Posted by Pippa on March 25, 2002 at 19:10:46 from 195.92.168.170:
In Reply to: Re: Colonialism in S&As posted by Jeremy Kriewaldt on March 25, 2002 at 18:41:01:
All very interesting, thank you and keep it up! A few more thoughts . . . .
Mary Walker - I wonder if her background was influenced by the Australian background of Ransome's maternal grandparents?
Interesting about Lenin's views on imperialism and his association with AR. Also about AR as a man of his time. This is part of what I think will be a central argument for me - there is a tendency to imagine AR sitting in a remote Lake District cottage writing benevolently for and about real children with no connection to the real world, but of course by the time he wrote S&A he was 45 years old and already a much-published writer, journalist and translater. He had lived in Russia where he became deeply embroiled in the politics of the Revolution (some have suggested "Six weeks in Russia in 1919" amounts to Bolshevik propoganda), played chess with Lenin, married Trotsky's secretary and was, in short, a man deeply involved in his time.
With regard to the class background of the Walkers, yes, they are of a class where parents were often off tending the Empire, but I think maybe the children emulate this in play, promoting the status quo of imperialism and forming mindsets and attitudes that will persist into adulthood and beyond. This is part of the central idea of ideology - an idea that seems part of commonsense and is upheld by those in power ("The ruling ideas are those of the ruling classes") but is in some way flawedm (here that imperialism is right and natural). Commander Walker is hero-worshipped by John, and is part of the upright Navy background that upholds the Empire, I like to think of Captain Flint as part of a more unofficial side of Empire - I reckon he was a bit of a black-market trader and Imperial entrepreneur!).
I am currently re-reading all the novels counting up use of the words "native", "explorer" and "savage", as well as looking out for other colonial tendencies. How about Mother playing at being Queen Elizabeth at Greenwich at the very beginning? Roger, on the first page, as a tea clipper? Also stuff on the source material of S&A especially Robinson Crusoe and Treasure Island, also what about the quoted sources such as the poem that starts ch1 of S&A? Titty hears the sonnet read aloud at school and forgets everything except the image of the explorers looking at the at the Pacific, and names the peak Darien. I think there is plenty of material . . .
Conscious that I will have to remain aware of the current of ideas at the time before condemning Ransome outright . . . don't think I'll be doing that anyway as, I suspect like most Ransome critics, I'm really just another Ransomite, and a frustrated Swallow or Amazon . . . I identify most with Titty . . .