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
Top Related