holy colonialism batman

[lotesse]

Reading Dickens' short story The Perils of Certain English Prisoners, published in the aftermath of the Indian Mutiny and allegorically commenting on the same, and feeling VERY vindicated in my ongoing dislike of the man. It's like How To Be Racist 101: every horrible trope you can think of rolled into one narrative bundle. I suspected, after Bleak House, that I wasn't going to much like his take on indigenous peoples - after all, they take charitable resources away from deserving little Christian white poor children!!! But this is actually worse than I'd expected.

Comments

[oursin]

And don't forget his nasty misogynistic take on women who are involved with charities aimed at indigenous peoples! - or, indeed, charities generally. They are mean harpies who Neglect Their Husbands and Families.

Why Angela Burdett-Coutts worked with him on philathropic enterprises I do not know. I would have thwapped him with the nearest cod.

[lotesse]

Oh, Mrs. Jellyby. So much wrong compressed into - well, actually, this is Dickens. Nothing is compressed, it's all quite horribly expanded on.