Rebellious tigers, a patriotic elephant and an urdu-speaking cockatoo: Animals in 'mutiny' fiction

5Citations
Citations of this article
9Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

This article is free to access.

Abstract

British fictional representations of the 1857 Indian 'Mutiny' are consistently drawn to tigers. These charismatic animals function as an aspect of a romanticized colonial exotic and perform a symbolic role as embodiments of the limits of imperial power. Tigers often featured as a metaphor for Indian revolutionary activities so that the suppression of the rebellion becomes encoded as a hunt. Taking tiger symbolism as a starting point, this essay explores the relationship of images of animals to imperial authority in late nineteenth-century 'Mutiny' fiction. Following a discussion of tigers in G.A. Henty's militaristic accounts of the 'Mutiny', I examine G.M. Fenn's tale of an elephant's loyalty to the crown, Begumbagh (1879) and Flora Annie Steel's magnum opus On the Face of the Waters (1896). While Henty and Fenn endeavour to encode a narrative of British superiority in representations of authority over animals, Steel's novel by contrast displays a more ambivalent approach to the nonhuman, evoked most strikingly in the figure of an Urdu-speaking cockatoo that consistently evades the allocation of an over-determined imperial symbolism of power. Tensions between the animal and the human and between the wild and the domestic emerge centrally, therefore, to the key question of political authority in imaginings of this historical crux. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Miller, J. (2012). Rebellious tigers, a patriotic elephant and an urdu-speaking cockatoo: Animals in “mutiny” fiction. Journal of Victorian Culture, 17(4), 480–491. https://doi.org/10.1080/13555502.2012.733066

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free