The Woman of Colour: A Tale

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1808

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Letters 1-17

Letters 18-30

Letters 31-39

Letters 40-48

Letter 49-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Symbols & Motifs

The Pagoda

Content Warning: This section of the guide refers to enslavement and discusses scenes from the source text that include racist sentiments and language.

The Pagoda, the home of the Ingot family, represents the indiscriminate appropriation of Eastern cultures by white British colonizers. The structure itself is a hodgepodge of several different architectural styles. According to Olivia, it lacks “the bells which usually decorate the Chinese buildings, from whence its name is derived” (108), but otherwise resembles an actual pagoda, which is odd, considering that the Ingots were in India, not China. Olivia calls Sir Marmaduke the “eastern nabob” (108)—that is, someone who returned from India with a fortune—and he appears to be quite determined to show it off through the ostentatious exoticism of a building that does not at all fit the English countryside. That, however, does not appear to trouble Sir Marmaduke, whose scheme to change the route of the turnpike shows his willingness to alter the landscape according to his wishes and tastes, much as colonizers did throughout the British Empire.

Olivia’s calling the Pagoda “the temple of folly” (108) suggests several related ways to read the structure. One is in terms of an architectural “folly,” a building that is intended to decorate a garden and yet is so extravagant as to become a focus in itself. (A real-life example is the Great Pagoda in Kew Gardens outside of London, a folly built in the mid-18th century for the pleasure of the royal family and as a marker of imperial ambition.) Another reading emphasizes the folly of this undertaking and by extension not just the foolishness of the Ingots themselves, but their devotion to foolish pursuits.

Rice

Early in Olivia’s acquaintance with the Mertons, Letitia serves a large plate of boiled rice as part of a family breakfast. When Mr. Merton asks her why, she claims to have been told that people like Olivia eat only rice. She adds that she has never eaten it before. Olivia immediately understands that this is meant to humiliate her by saying she is the same as the enslaved Black people who worked on her father’s plantation. While Augustus reacts angrily, Olivia does not take the bait, and tells Letitia calmly that she eats the same food as the Mertons. She also refers to poor Black people as her “brothers and sisters,” driving home the point that being put into the same category as enslaved people is not actually embarrassing (77).

In fact, rice has a complicated history that is entangled with the history of slavery. Endemic to West Africa, rice was the primary sustenance of the enslaved during the Middle Passage. It was they who introduced the crop to the Caribbean and performed the grueling labor of cultivating and harvesting it in swampy conditions where diseases such as malaria and other dangers, such as from snakes, were rife. As European demand for rice grew, so did the plantations and the profits, particularly after techniques for refining rice were developed. Thus, the incident with rice in the novel resonates on several levels: Originally indigenous to Africa, it links people of African descent with their heritage, while at the same time it represents the loss of that heritage through the ongoing institution of chattel slavery.

Geographical Dislocation

The novel includes many instances of geographical dislocation, or occasions in which a character is forced to leave their home or chooses (usually under socioeconomic or interpersonal pressure) to leave their home suddenly. The most notable instance of this is, of course, Olivia’s move from Jamaica to England, but she continues to experience dislocation when she is forced to either leave New Park or stay there and be subject to George’s financial control. Her final move—from England back to Jamaica—is presented at the very end of the novel, with no explanation as to why Olivia decided to return. Angelina also moves frequently and very rarely seems to have any say in where, when, or even whether she does so. As a teenager, the Manbys bring her from Northumberland to London so that Letitia can have a close friend; after Angelina’s marriage is discovered and Augustus is sent to Ireland, she is forced to move to a remote cottage in Wales; and from there, she is forced yet again—this time, without explanation—to move to the cottage near New Park. While female characters usually experience geographical dislocation, some men do as well: Mr. Merton sends Augustus to Ireland to keep him away from Angelina, and later, Augustus has to move in with the Lumleys after Mr. Merton cuts him off. Mr. Bellfield also moves frequently as responsibility for his financial and material wellbeing is shuffled between Sir Marmaduke and Charles Honeywood.

The motif of geographical dislocation serves as a reminder of the economic, political, and cultural instability of early 19th-century England: The Napoleonic Wars were alternately good and bad for England’s economy, the British were continuing to colonize distant lands around the world, the Whigs and Tories were fighting for control of Parliament, and the Industrial Revolution was reshaping the dynamic between cities and the countryside. These turbulent events had dramatic effects on the lives of individual people of all classes and would have required sudden, often involuntary, relocations, such as we see throughout the novel.