MULTICULTURAL PERSPECTIVES: STUDY OF THE FEMALE CHARACTERS IN THE SELECT RAJ NOVELS
MULTICULTURAL PERSPECTIVES: STUDY OF THE FEMALE CHARACTERS IN THE SELECT RAJ NOVELS

Summary/Abstract: This article examines a particular body of fiction classified as Raj novels whose narratives draw extensively on the social, political and historical contexts of the British Raj in India. The present article analyses three select novels; The Jewel in the Crown (1966) by Paul Scott, Heat and Dust (1975) by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and The Tailor’s Needle (2009) by Lakshmi Raj Sharma, in the light of multiculturalism propagated by the major female characters in the novels. The article postulates how the Raj novels, generally categorized as historical fiction and studied in the context of colonial and postcolonial studies, could also be studied in the context of multiculturalism. Furthermore, it examines the role of the major female characters in these Raj novels and assesses how they acted as a harbinger of multicultural values at the time of high imperialism when the era itself was perceived as a masculine enterprise endowed with conflict, rebellion, hostility and antagonism.

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