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King Solomons Mines

Science becomes increasingly a metaphor for the explanation of why things are as they are: people look to science to explain the origin of human character and institutions; science becomes an important part of ideological argumentation and a means of social control. European scientists from late 18th to 19th century developed scientific theories to explain the racial differences. The attempt to cast a theory of race in biological terms was the product, in part, of the growing of science in European culture.

In America, scholars following in the tradition of the Europeans attempted to prove the intellectual inferiority of Indians, blacks, and women through the size of their skulls. Many believed and followed these theories assuming that most of the degenerate characteristics are inborn and genetically linked to certain races especially Africans. In Race and Gender, Nancy Stepan explains that many 19th-century scientists and laypeople viewed Africans as a degenerate race; Haggards representation of the Kukuana demonstrates that he did agree with this view.

A classic in its day, King Solomons Mines is one of the more famous titles from the Victorian eras. It is very much a classical boys own adventure typical of the genre. The story revolves around a group of three Englishmen searching for the lost brother of the three. The story is narrated by one of the three, Allan Quatermain, who is something of a big game hunter type of adventurer. Sir Henry Curtis has a lead that the missing brother is somewhere in the interior of Africa lost on his own quest for King Solomon’s mines.

While the book is written to be adventurous and fun to read, it depicts the typical exploitation of innocent tribespeople who are culturally different, rather than inferior. This book is particularly interesting as it indirectly manifests many theories of the racial science developed in the past. In The Mismeasure of Man, Gould refers to the study of phrenology that had a great impact on the field of racial studies. Many craniologists have made false statements and documents about the skull structure of Africans.

Besides the studies skulls which seemed to be most convincing, other scientists have compared other bodily structures to prove the biological inferiority of black people. In the first chapter of King Solomons Mines, Allan Quartermain gives a detailed description of the two men that he met on Dunkeld, a ship on which they were aboard. He describes Sir Henry Curtis as one of the biggest-chested and longest-armed and finest looking man he has seen who also reminded Quatermain himself of an ancient Dane. 1)

As for the other inferior race, Quatermain compares Ventvogel, one of the Africans traveling with him and his company, to an antelope for his keen sense of smell. While Quartermain respects the African’s talent, he is making him an inferior by comparing him to an animal. Quartermains tone in describing these two races is definitely different in that he make a clear distinction between the two by claiming that one is superior over the other. It is not an exaggeration to say that Haggard depicted the race inferiority, in part, to justify the exploitation of the Africans by the whites.

King Solomon’s Mines plays on this theory and many of its readers would not have found this adventure story in the least bit too fantastical. To emphasize this fact, and the racism implicit within, many people ascribed the discovery of Great Zimbabwe in Rhodesia as being easier to explain in the terms of the biblical stories of King Solomon rather than to credit any African civilization for their creation and construction. This book demonstrates nicely the kind of technological gap that existed between the whites and the blacks.

It gives a description of how the white hunters demonstrate their magic tube that speaks to some tribesmen that have never seen a white man before. The exhibition of firepower on some of the largest animals on the plains would have been as equally impressive in fact as it is here in fiction. The fact that the tribesmen then think that these white men must be from another planet can not have been too far from reality and must have been a source of terror and awe for millions of black Africans. Reading this book enables the reader to look at the world through a typical nineteenth century mindset.

The concepts expressed of fair play and philanthropy make very uncomfortable company with the racist commentary that can be detected throughout the book. This superiority complex of whites over blacks almost seems to find an exception in the budding romance of one of the heroes with a black woman who cares for him when he is injured, and ultimately dies protecting him. However, just in case any nineteenth century reader was concerned at any such interracial behavior, Haggard reasserts the inadvisability of such an occurrence with the heroine utterance: “Can the sun mate with the moon, or the white with the black?

In fact, just in case one misses this warning, he goes on to repeat it later. It is always easy to condemn an earlier generation by today’s standards. One might feel that Haggard is using the character Quatermain to express his own views on the racial difference and inferiority of the Africans. Haggard makes Quartermain see Umbopa, for example, as part of the lower class and belittles him throughout the book. Umbopa’s actions and character which are supposed to be normal to his cultural standard, are exaggerated to such an extent that they seemed contemptible to Quartermain and other Englishmen.

An example of this assumption that Blacks are part of the “lower” race is evident in the fifth chapter. Quatermain gets very offended when Umbopa addresses Sir Henry Curtis as Incubu which means an elephant in his language. Quatermain becomes extremely irritated about this matter because he says having names among the natives is okay, but it is inappropriate to call their master by such names. When Umbopa challenges Quatermain’s notion of whites superiority over the Africans, Quatermain again becomes angry because of Umbopas audacity.

To Quartermain it is an anomaly to receive such challenge from an inferior. This sort of represents the Kuhns idea of paradigm shift in that African do become free and accepted by other races as equal. The notion of inferiority developed during the previous paradigm disappeared by the persistent anomalies that once inferior races have prolonged. One might also feel that Haggard disagrees with the 19th-century scientists about viewing Africans as a degenerate race. The following passages excerpted from the introduction and the first chapter suggest that Haggard thinks otherwise of the Africans.

Thus, although, as Wendy Katz points out, Rider Haggard shared many of the racist assumptions of his contemporaries, as revealed in Quatermains discomfort over Foulatas relationship with Good, for instance, his admiration for natives in general goes well beyond contemporary attitudes. Haggard knew perfectly well that African way of life was not perfect; it was often arbitrarily cruel and crudely superstitious, but Rider Haggard was able to appreciate and to express the richness of its social organizations and customs, and the dignity of its people, in ways which were not to be surpassed until the novels of Chinua Achebe began to appear.

Introduction Haggard) And besides, am I a gentleman? What is a gentleman? I dont quite know, and yet I have had to do with niggers o no, Ill scratch that word niggers out, for I dont like it. Ive known natives who are, and so youll say, Harry, my boy, before youre done with this tale, and I have known mean whites with lots of money and fresh out from home, too, who aint. (9 Haggard) Above passages, to certain extent, suggests that Haggard is aware of the disadvantages that Africans have and they are due to different environmental factors that inevitably acting against their cultural advancement.

While this essay proves that Haggard agreed with the 19th-century scientists about viewing Africans as a degenerate race, his opinion about Africans are extremely moderate when compared to the opinions of his contemporary scientists who were so biased that they contrived ways of perfecting the human race by practicing eugenic experiments and taking away their right which was given by God.

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StudyBoss » King Solomons Mines

King Solomons Mines

Henry Rider Haggard sets out to create an epic tale of courage, a breathtaking drama that attempts to capture, within its limits, the universal spirit of adventure. He appeals in particular to the proverbial young male that seeks an audacious inspiration in life by which to model his own. He entices his readers because his motives lie simply in his desire to entertain, to delight, and to enthrall anyone with a prolific imagination.

However, this purely entertaining account of an eclectic and adventuresome trio clearly manifests its motives by the simple elimination ambiguity, leaving little or nothing to the whims of infinite interpretation. As it is, everything within the novel seems to have the intention of being taken “with a grain of salt. ” Haggard knew his audience, a pretentious and nationalistic society bent on world domination or at the very least determined to reduce the rest of the world to nothing more than a means to meet their desires.

And with these precepts in mind, Haggard creates a fantastical tale, taking heed of what is socially acceptable and what is not, all the while maintaining western superiority over the rest of the world. “The fact of the matter is, that I thought that the best plan would be to tell the story in a plain straightforward manner…I cannot help thinking that simple things are always the most impressive, books are easier to understand when they are written in plain language, though I have perhaps no right to set up an opinion on such a matter. Haggard 6).

In this introduction/disclaimer, Allan Quatermain as our narrator, comes clean with his intentions, providing a stabilizing retrospective for the ensuing epitaph. He seems well aware of the vague line between words intended for fiction and those intended for controversy. And by designating the jolly old Quatermain as narrator, Haggard vicariously endear himself to his readers by exuding a simple humility in light of his grander than grand expos, all the while disposing of the pretense intrinsic to most literary works.

Haggard, due to the relative sensitivity of his subject matter, has no desire to have his novel the target of unwarranted and unwanted social and literary criticism. In that, he makes certain that he reaffirms his intentions of entertainment rather than controversy. In addition, despite Haggard’s prevalent use of juxtaposition throughout the novel its effect often seems more in the amplification of details rather than in the desire for an elaborate interpretation.

When we, as readers, see Sir Henry Curtis and Umbopa juxtaposed together as those of equal stature and standing, Haggard is careful to provide a socially acceptable basis for this collation by stating that Umbopa’s complexion as being “light…scarcely more than dark” (Haggard 49). He makes certain that what we notice first about Umbopa is his light complexion. Such is also the case with the Kukuanas who, although black, appear to be descendents of an ancient Solomonic civilization.

It is this foundation that once again reasserts the social basis for the Kukuanas appearing as magnificently and more notably as intelligently as they do. However, these ulterior motives seem to have the effect of abating KSM’s literary merit. It is not say that the appreciation of details is forsaken by the lack of a complex thought process, but rather it is the presence of those explicit details that adds considerably to the drama of the momentous nature of the plot. For it is the plot that Haggard seems to regard with the highest esteem. The ensuing story line is simple at best.

Even in the event of a scene which seems to present prospective avenues of interpretation, Haggard, with the simplest of intentions in mind, chooses not to leave his account to the whims of interpretation, and thus chance, but rather leaves little doubt of the history just witnessed by providing a lucid and unadorned explanation. Such is the case in regard to the three “Silent Ones,” “there upon huge pedestals of dark rock, sculptured in unknown characters, twenty paces between each, and looking down the road which crossed sixty miles of plain to Loo” ( Haggard 258).

What seems to strike me most about these characters is Haggard’s reference to them as “a most awe-inspiring trinity” (Haggard 258). Rendering an almost immediate allusion to the proverbial holy trinity of Christianity. However because it has not been quite the custom to equate Christianity with the deficiently developed religions of Africa’s native population, for such would most certainly be looked upon as a major faux-pas given time period that KSM was written.

Haggard rather than leaving the reader to decide for him or herself the essential meaning of the colossal trinity, proceeds to provide a definitive yet particularly forestalling explanation of their origin. It is fitting that these figures have bewildered the Kukuanas for generation, subversively stating that although the Kukuana’s are Europe’s equals in some respects they lack the understanding and the desire to discover the origins of the unknown, a distinct dichotomy with respect to our inquisitive heroes.

So it is no surprise that these figures, whose esoteric origin had perplexed the Kukuanas for generations, are dubbed almost immediately upon sight by the visitors “from the biggest star that shines at night” (Haggard 114), their history revealed and mysterious captivation diminished. Once again reaffirming Europe’s intellectual as well as social dominion over any and all other cultures in its midst. In fact, Haggard’s inherent flair for the dramatic lends the novel a fantastic element likened to a Hollywood story line.

A kind of movie where one walks out of the theater simply entertained and nothing more. So it is no coincidence that this fast paced action novel is comparable to a Hollywood movie in that it contains a simplistic formula for entertainment. On one side, we have our heroes, Allan Quatermain/Macumzahn “the one who keeps his eyes open ,” Captain Good/Bougwan the “glass-eye,” Sir Henry Curtis/Incubu “the elephant,” and Umbopa the heir to the throne of the Kukuanas.

On the other, we have two classic villains, Twala, an unjust and evil king with a duplicitous ascent to the throne, and Gagool, an inhuman wretch responsible for the death of not only Umbopa’s father, but also thousands of innocent Kukuanas. It is no coincidence that these are the only characters that are both capable of being the villain and black enough to play the part. In fact despite the Kukuanas noticeably light complexion Twala is described as “Twala the One-eyed, the Black, [and] the Terrible” (Haggard 118), not coincidentally the only true “Black” among them.

The plot is action-packed, carried along by one dramatic scene after another in which we as readers are witness to amazing feats of strength, bravery, and guile, leaving little or no time for readers to dwell much on any aspect of the novel except the plot. Haggard even goes so far as to implement a divisive source of comic relief in the form of Good, whom we see deified by the Kukuanas, who delight in the sight of his “bare legs,” “transparent eye,” “half-haired face,” and “vanishing teeth” (118 Haggard).

By the end of the novel we see all strings tied, imparting a sense of conclusive triumph without controversy. Haggard’s audience gets exactly what it wants, the black evil doers are vanquished; peace, justice, and tranquility are returned to Kukuana land; our deserving white and pseudo-white heroes are the benefactors of the plunders of Solomon’s fabled mines; and we as readers are left thoroughly entertained.

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