Persons in the first diary entry April 6, 2008

Write down everything on the persons (in the first diary entry) appearance, state of mind, background, aims/wishes and other.

 

Narrator:

-          has prejudices concerning India

-          is influenced by Olivia’s letters

-          does not really know India

-          is a bit careless (see watch)

-          long after the arrival still in English time

-          stays in the S.M. hostel in Bombay

ð     little money

ð     does not feel well (others look like washed-up bodies)

-          has compassion with people on the streets

-          agrees with guardian: peoples in front of the A.’s look like souls in hell

 

Neighbour:

-          helps narrator (rescues her watch)

-          gives tips: be careful with your things and the food

ð     maybe helpful because she made bad experiences

-          hates Indian food

-          marks off the English from he Indians

-          likes Miss Tietz because of her food

-          stays always in the S.M. when she is in Bombay

-          looks in the dormitories light like a ghost

-          has been in India for 30 years

-          is religious

ð     God will tell her where to die: In India or in England

ð     It is also His will that she is in India

ð     Lives only His will for 30 years

-          thinks there is no hope for Indians

ð     outside shiny, but about the inside no one speaks

-          learns by Hindu-Muslim riot and maladies: can not survive without God

ð     nothing human means anything there

-          looks toughened-up

 

Miss Tietz:

-          makes the food for the S.M.

-          is Swiss

-          came out with the Christian Sisterhood

-          stays for 10 years in the S.M.

 

Other People:

-          because of the hot weather: sleeping, no begging necessary

ð     some look in the gutter for food

 

Number of crippled children:

-          gay

-          beg

 

People before A.’s:

-          derelict lot

ð     very (!) poor

ð     beg and steal from each other

-          have to sleep with 8-9 people in one room

-          every age is presented

-          they are all sick

 

Europeans:

-          fail in India

-          have too little money to go back to Europe

 

German/Scandinavian:

-          fail and tall

-          clothes: tatters

-          white skin

-          long hair, all tangled and matted

-          monkey delouses him

-          eyes: soul in hell

Notes to the other quotations April 6, 2008

Notes to the other quotations:

 

I. Quotations taken from E.M. Forster’s novel “A Passage to India”:

 

1. “There is no person in existence as the general Indian.” (p. 236)
   • an Indian criticises the British: India has individuals, not like the British think: everyone is similar to the others

 

1. “How can the mind take hold of such a country? Generations of invaders have tried, but they remain in exile. The important towns they build are only retreats, their quarrels the malaise of men who cannot find their way home. India knows of their trouble. She knows of the whole world’s trouble, to its uttermost depth. She calls “Come” through her hundred mouths, through objects ridiculous and august. But come to what? She has never defined. She is not a promise, only am appeal.” (p.120/121)

 

1. “We can’t keep engagements, we can’t catch trains. What more than this is the so-called spiritually of India?” (p. 97)
   • ironic comment on India from an Indian
   • question: Why are the British in India when they just have spiritually?

 

II. A quotation taken from Rudyard Kipling’s novel “Kim”:

    

“… the mixture of old-world piety and modern progress that is the note of India today.”

1.  
   • a Britain who is proud of the progress they brought to India

 

IV. Quotation taken from Salman Rushdie’s novel “The Satanic Verses”:

 

1. “In an ancient land like England there was no room for new stories, every blade of turf had already been walked over a hundred thousand times.” (p. 144)
   • there is no more room for the Britain to develop

ð     legitimation

 

2.      “Wherever the English settle, they never leave England” (p. 153)

1.  
   •  The British forced their culture on the Indians

 

V. An extract taken from Walt Whitman’s poem “Passage to India”:

 

“Passage to India!

Lo, soul, seest thou not God’s purpose from the first?

The earth to be spann’d, connected by network,

The races, neighbors, to marry and to be given in marriage,

The oveans to be cross’d, the distant brought near,

The lands to be welded together.

 

A worship new I sing,

You captains, voyagers, explorers, yours,

You engineers, you architects,, machinists, yours,

You not for trade or transportation only,

But in God’s name, for thy sake of soul.”

Quotations on India April 3, 2008

III. „As long as we rule India we are the greatest power in the world. If we lose it, we shall drop straight to a third rate power.” 

Comment on the Quotation: 

I think this quotation can be said by a British colonialist. He knows about Indians importance to England and England’s position in the world. But history shows that this had no influence to the wrong handling with the Indians by the British. They do not care about the human rights and their culture. 

The Anglo-Indian relationship: 

The British colonialists felt superior to the Indian. It becomes clear, when you look at how they treat them: The English brought with force a new England to India which includes progress and big cities. Also the Indians were rip off as cheap workers on plantations with no rights. Finally the relation was just an exploitation by the British.

Worksheet before reading „Head and Dust“ April 1, 2008

Heat 

She cried “Must you smoke that dashed pipe? In this heat?”

He stayed calm. Knocking ash into the ashtray – carefully, so as not to spill any on the tablecloth.

At last he said “You should have gone to Simla.”

“And do what? Take walks with Mrs. Crawford? Go to the same old boring old dinner parties – oh, oh,” she said, burying her face in despair, “one more of those and I’ll lie down and die.“

”Douglas failed to respond to this outburst. He went on smoking. It was very quiet in the room. The servants, cleaning the breakfast dishes, were also as quiet as could be so as not to disturb the Sahib and Memsahib having, a quarrel in English.

After a while Olivia said in a contrite voice “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“I told you: it’s the heat. No Englishwoman is meant to stand it.” 

1. Who do you think Olivia and Douglas are? I think that Olivia is an Englishwoman who has/wants to live in a heat land with his husband. Maybe she has mood swings because she does not know what to do or she is not familiar to this situation. 

2. Where are they? 

I think they are in a heat and dust land. Maybe in Africa. 

3. What are they arguing about? 

They are arguing about the heat in the land there are in and that Olivia should have gone to Simla, but she did not and still does not want to, because Mrs. Crawford is too old for her. 

4. How is the quarrel resolved? 

Olivia realizes that she has mood swings, but she can not explain why. Douglas tells her that it is the heat and no Englishwoman is able to understand. And this statement he just leave in the room (im Raum stehen lassen =) ) 

5. Do you feel that unpleasant heat can have an effect in emotions? Have you ever    experienced anything like that? 

Yes, I think a heat can have an effect on ones emotions. If it is too hot, you are unable to do something and you get more and more bored. And if I am bored, I can be really exhausting and bothersome. 

Dust

Once a town I left behind, there is nothing till the next one except flat land, broiling sky, distances and dust. Especially dust: the sides of the bus are open with only bars across them so that the hot wind blows in freely, bearing desert sands to choke up ears and nostrils and set one’s teeth on edge with grit.

1. What are you feeling when you are confronted with the description of such a landscape?

When I read this little text, I got the feeling of a hot desert. I got also the wish to do nothing but relax, sleep or sunbathing and I got a desire for summer, because I can not stand this coldness and all the rain. 

2. Explain why you would or would not like to travel or live there? 

I would travel there for holidays, but just if I have no work to do there, for example reading books, make a presentation. I think if I were there, I could not do anything. Maybe go swimming, but nothing what has to do with effort, for example long walk or a sight-seeing-tour. I could not live there, because I would be too lazy.