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This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book deals with melodrama's role in generating a sense of national consciousness and imperial destiny for the British. It explores the confrontation of the British stereotype of the self with one of the oldest characterisations of the Other on the English stage, the Irish stereotype. The book also explores various ways in which representations of the colonised peoples further afield, especially in India and the East, worked to naturalise and subordinate exotic otherness for British consumption. It covers several aspects of imperialist discourse and examines a range of theatrical conventions. The book offers suggestive instances of how the history of cultural forms may illuminate the processes of cultural hegemony.
Most cultures have a place for the concept of heroism, and for the heroic figure in narrative fiction; stage heroes are part of the drama's definition of self, the exploration and understanding of personal identity. Melodrama presents conflicts and attitudinal complexities without recourse to intellectual frames of reference; this is what is happening in the heroic melodramas concerned with imperialist themes. G. D. Pitt's play First Friendship; or, a Soldier's March from the Cradle to the Grave offers three heroic stereotypes, apparently mutually exclusive, but all in fact contributing to a self-image for the working-class imperial servant. In the melodrama, the glorification of British fighting men, Henry V's 'happy few', was given a focus in the generic figure of Jack Tar, as recognisable as a king in his uniform, and as distinctive in his known attributes.
This chapter explains that the southern metaphor, the image of England, was, at least in children's books, an essential part of Green's 'energising myth'. It focuses on the fiction for the young over many decades a powerful and multi-faceted presentation of Englishness, as a moral and ethical baseline, and therefore a starting point for the justification of the Empire. For the imperialist writer, the extension of this Englishness overseas is a cogent reason for colonial expansion. The chapter also focuses on Victorian and Edwardian fiction, while readers enjoy exotic adventure stories set in distant corners of the Empire. The creation of English images includes both the land and the people, and both are placed within an historical context. If the conquests of England by various imperialist powers were impossible to explain satisfactorily to the young in a few simple sentences, they were nevertheless potential vehicles for the lessons of imperialism.
The ideology of British imperialism is commonly defined in terms also culturally associated with masculinity. The function of imperialism in the cultural reproduction of femininity, reconciling greater freedom and fitness for girls with their continued subordination to the patriarchal order, is one of the underpinnings. The character of Guide literature under Agnes Baden-Powell's superintendance is very clear. The early issues of The Girl Guides' Gazette are as taken up with imperialism as The Girls' Empire. Post-war Guiding fiction elaborates the narratives that carry out the three-sided negotiation between femininity, 'masculine' outdoor/militaristic pursuits, and the girls' desire for freedom and self-determination. A century of writing for girls had established the norm of the domestic tale. In which, the trials of the heroine were involved with the learning of discipline, the internalisation of the feminine values of self-abnegation, obedience and subordination.
Imperialist discourse interacted with regional and class discourses. Imperialism's incorporation of Welsh, Scots and Irish identities, was both necessary to its own success and one of its most powerful functions in terms of the control of British society. Most cultures have a place for the concept of heroism, and for the heroic figure in narrative fiction; stage heroes are part of the drama's definition of self, the exploration and understanding of personal identity. Theatrical and quasi-theatrical presentations, whether in music hall, clubroom, Shakespeare Memorial Theatre or the streets and ceremonial spaces of the capital, contributed to that much-discussed national mood. This book examines the theatre as the locus for nineteenth century discourses of power and the use of stereotype in productions of the Shakespearean history canon. It discusses the development of the working class and naval hero myth of Jack Tar, the portrayal of Ireland and the Irish, and the portrayal of British India on the spectacular exhibition stage. The racial implications of the ubiquitous black-face minstrelsy are focused upon. The ideology cluster which made up the imperial mindset had the capacity to re-arrange and re-interpret history and to influence the portrayal of the tragic or comic potential of personal dilemmas. Though the British may have prided themselves on having preceded America in the abolition of slavery and thus outpacing Brother Jonathan in humanitarian philanthropy, abnegation of hierarchisation and the acceptance of equality of status between black and white ethnic groups was not part of that achievement.