Session 6: Villains and Heroes in the 1700s-1800s
3rd Global Conference
Saturday 10th September – Monday 12th September 2011
Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom
Mashasati: A Hero of Assent and Dissent
S. P. Vagishwari
Christ University, Bangalore, India
A woman being subjected to the tradition of Sati in the ancient world is a widely recognized phenomenon. By C5th century CE, this tradition dissipated to a considerable extent. In India, religious texts up to C7th century CE created a protective dependency space for women, where widowhood was an assimilative identity. But post 7th century CE there was an upsurge in the practice of Sati, which irrespective of politico-institutional disparities became a pan ‘Indian’ feature right up to the 19th century colonial era. From being optional, Sati became an imposition with religious and legal textual accreditation. Epigraphs, travelers’ accounts testify to the largest number of Sati incidents in North and parts of Southern India between 13th to 16th century CE. The practice had acquired a celebratory halo with the woman committing Sati hailed as a Hero of the community and Deified as a goddess. Commemorative statutes and stones known as ‘Mahasatikal’ were installed and were privileged political and social signifiers.
This paper attempts to reexamine the overlapping identities of who a Hero and Villain are in relation to the Mahasati practice. For, there is an intertextuality here with the Society and the Sati as voices of assent positioning as Heroes with the Villain being the Other. The identity of this Villainous Other is fluid, shaped by the change in ‘time, space and place’. It ranges from administrations of Medieval India to the colonial government all of which were voices of dissent. The paper also delineates the Sati tradition by contextualizing its location in identities of Nation, National, Religious and Social Heroism through a critique of language, tenor of writing on the ‘Heroic’ practice.
Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)
“Cossacks, whose brutality was fiendish:” Russians as Villains in English-language Fiction In the 1880s and 1890s
Jillene Bydder
The Library, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
There is a long history of villainous Russians in English-language fiction, particularly in spy and thriller fiction. In the 1880s and 1890s Russian expansionism in Central Asia and the possibility that India could be invaded led to tensions between Russia and Great Britain. Some novels published during these two decades were based on the activities of the young Russian and British army officers who spied on each other on the borders of India. This early spy thriller fiction shows Russians as devious and unscrupulous.
Russia was also the cause of many of the fictional wars depicted in the war prophecy and invasion stories which were popular in Britain from 1871 onwards. Fictional invasions by Russia’s vast and merciless armies were bloody affairs, with the carnage described in the most lurid detail. Stories which revisited the Crimean War were another reminder of the Russian threat. Russians also appeared in many of the terrorist novels of the 1880s, and in the fictional accounts of the activities of nihilist and anarchist refugees in London.
This popular fiction was widely read in both book and newspaper story formats. In spite of its often sensationalist nature, it enabled readers to gain knowledge of, and sympathy for, the condition of the Russian people of the time, though they feared the methods the Nihilists were using in their attempt to change Russian society.
Fictional themes of the time included the need for espionage and counter-espionage because of new and terrible armaments and industrial and military secrets. Fiction with Russian characters reflected fears of anarchy and wholesale assassination, changes in society, conspiracies, and political interference in British affairs.
The paper sets the stories in their historical background as well as giving examples from the stories themselves.
Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)
Handsome, Rich, Dangerous: The Attraction of Gothic Villains in 19th Century Literature
Stefenie Kruger
Institute for English and American Studies – University of Osnabrück, Germany
Villains are evil! Villains are dangerous! Villains are sexy! This is certainly a prevalent idea in much of the literature and popular culture of our time. In June 2008, The Telegraph, by referring to a study from the New Mexico State University, argued that “men who are narcissistic, thrill-seeking liars and all round ‘bad boys’ tend to have the greatest success finding more sexual partners” (Devlin). Although the idea seems to be irritating proof can be found in successful films like Mary Harron’s American Psycho with a vicious protagonist who prefers to kill his victims while being naked and who is yet extremely successful with women. Other prominent examples can also be found in popular novels like Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga whose Edward Cullen is rather seen as the figurehead of a new generation of designer vampires (cp. Pauli) than as the prototype of evil for which the vampire has been known in literature and folklore for centuries. Although these two characters are very different from each other, especially in their representations as bad characters, they are new representatives of a tradition of attractive villains begun in Gothic fiction of the 19th century.
This presentation seeks to show how our contemporary idea of the attraction of evil characters was shaped by the figure of the Gothic villain in the 19th century. Through an analysis of Lord Byron’s The Giaour (1813) and the character of Heathcliff from Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights (1847) it will be shown how villainy is presented as a character trait which is reversed from a potential physical or psychological threat into sexual attraction for female protagonists.
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