Imperial Space In Paul Scott’s Raj Quartet

Paul Mark Scott (1920-1978) is mostly remembered now by The Raj Quartet andits coda, Staying On. The over-2,000-page quartet tackles events over a span of fiveyears from1942to1947, recording the closing years of the British Raj in India. ALondoner through and through, Scott dedicates his life to writing about the British inIndia. He makes a serious pursuit of writing but success is definitely not the word todescribe his vocation. At the time of their publication, the novels of the Raj Quartet,individually and collectively, received little enthusiasm. In1977Staying On wasawarded the Booker Prize. Recognition came in the1980s.In the quartet the temporal linearity is replaced by spatial plurality. Scott attachesgreat importance to place-relations and makes it clear that architecture, topographyand landscape of a country have a great influence on the people. India in the RajQuartet becomes a physical space the British enter as colonizers, a social space theRaj construct their identity against the Other, a contact zone where various culturesand powers encounter and clash, a psychological space where the liberal humanism ischallenged.Drawing mainly on theories of space, this dissertation makes a study of theimperial space in the Quartet. Chapter One deals with the emplacement anddisplacement in the production of social space in The Jewel in the Crown. The Britishcolonizers built their community on the principle of emplacement, a hierarchicensemble of places with distinct demarcation between us and them. This commonpractice in civil life put the Anglo-Indians within a protected and protective circle andmeanwhile cut them off from Indian cultures. Scott thinks this layout of architectureimposes some of its characters upon the people living in it and those visiting it andshapes their attitudes and outlook. This indifference to Indian affairs and refusal to getinvolved lingers and even gets stronger after the de-colonization of India.Chapter Two focuses on the influence of language on space demonstrated in thesecond volume The Day of the Scorpion. Scott thinks that the settlers’ clinging toemplacement springs from their strong sense of displacement. Having no ancestral contact with the land, they cling to a belief in the adequacy of English to describetheir experiences in an “alien” place. The centripetal forces of language, whilekeeping them together by giving them a collective identity, cocoon them to a petrifiedspace. India becomes a stage on which the Anglo-Indian put on a show. Codes,symbols, rituals, costumes, makeup and lines are strictly prescribed in the script. Scottmakes it clear that the British is becoming monolingual at their peril, especially whenthe world becomes increasingly multilingual and multicultural.Chapter Three focuses on the clash between the social space and personal spacein the third volume The Towers of Silence. Scott singles out two particular places andputs them in juxtaposition：the Rose Cottage and the Regimental Mess. In the RoseCottage, Mabel works to make English flowers transplant well in India. In theRegimental Mess, the repository stabilizes the past glories and creates a petrifiedspace regardless of what’s going on outside. Thus Scott provides two ways toapproach India for the readers to choose from. Yet when Mildred takes over the RoseCottage and converts it into a tennis court, the individual attempt fails in theconfrontation with the powerful social space. Through Barbie’s observation andreflection in the contemplative space, Scott points out that in the representation ofBritish-Indian affairs, there is a conspicuous absence: the unknown Indians, theordinary Indians. Scott holds that the unknown Indians must be recognized andproperly represented to deal properly with British-Indian affairs.Chapter Four presents an analysis of the last volume A Division of the Spoils. Inthe last volume Scott admits that the British should take responsibility for the partition.The stage has been cleared, the actors and actresses withdraw from the stage andassume the role of audience while millions of Indians are slaughtered. The crisis ofwitness as well as a crisis of language leads to a crisis of identity. This chapter focuseson two characters: Hari Kumar and Ronald Merrick. Though one is the blackcolonized and the other is the white colonizer, there are more similarities thandifferences between them. The mere fact of being in India makes them invisible tohistorians. Hari chooses spatial contraction to detach himself from the social spaceand Merrick choose spatial expansion to attach himself to an exclusive social space. But both become placeless. Scott makes it clear in the last volume that to viewEast-West relationship in its proper perspective, Haris and Merricks must be claimedback.Scott’s focus is mainly on the Anglo-Indians and he is writing about the failure ofthe raj. He probes into the relationship between the British and the Indian and findthat their attitudes do not change with the end of colonization. The demarcationregistered and stabilized by the British buildings in India still exists in thepost-colonial India.To deconstruct the demarcation in architecture, space and race, Scott employs acomplicated network of narration and circular pattern to explore the interrelationshipbetween past, present and future, between history of India, Anglo-India and Britainand to criticize the indifference and nonchalance on the part of the Raj in the past andthe insular British at present. The central event–the rape of Daphne–is approachedfrom various perspectives which make a dialogue. The temporal linearity is replacedby a spatial plurality. The readers are invited to take an in-between stance into thedialogue.