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; Haggard's representation of the Kukuana demonstrates that he did agree with this view.A classic in its day, King Solomon's Mines is one of the more famous titles from the Victorian eras. It is very much a classical boys own adventure typical of the genr
One might also feel that Haggard disagrees with the 19th-century scientists about viewing Africans as a degenerate race. In the first chapter of King Solomon's Mines, Allan Quartermain gives a detailed description of the two men that he met on Dunkeld, a ship on which they were aboard. 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. (Introduction Haggard)And besides, am I a gentleman? What is a gentleman? I don't quite know, and yet I have had to do with niggers "o no, I'll scratch that word "niggers" out, for I don't like it. The following passages excerpted from the introduction and the first chapter suggest that Haggard thinks otherwise of the Africans. The notion of inferiority developed during the previous paradigm disappeared by the persistent "anomalies" that once "inferior" races have prolonged. When Umbopa challenges Quatermain's notion of white's superiority over the Africans, Quatermain again becomes angry because of Umbopa's audacity. 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. Many craniologists have made false statements and documents about the skull structure of Africans. 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. (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. The story revolves around a group of three Englishmen searching for the lost brother of the three. 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.
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