Spoken in God Faith: Narrators in The Raj Quartet

Abstract

<p>Paul Scott died on the 1st of March, 1978, leaving a legacy of thirteen published novels, some published poetry, and several plays and essays in manuscript form. He enjoyed some fame during his life; however, it has only been in the past five years that readers have gradually been giving the novelist the attention that his work merits. The present study examines Scott's method of narration. The quartet explores the relation between the British and India in the period 1942-47, adopting as central metaphors the rape of Daphne Manners in the Bibighar Gardens and the attack on a missionary teacher, Edwina Crane, and her assistant on the road to Diprapur. The tale emerges through a variety of forms and voices, all of them the recollections of several people who were involved either directly or indirectly in these events. Chapter One examines the role of an unnamed investigator, the stranger, operating almost twenty years later, as the controlling narrator of the whole quartet. It also shows his desire to view critically the British Raj as a failure of liberalism. The remaining chapters focus in turn on three of the most important contributors to the stranger's story: Sarah Layton, Guy Perron and Barbie Batchelor. Scott has deliberately chosen these narrators as voices of integrity and faithfulness in an increasingly uncertain world for it is they who will sustain human relationships when the framework of a liberal humanist world crumbles.</p>