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Imperialism, Colonialism and Identity in 20th Century Fiction. In the
mid-1800's, Imperialism began to emerge as a way for countries ...
Imperialism, Colonialism and Identity in 20th Century Fiction. In the
mid-1800's, Imperialism began to emerge as a way for countries ...
Submitted by redapple2 on August 3, 2006
Category: Miscellaneous
Words: 1715 | Pages: 7
Views: 224
Popularity Rank: 46,139
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In the mid-1800\'s, Imperialism began to emerge as a way for countries to expand their territories. It was viewed as a way of increasing land, resources, and power. Strong European powers, chiefly, Great Britain, Germany, Spain, France, Russia, and also the United States began their colonial campaigns to gain wealth, power, natural resources, a market to sell industrial goods, national prestige, or occasionally to improve the lives of the colonial people. European colonialism expanded to nearly all of the known world, and few were able to fight off the might of the new invading powers. H. Rider Haggard\'s novel “King Solomon\'s Mines” depicted this colonial outbreak and clearly expressed certain racial prejudices that were dominant during the author\'s time. The fact that, like his creator, Quatermain admired and respected black Africans did not obscure his belief that blacks and whites must remain separate. Indeed, these very sentiments were spoken more often by the blacks in the story than by the whites. However, though “King Solomon\'s Mines” did not envision true equality or unity among blacks and whites, it was important to note that Haggard\'s work did affirm a sense of noble values inherent in both races. Though culturally different, he believed both races possessed people of honor and goodness just as both possessed people of treachery and evil. Haggard\'s view that blacks and whites could inhabit the same moral world was more progressive than the views of many of his contemporaries, who believed that all native Africans were simply savages. An interesting passage in this regard occurred
in the first chapter of King Solomon\'s Mines, when Allan decided to substitute the word \"natives\" for the more commonly used \"niggers.\" It is worth noting that, offensive as the word \"niggers\" may be to contemporary ears, Quatermain also saw it as a demeaning and reprehensible term. He objected specifically to its connotation of inferior moral...
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