[ SECRET POST #3336 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3336 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 059 secrets from Secret Submission Post #477.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

As one of my favorite childhood books, I always took the portrayal of Indian people as being through Mary's eyes. ie. that of a privileged turn-of-the-20-century English girl who was raised to think that the "natives" (her word) are supposed to be servants. It also helps show how narrow her worldview is until she is forced to go to England and find out that there is so much more out there than the world she has known.

Also, in the beginning of the book, it's emphasized how disagreeable Mary is. I think her racist views (though accurate to the time period) just add to that portrait in the modern day.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree. I love the part where she flings an insult at a British servant that would have offended one of her old Indian servants, but the woman is just like "Huh?"

OP

[(Anonymous)]

I agree, and that's definitely how I took it when I was young. In fact, now that I'm older is when I doubt that it's really supposed to sound as bad as it does now. Yes, Mary is a brat in the beginning and she's not supposed to be right about what she says, but when it was written it was probably meant to be just another negative trait. Today, the fact that she actually says Indians aren't people and never explicitly changes her mind about that in particular, would probably make her unforgivable to some readers.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

You're overthinking it. Do the readers need everything single thing spelled out? Mary is in an environment where she no longer encounters Indian servants daily and she is, also, a child. Her recollections of India are likely to become vague quite quickly. Having her make an explicit repudiation of her prior attitudes with specific reference to Indians would seem forces, imo. Historically, even if her attitude becomes less horrendous and dehumanising, in that era even a thoroughly "progressive" Mary is still very unlikely to regard any Indian as her equal. Charitable benevolence is the best you can hope for.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

It might be unforgivable to some readers, yes. But the readers who cannot grasp that this novel is the product of an earlier age with different ideas and standards for behavior... isn't that their problem? Why is it ours? Why should book publishers cater to people who aren't mature or reasonable enough to understand that people 100 years ago aren't exactly like people are today?

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, this exactly. Mary's racist sentiments and her treatment of Saidie, her Ayah, are from the time when she's a horrid little beast. You would expect her to pick up the worst kind of racist thinking, the sort that allows her to say the people she habitually mistreats are "not people, they are servants who must salaam to you." I think if she went back to India after the eye-opening experiences of empathy she has in Yorkshire, she might behave and think differently.