Language in The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Atonement, Swing Time and The Return

Although language1 does not seem to have any major relevance in the four novels analysed (The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy, Atonement by Ian McEwan, Swing Time by Zadie Smith and The Return by Hisham Matar) it is an important element that quietly resonates across the different texts. A few threads can be drawn through the four novels to see the role discourse plays on the construction of these fictional narratives. To begin with, this paper will show how language is not just a means of communication, but also a tool that can be maneuvered and shaped in accordance with the writer’s ideology, or the perspective they want the reader to assimilate. Secondly, it will be seen how post-colonial texts have recurrently appropriated the English language in order to portray the realities marginalised live. And, finally, the connection between secular education and language will be addressed in order to show the gap that this relation creates between those who have access to it and those who do not. These issues will be analysed through the theoretical background of Brian Finney, A. Cormack, Bill Ashcroft and Braj Kachru, among others.

Far from simply being a means through which communication is expressed, the four novels analysed show that language is also a tool that can be manipulated in order to produce certain effects on the unaware reader. Among those four texts, Ian McEwan’s Atonement preponderates as the novel whose twists, metafiction and non-linearity, achieved through the careful crafting of its words, strips the reader from any illusion of reality, laying-bare its utter fictionality. Discussing the different parts that constitute this text, Brian Finney mentions that, while some critics may see the novel as a piece of realist fiction, in his opinion, Briony’s narrative style is a direct reflection of her “modernist bias”, which, he concludes, is “evidence of Woolf’s influence” on the young writer (Briony’s Stand against Oblivion 72). In accordance with Finney’ view, literary critic A. Cormack aggregates that McEwan’s allusions to the modernist and post-modernist movements are patent in the writing style used on the first fourteen chapters; the character of Emily Tallis in particular displays a stream of consciousness and an attunement to the social events that affect her household that are evocative of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (Postmodernism and the Ethics of Fiction 73). Furthermore, the lingering and descriptive deconstruction of the first day stands in evident stark contrast to the use of short sentences with no subordinate clauses that portray the speedy development of life at times of war, which Finney compares with another modernist author such as Hemingway (Briony’s Stand 74).

Moreover, the use of the first person-narrator is another way in which the influence of the modernist writing style is perceived, as it reminds the reader of the subjectivity and possible misconceptions of the events that are being retold. It is through the interplay of different narrators, who show their own points of view on the same event, that the reader quickly realises that Briony is entrapped in the stories her own mind creates, confident that she is “not a child” (Atonement 163) and that, even though “Cecilia might [be] ten years older”, only Briony is “thinking clearly, on her behalf” (Atonement 177). The lack of explanations from the part of Cecilia and Robbie, as well as the whimsical mind of the young playwright leads language to be a vehicle for subjectivity, miscommunication and misunderstandings, which allow the reader to foretell that Briony’s equivocation will eventually lead them to climatic and unfortunate consequences. Unreliability characterises Briony up until her older days, where the reader is introduced to a narrator who willingly manoeuvres the lives of her characters detaching them from what she affirms was the real life. This is why she admits that she has been an “unreliable witness” (Atonement 336), a storyteller who, like God, has the power language grants them to craft and bend the lives of others to suit their purpose (360, 371).

However, modernism is not the only movement through which language can be instrumentalised; discourse is also exerted in post-colonial texts as an ethnographic tool. As it is often the case, some post-colonial writers choose English as the conduit for their thoughts. Taking into account that many post-colonial writers were born in formerly-colonised countries—a number of them colonised by the British Empire—it may seem peculiar that these novelists willingly opt for the language of their oppressors, one that had been culturally imposed on them, to convey their vision. However, as the book The Post-Colonial Studies Reader cites, among the numerous reasons why writers may choose English instead of their mother tongues, there is “a confidence that English can be used in the process of resisting imperialism” (284, italics are original). Regarding this, theorist Bill Ashcroft explains that the strategy through which this subversion to the imperialist centre takes place is by means of abrogation and appropriation. Abrogation, he defines, “is a refusal of the categories of the imperial culture”, of its “standard of normative or ‘correct’ usage”, it is bereft of its culturally hermetic referentiality. This process is immediately followed by the system of appropriation, involving more than a sheer usage of foreign words. Ashcroft asserts that, through appropriation, language is “made to ‘bear the burden’” of the colonised, to express the life experiences of those who have been oppressed by it (The Empire Writes Back 37, 38). This implies a transformation of the colonial English into what theorists call ‘english’, which is distinctive through its syncretic use of grammar, syntax, vocabulary and even accent (The Post-Colonial Studies 284).

Although Atonement cannot be analysed from this perspective for its modernist connotations, novels such as The Ministry of Utmost Happiness do fit into the category of post-colonial texts written in English. In the particular case of The Ministry, Arundhati Roy introduces us to life in India, a country that has gained its independence from the former British Empire not yet a century ago. The reasons why Roy writes her novel in english may be closely related to the fact that she is a political activist for human rights who is able to reach a wider scope of people by using a multicultural language. On her desire to herald the political situation of her country and to expose its social injustices, she has appropriated the colonialist discourse, to make it carry the Indian yoke. But it is also due to her activism, and the fact that most readers of her novel may not be Indian, nor might they be informed of the state of affairs in that country, that her words could also be seen as biased and unreliable. Be that as it may, she is one of those post-colonialists who have appropriated a language that is not entirely their own, a language that has been culturally imposed on them through education and subjugation. Using it to express her discontent on marginalisation, she has decried, not only the acts perpetuated by the centre, but also how the Indians themselves have embraced the ideology of their former colonisers, by means of capitalism, while battling against and showing no tolerance for their fellow natives.

The use of untranslated words is another way in which Roy—among other post-colonial writers—has reversed the imperialist discourse to make it bare the Indians’ burden. There are countless instances where Roy mingles English with words that belong to some Indian and Pakistani languages. At times, their meaning is included between brackets—as in “‘with garam-garam (warm) so running down your thanda-thanda (cold) legs’” (The Ministry 34, the italics being original). Other words such as hijra or azadi remain untranslated, and it is only through their incessant use that the reader eventually grasps their potential meaning. But there are times when the meaning of certain words, or even whole poems, remains unclarified for the curious and attentive readers to decode. With regards to glossing, the aforementioned book The Empire Writes Back clarifies that, in the case of cross-cultural texts, “such glosses foreground the continual reality of cultural distance” (60), which, unfortunately, has not been dispelled after independence. It may be argued that there are instances in which meaning is, after all, inscribed in words or that language embodies culture in ways that a foreign tongue carrying its own, incompatible, set of experiences cannot fully convey. However, in other cases, the cultural gap only appears and is thereby enforced when this linguistic intersection takes place. This synecdoche in which a word is suddenly the representation of a whole culture is “ultimately a political act” (The Empire 65), a recurrent motif in post-colonial texts.

Political relations tend to affect the lives of individuals even with regards to the language they speak. The Return provides an excellent example of this when Hisham Matar, as the narrator and character in his own story, lays out how the Qaddafi regime has impacted his life: “back in 1969, a young captain named Muammar Qaddafi deposed King Idris and many of the significant features of my life – where I live, the language in which I write, the language I am using now to write this – were set in motion” (The Return 4). Even though his mother tongue is Arabic, the political persecution he and his relatives go through propel him to spend years in foreign countries, speaking a language that is not his own. The distance from the land where he used to belong and the fact that it is unsafe for him to openly identify himself as Libyan, bring him to admit that he “missed the Arabic language and everything Arabic” (17). Ultimately, becoming a British citizen has given him access to areas—such as The House of Lords—where he can give ringing international denunciations. Unfortunately, though, this resource does not grant him the answers he has been looking for, which leads him to wonder “to what extent are the [British] government muting criticism of human rights in Libya to establish trade relations, particularly on oil?” (190). This quote is particularly noteworthy since it shows how language is not only relevant for what people say, but also for what they conceal, in this case the answer to Hisham’s burning questions. According to his suspicions, the British government has concealed information it should have revealed, or has stepped aside in critical matters such as the violation of international human rights occurring in Libya. However, just as Arundhati Roy has done, the writer Hisham Matar has chosen to appropriate the English language, the language of former colonisers and current abettors of human rights violations, to reach an international audience with, not only ‘his’ shuttered story, but also a plight to find the whereabouts of a disappeared father.

In The Alchemy of English, Braj Kachru avers that “the English language is a tool of power, domination and elitist identity… associated with a small and elite group” (The Post-Colonial Studies 291, 292); a tool that has been employed by means of education to indoctrinate the minds of the colonised. This association between the English language and “a small and elite group” is touched on in The Ministry since most of the characters do not speak the language. Only one member of the Khwabgah is described as “a graduate [who] knew English”, someone who “could speak the new language of the times” (The Ministry 38). Here it is seen how being able to speak English, “the language of the times”, is closely related to being educated, being cultured; and it is this Western education what grants Saeeda the possibility of raising Anjum’s daughter despite Anjum’s efforts against it.

Another moment in which the role of the colonialist education appears in a post-colonial text, is on Zadie Smith’s Swing Time. Colonialism’s indoctrination is referred to when the main character speaks with Lamin, a Senegalese man who is convinced that “education is the answer to development for our [African] girls and women”, to which the protagonist adds that he had the air of someone “who had endured a great many lectures from representatives of DfID. “Education, education, education”” (Swing Time 206). This Department for International Development, along with the characters of the novel, tries to set up a school for girls in a rural African village, conveying the interest foreign organisations may have on the ‘development’ of those whose upbringing and cultural restrictions have limited their access to secular education. This drive for schooling as a means of improving their opportunities in life does not only impact Lamin, but also others who live in the Western world, such as the protagonist’s mother, who is personally convinced that “only a fool gives up an education” (187), as it can better the lives of those who have been born into the marginalised side of society. They may have been born on English soil, but they are still categorised by their Jamaican and African origins. Even though they speak English as their first tongue, they neither belong in England as much as others do, nor do they feel as ease in the colonies. This is an ever-present issue that the protagonist’s mother is conscious of and constantly tussles with by means of acquiring higher degrees in education than others whose strife is not as vehement for being of European descent.

As it was seen, language quietly permeates throughout the four novels analysed as a fundamental component in both modernist and post-colonialist literature written in English. To begin with, it can be employed as a tool with which the text and, thereby, the reader’s imagination can be manipulated. In the case of Atonement, this manoeuvring of language can be perceived in the way the events are retold; not only are they seen from several subjective—and at times opposing—points of view, they are all framed within the outlook of an consciously unreliable narrator, one who fabricates incidents that she admits did not occur. A similar situation takes place in both The Ministry and The Return, where the novels at times recount events that actually took place in a real-life context. The simple fact that those occurrences were put into the words of subjective beings fictionalises them till they become dubious—an issue modernists want the reader to be fully aware of—after all, words are not only relevant for what people say, but also for what they withhold. And this is an instrument writers use not only to foreground what others—such as Libya and the British government in the case of The Return—hide, but also to manipulate what their own readers’ thoughts to incite the compound of a shared ideology.

However, despite their being conscious that they are writing pieces of fiction, authors such as Hisham Matar, Zadie Smith and Arundhati Roy still choose narratives in order to abrogate and appropriate a language that has been foisted upon them. By means of an alien language, they broadcast life as they know it in places that have been put at a disadvantage when contrasted against a discriminating centre. Recounting those events, adding untranslated words, making their plights publicly known, and condemning the ingrained concept that only Western education is worth learning are just some of the ways in which language is brought to bear the burden of those who have been unfairly treated.

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Endnotes

1. On this paper, terms such as “language”, “writing style” and “discourse” will be used as para-synonyms. 

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Works Cited

Ashcroft, Bill. The Empire Writes Back. London: Routledge, 1989. Print.

Ashcroft, Bill. The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 1995. Print.

Cormack,  A. “Postmodernism  and the Ethics of  Fiction in Atonement” in Contemporary Critical Perspectives:   Ian McEwan. London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2009. Print.

Finney, Brian. “Briony’s Stand against Oblivion: The Making of Fiction in Ian McEwan’s ‘Atonement.’” Journal of Modern Literature, vol. 27, no. 3, 2004, pp. 68–82. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3831941.

Katchru, Braj. “The Alchemy of English” in The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 1995. Print.

Matar, Hisham. The Return: Fathers, Sons, and the Land in Between. Random House, 2017. Print.

McEwan, Ian. Atonement. London: Vintage Books, 2001. Print.

Roy, Arundhati. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. London: Hamish Hamilton, 2017. Print.

Smith, Zadie. Swing Time. Penguin Books, 2016. Print.

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