Representation of Native Crowd in Alice Perrin’s Short Stories

The paper locates Alice Perrin’s short stories within the historical and literary contexts of the British Raj period and examines the representation of native crowds in order to understand India as a site of Anglo-Indian anxieties even during the period of “high imperialism” of the British Raj. Investigating her stories through the lens of the pragmatic theories of Elias Canetti, Le Bon Gustave, William Reddy, and Ann Laura Stoler, the paper demonstrates that Perrin colludes with the British Raj by nurturing negative emotional experiences via the representation of native crowds. In other words, the paper argues that her stories had imperial functions to play in the Empire and metropolitan Britain: to arrest the interracial romance; to reiterate the imperial policy of noninterference with native beliefs; to undermine New Woman ideals; to keep the memory of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 alive; to hint at the diplomatic use of labour force; and to discourage the dissolution of class and rank hierarchy.