Rovit E. J. G. Farrell and the Imperial Theme. The Sewanee Review. 1998; depicted in this study, there is an abundance 106(4):630-644. of evidence that shows the reader‟s 6. Kohlke M-L. Tipoo‟s Tiger on the Loose: conscience is thoroughly engaged. This Neo-Victorian Witness-Bearing and the study attempted to illustrate the many ways Trauma of the Indian Mutiny. In: Kohlke Farrell‟s The Siege of Krishnapur does not M-L, Gutleben C, editors. Neo-Victorian follow the ideology of the mutiny Tropes of Trauma: The Politics of Bearing narratives. Through unreliable narration, After-Witness to Nineteenth-Century stereotypical characterization, unsettling the Suffering. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi; long-held hierarchies, widespread 2010. p. 367-397. disillusionment, and role reversals, Farrell reveals and underscores the pretensions and Endnotes i. James Gordon Farrell (1935-1979); he absurdity of the British civilization in India. was born in Liverpool to Anglo-Irish It is, indeed, true that the natives are not as parents. Though his parents had been to richly depicted as the British. They are most India before he was born – for “a of the times present in the background. promising career . . . as the manager of However, this lack could partly be justified a molasses factory” awaited his father – by the fact that the text is viewed from the he himself visited the country in the perspective of the British and narrated by an 1970s to gather information for his unreliable narrator who at times finds his novel. He spent most of his life in ideals in line with those of Fleury and the Britain and only stayed in Ireland for Collector. Furthermore, as discussed in this about two discontinuous years. Yet it article, at the closing pages of the novel, the was in Ireland that he spent his last days. In 1979, he went fishing on a significant turn of the gaze is manifest. Yet stormy day and never came back. again, this very notion, along with the Apparently his body was so weak as a undeniable fact that the empire has not yet result of polio, which he had contracted ceased to exist, makes it seem a hyperbole in 1956, that he was unable to swim. to suggest, as Sutherland would, that Farrell According to Sutherland, “what had could be an obituarist of empire. One should made him a writer killed him” (see bear in mind that in Farrell‟s novel, the Sutherland). His first three novels, Collector‟s disillusionment is followed by namely A Man From Elsewhere (1963), Fleury‟s kindled interest in the civilizing The Lung (1965), and A Girl in the powers of culture. Indeed, the text indicates Head (1967) were not as well-received

International Journal of Research & Review (www.ijrrjournal.com) 143 Vol.5; Issue: 10; October 2018 Sarah Zaré Farjoodi. History and Memory in J. G. Farrell's the Siege of Krishnapur

as his „Empire Trilogy‟, which, sites of memory, but so are Joan of Arc, according to critics, marks a turning the French flag, [and] 14 July. . .” As a point in his career. lieu de mémoire the “Indian Mutiny” is ii. Troubles (1970), The Siege of the result of the convergence and Krishnapur (1973), and The Singapore compression of various medial Grip (1978). representations over time. See 2. Erll A. iii. Hence offensive to both Muslims and Memory in Culture. Basingtoke: . Muslims consider pork to be Palgrave Macmillan; 2011. unclean, and cow is a sacred animal in vi. Chapatis: “made of coarse flour and Hinduism. about the size and thickness of a iv. While the event is labeled and biscuit” (see Farrell). reproached as “Mutiny” in British vii. In a scene in the opium factory, it is history, the Indians regard it as the revealed by Mr. Simmens, that each of initiator of the struggle for freedom, the “great balls” – “as big as a man‟s calling it the First War for head” – into which the finished opium Independence. was formed “would fetch about seventy- v. Meaning site of memory. The concept six shillings, while to the _ryot_ and his of lieu de mémoire was introduced by family the Government paid a mere four the French historian Pierre Nora in the shillings a pound” (see Farrell). Ryot: 1980s in his study Les lieux de an Indian peasant. mémoire. These sites can include viii. Since the beginning of the siege native “geographical locations, buildings, spectators came to watch their British monuments and works of art as well as rulers perish. Yet, this time they were historical persons, memorial days, “coming in greater numbers than ever philosophical and scientific texts, or before” and some of the wealthier ones symbolic actions. Thus, Paris, “brought picnic hampers in the Versailles, and the Eiffel Tower are European manner” (see Farrell).

How to cite this article: Farjoodi SZ. History and memory in J. G. Farrell's The siege of Krishnapur. International Journal of Research and Review. 2018; 5(10):134-144.

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International Journal of Research & Review (www.ijrrjournal.com) 144 Vol.5; Issue: 10; October 2018