In their novels, both Carey and Farrell present the Colonial Authority as multi-faceted organizations. In Farrell's ‘The Siege of Krishnapur' the foremost voices of the Colonial Authority are the Collector, initially representative of the British Empire's quest for progress, and Fleury, initially the anti-materialist Romantic. The Magistrate, Generals, Lieutenants, and other British citizens also play a part in representing the conventional attitudes of the British Empire which looks down upon the oppressed, yet is benign and well intentioned in its approach. Conversely, in Carey's ‘True History of the Kelly Gang' Colonial Authority is enforced by the police, made up of those who closely monitor the Catholic Irish, and those in the upper echelons of the force, such as the Superintendent, in Melbourne. Carey's Colonial Authority is much more oppressive than Farrell's, partly explaining Carey's interest in the physical brutality Ned faces, whereas Farrell discusses the theory, satirizing the ideas of Colonialism since his Colonials do not, on the whole, set out to directly abuse the Natives.
Carey's attitude to Colonialism is revealed through Ned's perspective, one of the oppressed Irish and inevitably takes a jaundiced view, hence the portrayal of the police as effeminate, for instance Sergeant O'Neill is described as combing his hair “like a girl”. Through this imagery Carey shows how in Ned's mind the masculinity upheld by the Colonial Authority is degraded. This encourages the reader to question the reliability of the narrative voice as this image of the English is so extreme that it becomes apparent that Ned may be brutalized to the abuse inflicted by the English. Ned's self-aware, self-censoring narrative (such as “I adjectival spit and swear it”), presumably to portray himself in a good light for his daughter, also supports the idea of an unreliable perspective. Although Carey creates a more believable central character, we recognize that what Ned believes mustn't be assumed as the truth.
[...] Compare the ways in which the writers present the relationship between the colonial authority and the oppressed in the novels ‘The Siege of Krishnapur' and ‘True History of the Kelly Gang' In their novels, both Carey and Farrell present the Colonial Authority as multi-faceted organizations. In Farrell's ‘The Siege of Krishnapur' the foremost voices of the Colonial Authority are the Collector, initially representative of the British Empire's quest for progress, and Fleury, initially the anti-materialist Romantic. The Magistrate, Generals, Lieutenants, and other British citizens also play a part in representing the conventional attitudes of the British Empire which looks down upon the oppressed, yet is benign and well intentioned in its approach. [...]
[...] The animal metaphors clearly show Ned's tangible contempt and reveal his feelings of being threatened by the Colonial Authority. Quite differently, Farrell's main use of animal imagery comes out of Fleury's view of his own people and the Victorian narrative. Farrell's use of animal imagery is much more passive than Carey's, and enables the reader to see the irony of the Colonial opinion of the Natives as sub-human in turn criticizing the British. This relationship between the Colonial Authority and the oppressed peoples is not always as predictable as purely contempt for one another. [...]
[...] Both writers show that even though there are examples of cohesion between the cultures, it is an imposed cohesion or else it is false. A more general difference in the two novels' presentation of the relationship between the two cultures is that whilst Farrell appears to explore the theory of this relationship, demonstrating the differences in beliefs between the two cultures, attempting to explain why the Sepoys rebel, Carey attempts to represent the actual physical manifestation of this theory. Carey takes this approach because his main aim is to present the brutalized view of one of the oppressed people, whereas Farrell's more benign Colonial Authority is being set up for a fall. [...]
[...] Even the less significant characters like the Opium Dealer Rayne are shown to be bullies. Rayne refers his servants as “Ram”, “Monkey” and “Ant”, viewing them as sub-human life forms, below the British in status. Farrell clearly shows us the divide between the two peoples as exemplified in the ‘river flooding incident'. On the one hand the Hindus believed that “the land was particularly fertile here…because it had been blessed by a footprint”, whereas “the British believed, because it was regularly flooded and coated with nourishing silt”. [...]
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