The Identity Dilemma in Hari Kunzru’s The Impressionist

Considering the epigraph at the beginning of Hari

Kunzru’s The Impressionist – an extract from Anglo Indian

author Rudyard Kipling’s colonial novel Kim – it is made

obvious, from the outset, that the protagonist, whoever

they may be, will never have a fixed identity. The reader

is made aware of this aspect before even the

protagonist’s name is revealed. The epitaph serves as a

foresight, informing the reader that this character ‘can

change swiftly’, has already assumed multiple identities,

and questions what ‘shall the third incarnation be?’

Thus, Kunzru presents his readers with an identity

dilemma: who is the impressionist? From this several more

questions arise; is interchangeability within itself an

identity? And, is it even possible to identify the

protagonist resolutely? This essay will attempt to answer

these questions, and more which Kunzru posits throughout

the narrative, by exploring the philosophical

understandings of Hegel; Judith Butler’s thoughts on

gender, some of which derive from the works of Hegel; and

the issues of race and colonialism, tying into

primitivism, in the postcolonial novel. It is worth

mentioning that another dilemma in The Impressionist is the

protagonist’s name. Due to the variability of the

protagonist’s name, since that too never remains the

same, I will refer to the protagonist as either ‘the

protagonist’, or how the unnamed narrator identifies them

as in the different sections of the novel. To begin with,

Kunzru’s protagonist’s name is Pran Nath. In this section

of the book Pran believes his identity is stable and

absolute, but there is one thing Pran does not know that

the reader already does: he is mixed race. The man he

believes to be his father is not his father, as his

biological father is a colonial English agriculturalist

of the apt name Forrester. Pran’s uncertain identity at

the outset of the novel is exemplary of the uncertainty

at the outset of his existence, which parallel’s the

Hegelian understanding of his Zeitgeist’s existence. This

is summarised by Sara Salin, who claims that ‘while the

doctrine of internal relations’ – the Hegelian term for

identity – ‘apparently provides the subject with

autonomy, its lack of fixed boundaries means that, from

the outset, it is less stable than it appears to be’1.

From before his birth, before the astrologer records his

astrological chart falsely as ‘a bland future of long

life, many sons and business success’ (p.27), it is

designed that Pran’s life is predestined for chaos and

ambiguity at the moment of conception.

If it is in any way possible to attempt to decipher

Kunzru’s interchangeable protagonist’s identity, then it

seems necessary to do so by starting with the philosophy

of identity, and the philosopher Hegel. The protagonist

is a prime example of an Hegelian subject, an entity, or

Zeitgeist as Hegel names it, moving from a false sense of1 Salin, p.30

stability of self, and embarking on a bildungsroman type

of journey steered towards self-discovery. This is

referred to as the Phenomenology of Spirit. Indeed, Sara

Salin points out that Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit is

‘frequently compared to a Bildungsroman or novel of

experience. Literally translated from the German,

Bildungsroman means ‘formation’ or ‘education novel’,

i.e. a novel which documents the formation or education

of its protagonist… it would seem that the bildungsroman

is usually by men and about men. These novels chart the

metaphorical or literal journey of the hero or heroine

from inexperience and ignorance to experience’. 2

Though Kunzru’s protagonist appears to follow the same

bildungsroman-journey as Hegel’s ‘Spirit’, it ought to be

noted that the storyline in The Impressionist does not follow

the generic prototype of the traditional bildungsroman

narrative, which comfortably fits well with the inability

to securely identify the protagonist. Where,

conventionally, a bildungsroman protagonist sets their

sights for social elevation, The Impressionist’s protagonist

follows a pattern of falling and climbing the social

ladder, leading a life of constant insecurity and

obscurity, where nothing is certain, much like the

astrologist’s failure to ‘predict… the usual things –

length of life, marital prospects, wealth’ (p.26). One

cannot even confidently state that The Impressionist is a2 Salin, pp.22-23

backwards bildungsroman, a contemporary tragedy mapping

the fall from social elevation to utter turmoil,

nonetheless, it does comply with commencing on a journey

of self-discovery and education, much like Hegel’s

‘Spirit’. Continuing with the Hegelian understanding of

the self, Salin notes that the ‘Spirit’ can only progress

by making errors, acknowledging the error, and then

learning from said errors. This, Salin asserts,

‘resembles a game of snakes and ladders’ in which the

‘Spirit’ ‘repeatedly moves upwards or forwards, only to

slither back down again when it commits an error before

moving on to the next stage’3. The theme of progression

and regression in the equivalence of the game of Snakes

and Ladders appears to be a trope that frequents

postcolonial literature, featuring as a leitmotif

throughout Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. The ladder

acts a representation of social elevation, and the snake

an emblem of evolutionary regression and a fundamental

religious and cultural evil. Where this is evident in The

Impressionist, in the form of the protagonist’s social and

emotional ascents and falls, it too features in the

philosophical understanding of Hegel. Salin goes on to

say that ‘Hegel’s subject is therefore a subject-in-

progress, that… can only build itself by ceaselessly

destroying itself (or falling down the ladder), fleeing

in horror from its previous errors and finding itself in

its utter dismemberment’4. Like Kunzru’s protagonist,

3 Salin, p.234 Salin, pp.23-24

Hegel’s ‘Spirit’ is always forced to press on by

overcoming the trials it faces, ‘prepare a new scene,

enter the stage armed with a new set of ontological

insights – and’, inevitably ‘fail again’5. What Hagel

claims is the influence that pushes the ‘Spirit’ forward

is the desire to know itself, and this can only be

achieved by experiencing its opposite, commonly referred

to as the ‘Other’, this, by defining itself via it’s

opposite, assists the ‘Spirit’ in achieving self-

identification. It is possible to see this in The

Impressionist through the subject of sexuality and gender.

However, upon divulging the ‘Other’, it becomes

increasingly evident that identifying gender is not quite

as simple as categorising a subject as either male or

female, as Judith Butler argues. In The Impressionist’s final

pages of the first section, Pran, as he is referred, is

made to cross-dress as a woman: ‘The clothes. A rustle of

silk. A heavy veil hung over his face. The world seen,

new and extraordinary, through a cotton grille sewn into

the veil. These are purdah clothes. Women’s clothes’

(p.66). Here, Pran moves through his first identity, and

first chapter, Hegel Spirit-like, stepping into another;

becoming the ‘Other’ in the next chapter. The world

starts afresh, ‘new and extraordinary’, observed from

another perspective, under the veiled obscurity of Indian

femininity.

The stance Judith Butler takes, concerning gender, is

that gender identity is a sequence of acts. If we are to5 Salin, p.21

assume that Hegel’s ‘Spirit’ is a traveler, then Butler’s

‘subject’ is an actor. The protagonist in The Impressionist

is, too, the actor, and the names and roles he assumes,

or is given, are the characters he is to play. When

studying at Oxford, the protagonist, now named Jonathan

Bridgeman, is cast by members of Barabbas College to

play, ‘in their forth-coming’ (p.345) play, Iago from

Shakespeare’s Othello, a character notorious of being

clandestine, and infamous for his memorable line “I am

not what I am”, an indication that Jonathan, too, is not

what he appears to be. In the second section of the novel

Pran becomes Rukhsana, “the Nawab of Fatehpur’s new

hijra” (p.72). Of Arabic origin, meaning beautiful,

‘Rukhsana’ is a fitting name for the protagonist, as it

is phonetically similar to the name ‘Roxanne’, which is a

name often used to refer to a woman of ill repute. At

this moment, where he is identified as a new hijra, that

Rukhsana becomes even more ambiguous, assigned even more

acts to play. The word ‘hijra’ has several meanings. The

first is an Urdu and Hindi word for a transsexual, or

someone who is transgendered, the second has more of a

religious connotation, in that it is a pilgrimage, or

journey, acknowledged by worshipers of Islam. Thus,

Rukhsana is both a transsexual – an esoteric, enigmatic

gender - as well as a means for passage into a symbolic

expedition. Even then, this vague identity is merely

transitory, as he is forced into claiming that he is

“Nothing” (p.81) by the Khwaja-sara, who also argues that

“[t]here are thousands! Millions” (p.81) of sexes. This

complies with Judith’s Butler’s understanding of gender,

who maintains that ‘all gender is, by definition,

unnatural’6, since one cannot generalise various races and

cultures, which are within themselves diverse, by a

categorisation of masculine and feminine bodies. The

gateway to uncovering and experiencing these genders is,

as the Khwaja-sara elucidates, to remove from one’s body

the reproductive organs that rigidly restrict and

classify one’s primary and sole biological gender. In

other words, Rukhsana is threatened with castration, a

demasculinisation that very few would wish to endeavor.

To say that the threat of castration in the novel is a

threat towards Pran’s masculinity is perhaps too

rudimentary a point. It is essential to examine this in

greater detail. It would not be too implausible to claim

that the protagonist wishes to preserve his masculinity,

since Rukhsana, though a woman by appearances, still has

masculine genitalia. But it is not just the annexing of

his reproductive organs that poses a threat within the

Fatehpur narrative. Gradually, Rukhsana loses his sense

of primarily Indian identity by being tutored by Major

Privett-Clampe in lessons in Englishness, by teaching

appropriate speech and insisting Rukhsana wear

traditional British schoolboy clothing. As ‘masculine’,

Pran was made to wear feminine clothing, now, feminised,

Rukhsana is made to wear not just masculine clothing, but

masculine clothing from another race. Indeed, Anne6 Butler, 1986, p.35

McClintock asserts that it ‘is important to emphasize, in

this regard, that cross-dressing does not only involve

gender ambiguity; a wealth of evidence exists of racial,

class and ethnic cross-dressing’7. It is important not to

forget that the protagonist, having an English father and

Indian mother, belongs to no absolute race or ethnicity,

and that the cross dressing, in this instance, points

towards a blurring, or merging, of races as well as

genders.

This merging, between race and gender, is common in

colonial and postcolonial literature, and was a factor,

in particular, with the colonisation of India by the

British. Summarised by Phillipa Levine, ‘India was not a

single country or entity’ before British occupation, ‘but

rather a collection of states ruled in different ways,

and frequently with markedly different languages and

customs’8, thus, when it comes to identifying India, like

any nation, it is not as simple as relying upon

stereotypes and misconceptions. Through its incorporation

into the British Empire, India was changing from an

amalgamation of Moghul ruled territories, to a new,

progressive, industrialised, British-influenced national

identity. ‘The British’ claims Robert Colls, ‘themselves

saw India as androgynous’9, much like Kunzru’s

protagonist, however, this changes when colonialism and

race are involved. When India became subsumed within the

7 McClintock, p.688 Levine, p.619 Colls, p. 167

British Empire, the general consensus with regards to the

British and Indians is that the prior were the dominant,

and that the latter were the dominated. In The Impressionist,

we see this exact paradigm of racial hierarchy in several

instances. One instance is where Major Privett-Clampe is

dominating Rukhsana in the act of coitus, yelling out

hugely stereotypical British phrases; from the sporting

“Tally-ho!”; to the predatory “View Hallooo!”, a cry

commonly associated in the traditionally British pastime

of fox hunting. It is obvious that the major is

representative of the archetypal British military man,

and Rukhsana the violated, British-occupied India.

Another instance of racial hierarchy in The Impressionist

occurs during the third section, when the protagonist,

now named Bobby amongst his peers, and Robert to the

English, resides with a prejudiced, jealous, and racist

preacher and his wife in Bombay. Reverend MacFarlane is

an enthusiast of phrenology, though, clearly, only a

novice at best. Studying the brain capacity through the

size of skulls, MacFarlane comes to the rather biased and

bigoted conclusion that at the top of the ‘global league’

of brain capacity ‘is the European, whose capacious 100-

cubic-inch capacity gives him room for brain development

far in excess of such benighted fellows as the 91-inched

Peruvian or the savage 86-inched Tasman. Hence, Empire’

(p.197). Here, MacFarlane gives an excuse to his blatant

racism, exalting European intellect and physicality in

comparison to any other race. This was common thought

among many ignorant British, who had never been to India,

as well as the Anglo-Indians. There was an inclination to

believe Britain had a providential right to imperialise

and govern, to assume superiority in culture, race, and

society: hence, Empire. In the same manner Privett-Clampe

dominates Rukhsana, MacFarlane examines the physiognomy

of Bobby, praising and admiring his aesthetically

pleasing characteristics. In this sense, Rukhsana, or

Robert, benefit from the intertwining of races in their

genetic makeup, as not only remarkably good looking, but

also possessing the advantageous qualities affiliated to

the multiple races which make up their genealogy. Kunzru

here is clearly expressing the advantageousness of inter-

racial relations and promoting the acceptance of mixed-

race persons, that instead of all races shunning them as

tainted, as evident in The Impressionist, all races ought to

accept them as part of the wider community of the human

race. Ronald Hyam comments upon the flawed opinion that

the white European is the greatest of all races,

maintaining that,

‘[l]ike most things in life, ‘the empire’ was neither

black nor white, but a mixture, a not altogether hopeless

shade of grey… A great deal of recent writing about

‘colonialism’ stresses the significance of ‘identity’,

and the extent to which the idea of ‘Britishness’ itself

might be in some sense a product of imperial

experience’10. 10 Hyam, p.14

Might one assume, if one were to adopt Hyam’s claim, that

the protagonist in The Impressionist is identified with

empire, the hopeless shade of grey, a product of imperial

experience? Though this seems to be something Hari Kunzru

points towards, one must remember that the protagonist is

not exclusively British. Here it is necessary to examine

the biological parents of the protagonist, if we are to

better understand identity. The inclusion of the parents

is obviously of some importance in the novel; otherwise

Kunzru would not have dedicated a whole chapter to the

protagonist’s biological parents, from their

personalities to their sexual encounter. In all forms of

literature, it is often no coincidence that a writer

styles their characters with certain symbolic names. As

identified earlier through examining one of the names

given to the protagonist, Rukhsana, it is obvious that a

name can often contribute to, or reveal a certain

distinguishing feature of, a character. Starting with

Amrita, the mother of the protagonist. ‘Amrita’ is a

Sanskrit name that can be used for either men or women.

In the first chapter, it is made clear that Amrita is

influenced by the elements - specifically fire - with

masculine, violent traits, ‘ungovernable’ (p.9), and

aggressively unfeminine. In Hinduism ‘Amrita’, like the

Greek nectar, is a drink of the gods that grants

immortality. In Sikhism ‘Amrit’ is holy water, and in

Buddhism it is a sacramental drink. From this one can

devise two conclusions; first, that Amrita is a

representative of not just India, but the culture and

spirituality of the orient as a larger representative;

and the second, that Amrita has some affiliation with the

elements, particularly fire and water. These two aspects

of Amrita’s character I will assess later in relation to

protagonist’s biological father. Drawing attention to

Ronald Forrester, the Englishman, he is the first

character to be introduced in the novel, ‘Forrester the

forester’, ‘fighting dust’ ‘with trees’ (p.3). In

literature, English literature more commonly, trees

feature as important motifs, and this instance is no

exception. Forrester is a man from the island of trees –

Britain – and is responsible for laying his seed, during

a flood in the end of a drought, inside the woman who

represents the elements. After realising that what he has

done is shameful, and, for an early-twentieth century

British man, derogatory, he escapes on a ‘young deodar

tree, snapped off at the trunk’ (p.16), sailing through

the flood as an emblem of Britain, ‘so freighted with

wisdom and routine that it might as well be playing the

National Anthem’ (p.16). This fallen tree is Forrester’s

escape, his flight from responsibility and care, much as

the British Empire failed to take responsibilities from

its defiling of India. On one hand, we have the mother,

representative of the mystical orient, the primitive

specimen that so many English brandish as inferior. Anne

McClintock recognises the gendering of ethnicity, and

observes that the ‘Orient was feminised in a number of

ways: as mother, evil seducer, licentious aberration,

life giver’11, which is why Amrita, in The Impressionist, is

the mother of the protagonist, though with various

masculine qualities. On the other hand, there is the

father, who is so potently British that he comically

rides off, equestrian-like, away from responsibility and

accountability, leaving others to clean up his mess.

Could it be concluded that The Impressionist’s protagonist is

a hybrid of the assertive extremes of two races and

cultures, a figure with both aspects existing, not in

harmony, but in constant tumultuous rivalry? Whilst this

seems very likely, it does not sufficiently envelope the

protagonist’s whole identity: it is but a drop in the

ocean of this complex character. Temporarily returning to

the ideas of Judith Butler, Sara Salin asserts that, in

Gender Trouble, one of Butler’s works, Butler examines the

identification with a subject’s primary love object,

which touches upon the Freudian understanding of the

Oedipus and Electra complex. Salin explains Butler’s

understanding of parental relations, stating:

‘[i]f your primary desire is for your mother, you will

introject the figure of your mother and establish an

identification with her; conversely, if your primary

desire is your father, you will substitute your

impermissible object-cathexis for an identification with

him’12.

11 McClintock, p.12412 Salin, p.54

Melancholy gender is the loss of the love object,

commonly one of the subject’s parents, determining the

subject’s gender orientation. When attempting to utilise

this in relation to The Impressionist, several patent

problems arise. In The Impressionist, it is necessary to

argue that the protagonist never had the opportunity to

develop a love interest with his mother, since she died

during childbirth. This leaves the fathers, since there

are two of them. The first: his biological father, who

plays no role in the early life of the protagonist, and

contributes nothing, but the passing of genetic material

during the act of coitus, and the second: who was merely

an absent non-biological father figure, also contributing

nothing, being more concerned with his personal hygiene.

Therefore, if one is to insert the qualities of the

parents into the identity of the protagonist, then it can

only be done by claiming they are naturally inherited

through genetics, though, as many researchers would

argue, genetics is not the sole contributor to the make-

up of an individual.

Turning to colonialism as an agency of shaping identity,

there is strong reasoning in The Impressionist that suggests

colonialism is at least one contributor. Sara Salin

claims that ‘Identity is intrinsically political’13. This

assertion, that we are susceptible to the influence of

either dogmatic or libertarian ideals, and these shape13 Salin, p.67

the nature of our characters, points towards the

inclusion of colonial politics in The Impressionist. The

protagonist shows clear signs of being influenced by the

colonisation of India, experiencing it both through the

perspective of a native Indian and as British Anglo-

Indian. When he is Bobby, he acknowledges that identity

goes further than the colour of skin, that people ‘hear

an accent and see a face and a set of clothes, and put

them together into a person’ (p.245). Though this reveals

a certain narrow-mindedness within humanity, judging

others by their appearance, it must be said that this is

indeed the way most people are observed. Realising this,

Bobby begins to dress and act like the English, wishing

to be recognised as an Englishman: not mixed race, and

not Indian. To become English is preferential to Bobby

because it is seen as the governing force, the most

respected of cultures, and the most widely accepted.

Wishing to be accepted - and to ‘fit in’, which is a term

often stated – he assumes the role of an Englishman, and,

largely, he is viewed as one. When given the opportunity

claim the identity of Jonathan Bridgeman, an Anglo-Indian

of a similar age to Bobby, whom he meets on the

treacherous streets of revolutionary Bombay, he grasps it

without hesitation. Conveniently killed, the real

Jonathan Bridgeman’s passport and boat ticket to England

are taken by Bobby. Here, the transaction is complete,

from starting off as a pure blood Indian to a pure blood

Englishman, claiming the identity of ‘[s]omeone known for

a few hours only. Emptied and reinhabited… How easy it is

to slough off one life and take up another!’ (p.285).

Jonathan learns to become an Englishman at Chopham Hall,

where he is given an English education. Here, Jonathan

becomes ‘part of something larger than himself’ (p.312),

the ‘something’ being the same thing that Jonathan

experiences at University: the academic institution, ‘a

machine for the formation of character’ (p.346), but not

just any character, an English character. Jonathan is

absorbed into institutional microcosms of England itself,

learning to be part of an empire, to colonise, and that

‘Englishness is sameness, and the comfort of repetition’, which,

ironically, is the very thing that contradicts Jonathan’s

character as an ever changing individual. Yet, Jonathan

begins to fit so well into his new identity, that he ‘is

starting to coincide with his shadow’ (p.317), and it

‘often seems to him that Bridgeman and he have always

been the same person’ (p.319). Questioning the

identification with races, Sarah Salin postulates the

question:

‘Is race an interpellated performative, and is a racial

identity something that is ‘assumed’ rather than

something one simply ‘is’? Would it be possible once

again to alter the terms of de Beauvoir’s statement and

affirm that ‘one is not born but rather one becomes

black/white’?’14.

14 Salin, p.92

If this is possible, if one can become a race, moving

from one classification to another, then there is a

strong argument to suggest that Jonathan may become

colonial. This concept is emphasised by Dr Noble at

Chopham Hall, who tells Jonathan ‘[w]e are not born, Mr

Bridgeman. We are made’ (p.332). Since he has assumed the

identity of the quintessential colonial Englishman, then

Jonathan has not only completed the racial transaction

from pure Indian to pure Englishman, but also the

transaction from colonised to colonialist. However,

something holds Jonathan back. Since he is only

biologically half English, there is only a certain extent

to which Jonathan may venture. His mother, being an

emblem of India and primitive nature, is the irrational

force that cancels out the rational Englishness. Dr Noble

makes an interesting remark on the nature of the orchid:

“The orchidae… can take many forms… They can also appear

to be many things. Their folk names reflect this, based

as they often are on a perceived resemblance, a

connection between the flower and some other aspect of

nature” (p.331).

Much like the orchid, Jonathan takes many forms and can

appear to be many things; he is an aspect of nature. The

protagonist is the thing that colonises as well as the

thing that is colonised. He is both nature and the

machine. Astarte identifies the problem with colonialism,

claiming that “civilization is the problem! It’s stifling

us!” (p.358), and civilising other races removes humanity

from its place in nature. Astarte tells Jonathan that

colonial identities have “lost contact with the earth. We

should tear it all down and go back to our primitive

emotional selves, running naked on the sands of life!”

(p.358). In the final section of the novel – which is

titled ‘The Impressionist’ - the protagonist, still named

Jonathan Bridgeman, returns to a primitive way of life in

the continent from which humans originate: Africa. Even

here Jonathan cannot escape colonial civilisation, as the

Fotse people he lives among are a humorous and ironic

emblem of the Financial Times Stock Exchange: FTSE. Thus

Africa is an inadequate place for the protagonist to

identify himself. P.E Dumont asserts that ‘primitivism is

largely represented in India,’ as it is a ‘country where

the burden of the old traditions so heavily weighs upon

life,’ and that ‘the far remote prehistoric times were

the golden age in which virtue and happiness prevailed’15.

Consequently, it would seem that the protagonist would

have to complete a full circuit, return to India, to his

roots and heritage, to right his wrongs, to complete the

full identification of himself. For, reverting back to

the beginning of this essay, as Hegel maintained, to know

oneself one must first become ‘the Other’, which is what

the protagonist has done, but, to complete his journey,

he must return to his prior self: ‘[o]nly through the

death of the Other will the initial self-consciousness15 Dumont, p.446

retrieve its claim to autonomy’16. However, it would

appear this is not what the protagonist chose to do. At

the end of the novel the reader is left with the

information that the protagonist ‘has no thoughts of

arriving anywhere’ (p.481). The protagonist is still on

the Hegelian journey, and, until he prodigally returns to

India, he will perpetually be the impressionist, and, as

Kunzru had previously informs us in the narrative, ‘the

impressionist is blank. There is nothing there at all’

(p.419).

From the beginning of The Impressionist, at the very

conception of the protagonist, the reader is told what

the protagonist is:

‘[a] small thing [that] cascades into something larger

and potentially threatening and he [Forrester] takes a

shot at giving it a name and fails… and this thing which

now seems enormous and important and panic-inducing makes

him leap to his feet and stagger backwards, turning round

to confront or at least have some idea of its shape and

meaning. Perhaps it is unnamable, the unnamable thing

which strikes a lost man whose sole short purpose has

just been achieved, but, whether or not it can be named’

(pp.15-16)

The protagonist; Pran Nath; Rukhsana; Robert; Bobby;

Jonathan Bridgeman; the Impressionist, is intentionally16 Salin, p.49

nameless. They are the unspeakable ‘the horror the

horror’ in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the

unmentionable experience in the Marabar Caves in E.M.

Forster’s A Passage to India, the swiftly changing entity in

Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, the unnamable, the ambiguity,

uncertainty and irregularity that the Western

civilisation fears. Common in colonial texts, there is an

insistence, a necessity, for something unspeakable. In The

Impressionist the protagonist’s existence is the unspeakable

thing, whose identity is so devoid of normality – being

portrayed as mixed-race, a cross-dresser, trans-gendered,

cross-cultured - but it is Kunzru who aims to destabilise

the rigidity of categorisation, to subvert colonial

texts, to give the unspeakable an identity, be it often

intricate and eclectic, in the postcolonial text, in

spite of dilemmas.

Kunzru, Hari (2003) The Impressionist. London. Penguin.

Butler, Judith (1986) ‘Sex and Gender in Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex’ in Yale French Studies 72:35-41, New Haven: Yale University Press

Colls, Robert (2002) Identity of England. Oxford. Oxford University Press

Dumont, P.E. (1997) “Primitivism in Indian Literature” inPrimitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity. Baltimore. The JohnsHopkins University Press

Hyam, Ronald (2010) Understanding the British Empire. Cambridge.Cambridge University Press

Levine, Philippa (2007) The British Empire Sunrise to Sunset. Harlow. Pearson

McClintock, Anne (1995) Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Context. New York. Routledge

Salin, Sara (2002) Judith Butler. New York. Routledge