Colonial Gothic Framework: Haunted Houses in the Anglo-Indian Ghost Stories of Bithia Mary Croker

Abstract

This chapter considers how the Colonial Gothic functions as a comment on Indo-British relations during the British Raj. Bithia Mary Croker based several of her ghost stories in colonial India, and frequently uses haunted structures such as Indian palaces and Anglo-Indian bungalows as specific places of trauma and haunting. In “If You See Her Face” (1893), Croker explores the traditional figure of the nautch girl, a professional dancer who entertained both Indians and British audiences. Though the nautch girl was a contested figure in British literature and journalism in the nineteenth century, Croker chooses to foreground the woman’s ability to return the male gaze and enact retribution for her people through her presence as a vengeful revenant. The chapter then discusses “The Red Bungalow” (1919), a ghost story which concerns the danger of inhabiting a haunted bungalow where an unseen presence resides. This story also provides a comment on the dangers Anglo-Indian children faced within India.