Nada The Lily Q6 - Race

clash_bowley

Nada The Lily is unusual in that all of the characters in the main story are Zulu or Swazi, and the book was written in the 1890s. How do you feel about Haggard's treatment of his characters race?

Apocryphal

I'm not wise enough in the ways of African society to know if there's latent or inherent racism here (stereotypes etc.), but the people of the story certainly don't come of any worse than the Boers do - if anything, they come across as better/more in depth, so I think he was at least attempting to be even handed. Once might argue that the very existence of a book about natives being very violent to one another was contributing to the white man's burden myth, so there's that.

As African tales go, I'd recommend Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart before this novel any day - both for it's prose and it's content.

RichardAbbott

My impression is that Haggard broadly speaking admire the Zulus and wrote highly of them (barring the overt cruelty of the leadership), then had the Swazis and a couple of other groups as a kind of second tier, then a whole bunch of other tribes who were manifestly inferior... but his most direct and critical words are reserved for mixed-race individuals.

NeilNjae

Having all Black characters means you can't rely on racial stereotypes. You have to see the characters as different people.

The prejudice of the characters to non-Zulu is believable as something those characters would feel.

I thought it interesting that Nada was explicitly mixed-race, and that was the source of her great beauty. I don't know if it was purely exotic, or a part of Haggard's racism coming through that White women are more beautiful than Black.