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Tom Stoppard’s Indian Ink Viewed from the Perspective of (Post)-Colonialism

  • Journal of Modern English Drama
  • Abbr : JMBARD
  • 2019, 32(2), pp.65-96
  • Publisher : 한국현대영미드라마학회
  • Research Area : Humanities > English Language and Literature > English Literature > Contemporary English Drama
  • Published : August 31, 2019

KIM,TAI-WOO 1

1국민대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Stoppard wanted to write a drama which would deal with the question of “the ethics of empire”, and at the same time he had an idea of a play which was about a circular situation where a poet is writing a poem and a painter is painting the poet in work. By setting Indian Ink partly in the British Raj in 1930, and making the relationship between a British poet, Flora, and an Indian painter, Das, the main thrust of the plot, Stoppard managed to realize both his intentions. However, the setting and the plot immediately pose some grave doubt whether the enormous issue of “the ethics of empire” can be properly dealt with in somewhat pre-settled private relationship between the male and the female artists of about the same age. And indeed the relationship between Flora and Das comes down to their spiritual communion and consummation, reducing the whole question of English rule in India to a matter of arts and between individuals. On the other hand, the arbitrary settings and disregard for historical circumstances debunk their relationship purely as ‘a fiction’, i.e. as an ultimate fictionalization of the history itself. In these respects, the symbolic meaning of their union as reconciliation and harmony between England and India is like a silent cry with no echoes. Including Flora and Das, almost all the characters in Indian Ink have their share in commenting on such issues as the English rule in India, Indian nationalism and independence, the partition of India, and post-colonial situations in India. And their comments are largely geared by explicit assertions, implicit allusions and, most importantly, withdrawal of presenting significant historical facts, to such effects that Indians were unable to govern themselves, England never intended to rule India for ever, voluntarily withdrawing from India, and that the situations in India got worse after the independence. What seems particularly clever is that the justification of the British Raj is partly made by none other than Indian characters themselves, but they are all strangely ‘enthralled’ by everything British, which clearly indicates what Stoppard had in mind when he invented these Indian characters. Indian Ink is by no means an inferior work to Stoppard’s other plays. The parts concerning Flora’s personal history presented by Professor Pike’s footnotes, in particular, are quite convincingly constructed with occasional Stoppardian wit. In the end, however, with its overt fictionality of Flora-Das relationship, distortion of historical facts, and prejudices over the question of English rule in India, Indian Ink degenerates into a play which justifies and strengthens still widely-held illusions over British Empire.

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