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UNIT 62 THE COMMONWEALTH. CULTURAL DIVERSITY AND DEVELOPMENT OF LINGUISTIC VARIETIES. INTERCULTURAL INFLUENCES AND MANIFESTA-TIONS: THE NOVELS OF E.M. FORSTER, D. LESSING AND N. GORDIMER. OUTLINE 1. INTRODUCTION.

1.1. Aims of the unit. 1.2. Notes on bibliography.

2. THE COMMONWEALTH: A GENERAL OVERVIEW.

2.1. Definition. 2.2. A brief history of the Commonwealth.

2.2.1. Origins. 2.2.2. Membership. 2.2.3. Organization.

2.3. Historical background. 2.4.1. The first British empire.

2.4.1.1. XVth and XVIth century. 2.4.1.2. XVIIth century. 2.4.1.2. XVIIIth century.

2.4.2. The second British empire: XIXth century. 2.4.3. The dis mantling of the Britis h empire: XXth and XXIst century.

3. CULTURAL DIVERSITY AND DEVELOPMENT OF LINGUISTIC VARIETIES.

3.1. The Commonwealth: principles and values. 3.2. The Commonwealth: cultural and linguistic diversity.

3.2.1. Canada. 3.2.2. Australia. 3.2.3. New Zealand. 3.2.4. South Africa. 3.2.5. India. 3.2.6. The Caribbean Islands.

4. INTERCULTURAL INFLUENCES AND MANIFESTATIONS: THE NOVELS OF E.M. FORSTER, D. LESSING AND N. GORDIMER.

4.1. Edward Morgan Forster (1879-1970). 4.2. Doris Lessing (1919-). 4.3. Nadine Gordimer (1923-).

5. EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING. 6. CONCLUSION. 7. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

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1. INTRODUCTION.

1.1. Aims of the unit.

The present unit, Unit 62, aims to provide a useful introduction to the Commonwealth from a

general overview regarding its cultural diversity and development of linguistic varieties as well

as in terms of intercultural influences and manifestations, which are namely reflected in the

novels of E.M. Forster, D. Lessing and N. Gordimer. In doing so, the unit is to be divided into

three main chapters which correspond to the three main tenets of this unit: first, Chapter 2 deals

with the entity of (1) the Commonwealth in terms of (a) definition, (b) brief history of the

Commonwealth regarding (i) origins, (ii) membership, and (iii) organization, that is, its

evolution as an international organization up to the present day; and (c) a historical background

of the development and administration of the British colonial empire from the seventeenth

century to the present day, by reviewing (i) the first British empire, which traces back to the

fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth century; (ii) the second empire, which ranges the

nineneteenth century; and (iii) the dismantling of the British empire in the twentieth and twenty-

first century in terms of colonies, and for our purposes, states members.

Secondly, Chapter 3 approaches the Commonwealth country members’ cultural diversity and

development of linguistic varieties individually. So, we shall try to present an overview of the

Commonwealth cultural and linguistic variety by addressing (1) the Commonwealth principles

and values, and how these principles and values are present in (2) the countries which founded

the Commonwealth, namely (a) Canada, (b) Australia, (c) New Zealand, (d) South Africa, (e)

India, and (f) the Caribbean Islands.

Finally, in Chapter 4 the intercultural influences and manifestations are to be found within a

literary background in the novels of E.M. Forster, D. Lessing and N. Gordimer. In general, the

literature of the time was both shaped by and reflected the prevailing ideologies of the day

which, following Speck (1998), means that this is an account of literary activity in which social,

economic, cultural and political allegiances are placed very much to the fore. In this chapter, we

shall namely deal with post-colonial literature so as to frame Forster, Lessing and Gordimer’s

literary works in an appropriate social and political context to make him coincide with the late

consequences of the British imperialism. So, we shall provide the reader with the biographies of

(1) Edward Morgan Forster, (2) Doris Lessing and (3) Nadine Gordimer in terms of life, main

works and style so as to frame their lives in an appropriate social and political context to make

him coincide with the late consequences of the British imperialism.

Chapter 5 will be devoted to the main educational implications in language teaching regarding

the introduction of this issue in the classroom setting. Chapter 6 will offer a conclusion to

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broadly overview our present study, and Chapter 7 will include all the bibliographical

references for further information.

1.2. Notes on bibliography.

An influential introduction to the historical background of the Victorian period, Imperialism and

the Industrial Revolution is based on Thoorens, Panorama de las literaturas Daimon:

Inglaterra y América del Norte. Gran Bretaña y Estados Unidos de América (1969); and

Alexander, A History of English Literature (2000). The literary background includes the works

of Sanders, The Short Oxford History of English Literature (1996); Speck, Literature and

Society in Eighteenth -Century England: Ideology Politics and Culture (1998). Magnusson &

Goring, Cambridge Biographical Dictionary (1990).

General information on the Commonwealth are drawn from the Encyclopedia Encarta (1997),

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia (2003); the Encyclopaedia Britannica (2004); a brief

guide to the association provided by the Commonwealth Secretariat (2003); and two outstanding

webpages www.bbc.com and www.wwnorton.com. The background for educational

implications is based on the theory of communicative competence and communicative

approaches to language teaching are provided by the most complete record of current

publications within the educational framework is provided by the guidelines in B.O.E. (2004)

for both E.S.O. and Bachillerato; and the Council of Europe, Modern Languages: Learning,

Teaching, Assessment. A Common European Framework of reference (1998).

2. THE COMMONWEALTH: A GENERAL OVERVIEW.

Chapter 2 deals with the entity of (1) the Commonwealth in terms of (a) definition, (b) brief

history of the Commonwealth regarding (i) origins, (ii) membership , and (iii) organization, that

is, its evolution as an international organization up to the present day; and (c) a historical

background of the development and administration of the British colonial empire from the

seventeenth century to the present day, by reviewing (i) the first British empire, which traces

back to the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth century; (ii) the second empire,

which ranges the nineneteenth century; and (iii) the dismantling of the British empire in the

twentieth and twenty-first century in terms of colonies, and for our purposes, states members.

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2.1. Definition.

Following the Encyclopaedia Britannica (2004), the term ‘commonwealth’ refers to “a body

politic founded on law for the common “weal,” or good. The term was often used by 17th-

century writers to signify an organized political community, its meaning thus being similar to

the modern meaning of state or nation.” For instance, nowadays we talk about the

commonwealth to make distinction in name only regarding the four U.S. states (Kentucky,

Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia) which call themselves ‘commonwealths’; Puerto

Rico, which has been a commonwealth rather than a state since 1952; and “its residents, though

U.S. citizens, have only a nonvoting representative in Congress and pay no federal taxes.”

Yet, traditionally, it primarily referred to the Commonwealth of Nations regarding the “free

association of sovereign states consisting of Britain and many of its former dependencies who

have chosen to maintain ties of friendship and cooperation. It was established in 1931 by the

Statute of Westminster as the British Commowealth of Nations. Later its name was changed and

it was redefined to include independent nations. Most of the dependent states that gained

independence after 1947 chose Commonwealth membership.” Moreover, “the British monarch

serves as its symbolic head, and meetings of the more than 50 Commowealth heads of

government take place every two years.”

2.2. A brief history of the Commonwealth.

2.2.1. Origins.

As we shall see later, “territorial acquisition began in the early 17th century with a group of

settlements in North America and West Indian, East Indian, and African trading posts founded

by private individuals and trading companies. In the 18th century the British took Gibraltar,

established colonies along the Atlantic seacoast, and began to add territory in India. With its

victory in the French and Indian War (1763), it secured Canada and the eastern Mississippi

Valley and gained supremacy in India” (Britannica, 2004). By 1776 the American colonies were

controlled by governors appointed by the British government and by 1783, North American

colonists got their independence by establishing the Constitution of the United States.

After that, the British began to build power in Malaya and acquired the Cape of Good Hope,

Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and Malta. The English settled Australia in 1788, and subsequently New

Zealand. Aden was secured in 1839, and Hong Kong in 1842. Britain went on to control the

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Suez Canal (1875-1956) and after the 19th-century partitition of Africa, it acquired Nigeria,

Egypt, the territories that would become British East Africa, and part of what would become the

Union of South Africa. It must be borne in mind that prior to 1783, Britain claimed full

authority over colonial legislatures, but after the U.S. gained independence, Britain gradually

evolved a system of self-government for some colonies. Hence since Dominion status was given

to Canada (1867), the British Empire started to change into a ‘Commonwealth’ of independent

nations as later on it was also given to Australia (1901), New Zealand (1907), the Union of

South Africa (1910), and the Irish Free State (1921).

After World War I, Britain secured mandates to German East Africa, part of the Cameroons,

part of Togo, German South-West Africa, Mesopotamia, Palestine, and part of the German

Pacific islands. Yet, the dominions signed the peace treaties themselves (Paris Peace Conference

(1919), where commissions were appointed to study specific financial and territorial questions,

and the Treaty of Versailles, an international agreement signed in 1919) and joined the League

of Nations, an organization for international cooperation established by the Allied Powers so as

to be independent states. The league established a system of colonial mandates, but it was

weakened by the failure of the United States, which had not ratified the Treaty of Versailles

(1919). So, the League ceased its activities during World War II and it was replaced in 1946 by

the United Nations.

In 1931 the Statute of Westminster recognized the mentioned dominions as independent

countries “within the British empire,” referring to the “British Commonwealth of Nations.”

Following the Encyclopaedia Britannica (2004), at the time of its founding, the Commonwealth

consisted of the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the Irish Free State (withdrew in 1949),

Newfoundland (which became a Canadian province in 1949), New Zealand, and the Union of

South Africa (withdrew in 1961) , but after World War II, with “British” no longer officially

used, the Commonwealth was joined by more countries.

2.2.2. Membership.

So, regarding membership, we may define the ‘Commonwealth’ as the “association of 54 states

consulting, co-operating and working together in the common interest of their peoples and in

promotion of international understanding and world peace. With a total population of 1.7 billion

people, the Commonwealth represents almost one-third of the world’s population and one-third

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of the membership of the United Nations.” (Secretariat, 2003). These 54 country members1 are

listed now in alphabetical order in terms of dates of joining.

Thus Antigua and Barbuda (1981), Australia (1931 –Statute of Westminster-), The Bahamas

(1973), Bangladesh (1972), Barbados (1966), Belize (1981), Botswana (1966), Brunei

Darussalam (1984), Cameroon (1995), Canada (1931 –Statute of Westminster-), Cyprus (1961),

Dominica (1978), Fiji Islands (1970 –rejoined in 1997), The Gambia (1965), Ghana (1957),

Grenada (1974), India (1947), Jamaica (1962), Kenya (1963), Kiribati (1979), Lesotho (1966),

Malawi (1964), Malaysia (1957), Maldives (1982), Malta (1964), Mauritius (1968),

Mozambique (1995), Namibia (1990), Nauru (1968), New Zealand (1931 –Statute of

Westminster-), Nigeria (1960), Pakistan (1947 –rejoined 1989 and suspended from the councils

of the Commonwealth in October 1999-), Papua New Guinea (1975), St Kitts and Nevis (1983),

St Lucia (1979), St Vincent and the Grenadines (1979), Samoa (1970), Seychelles (1976), Sierra

Leone (1961), Singapore (1965), Solomon Islands (1978), South Africa (1931 –Statute of

Westminster; rejoined 1994 having left in 1961), Sri Lanka (1978, originally Ceylon),

Swaziland (1968), Tonga (1970), Trinidad and Tobago (1962), Tuvalu (1978), Uganda (1962),

United Kingdom, United Republic of Tanzania (1961), Vanuatu (1980), Zambia (1964),

Zimbabwe (1980 –suspended from the councils of the Commonwealth in March 2002-).

2.2.3. Organization.

The organization of the Commonwealth entity is carried out by a general board known as

ComSuper (Commonwealth Superannuation Administration), which has its origins in the

Superannuation Fund Management Board. Following www.comsuper.gov, “the Board was

formed in Melbourne on 20 November 1922 under the authority of the Superannuation Act 1922

to deal with the general administration and working of the first superannuation scheme for

Commonwealth employees. The Board directly hired staff to assist it in administering the

scheme,” and this is where the Commonwealth internal organization began.

1 We also provide the list in chronological order, thus India, Pakistan (1947; Pakistan withdrew in 1972, but rejoined in 1989); Ceylon (1948; now Sri Lanka); Ghana (1957); Nigeria (1960); Cypress, Sierra Leone (1961); Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, Western Samoa (1962); Kenya, Malaysia (1963); Malawi, Malta, Tanzania, Zambia (1964); Gambia, Singapore (1965); Barbados, Botswana, Guyana, Lesotho (1966); Mauritius, Nauru (special status), Swaziland (1968); Tonga (1970); Bangladesh (1972); Bahamas (1973); Grenada (1974); Papua New Guinea (1975); Seychelles (1976); Solomon Islands, Tuvalu (special status), Dominica (1978); St. Lucia, Kiribati, St. Vincent and the Grenadines (1979); Zimbabwe, Vanuatu (1980); Belize, Antigua and Barbuda (1981); Maldives (1982); St. Kitts-Nevis (1983); Brunei (1984); South Africa (rejoined 1994); Cameroon, Mozambique (1995). The last significant British colony, Hong Kong, was returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.

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The Commonwealth has a Secretariat which has its origins in the mentioned board. As this

employed the staff directly, there was no separate administration agency, and so the President of

the Board was the head of the Agency. The main head agents since 1922 have been Mr FJ Ross

(1922-1930), Mr P Rees (1930-1950), Mr NS Swindon (1950-1952), Mr RG Parker (1952-

1954), Mr NS Swindon (1954-1960), Mr EA Dundas (1960-1961), Mr JM Henderson (1961-

1964), Mr LK Burgess (1964-1976), Mr RC Davey (1976-1986), Mr GN Vanthoff (1986-1992),

Mr KA Searson (1992-1997), Ms CM Goode (1997-2002), and at present Mr Leo Bator (2002-

present).

The main issue in the current year of operation is getting the new scheme up and working. Then

the date contributions commence, and the Board have to work quickly to issue information to

Commonwealth employees. Ultimately, the President of the Board visits each State Capital to

speak with employees and Commonwealth agencies directly. Every year there is a meeting of

heads of government (the Superannuation Board with an annual report), which circulates among

the different countries. Also, members of the British Royal family make their visits to member

states, and do much to keep alive the symbolic links.

After the WWII (1948), the Commonwealth Board introduced the Defence Force Retirement

Benefits Scheme, created the DFRB Board, and the Chairman of this Board (Mr P Rees). “The

scheme was introduced for all military members, and resulted from the introduction of a revised

uniform pay code for the three Services. Administration of the DFRB Scheme was carried out

by the Defence Division of the Dept of Treasury. Administration responsibility for the DFRB

Scheme was transferred to the Superannuation Board in 1959.”

During the 1970s, the Office was renamed the Australian Government Retirement Benefits

Office (AGRBO) (1973); and introduced the Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefits Act

which established the Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefits (DFRDB) Scheme. All

running costs for the new scheme were met from AGRBO’s annual appropriation. Also, the

Superannuation Act (1976) established the Commonwealth Superannuation Scheme (CSS), the

Superannuation Fund Investment Trust (SFIT) for fund management, and created the position of

Commissioner for Superannuation.

During the early 1980s a range of resource management functions was transferred from the Dept

of Finance. The most significant being that the Commissioner for Superannuation assumed

Departmental Secretary powers and control of the staff of AGRBO. Yet, a major change in the

membership profile occurred with the introduction of the Commonwealth Employees

Redeployment and Retirement Act (1980-81) which provided for retirement at age 55. Also,

during the 1980s a major computer modernisation program saw the shift to on-line contributor

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maintenance and benefits processing, computerised registry, personnel, accounting, and

numerous other administrative processes.

The 1990s saw a period of membership contraction which had its peak in 1990 when large

GBE’s like Telecom, Australia Post and CAA established their own schemes. Also, in AGRBO

shortened its name to the Retirement Benefits Office (RBO); the introduction of the

Superannuation Act 1990 which established the Public Sector Superannuation (PSS) Scheme.

The Boards delegated certain of their powers of administration to the Commissioner for

Superannuation and the staff of RBO, and a Secretariat was established within RBO to service

the Boards.

In 1994 RBO changed its name to Commonwealth Superannuation Administration (ComSuper)

to reflect the Office’s mission to provide high performance superannuation services for public

sector and military employers and scheme members. ComSuper now administers complex

benefit provisions for nine Public Service and Australian Defence Force superannuation

schemes. In addition, it must now manage an extensive web of accountability relationships in its

daily operations with Boards of Trustees, Scheme Members, Employing Agencies, Government

Ministers, the Departments of Finance and Defence, Investment Advisors, Master Custodians

and Regulatory Authorities.

Also, apart from improving productivity, quality and practice, ComSuper is also adopting a role

in superannuation awareness and promotion by representing industry peak bodies, through a

schools’ superannuation awareness program, and through retirement and retrenchment

presentations. More recently, ComSuper’s main premises include a significantly better public

reception area with adjoining interview rooms, new facilities for conducting seminars for

members; an enhanced disaster recovery plan designed into new computing facilities.

2.3. Historical background.

On providing a historical background of the policy of the colonial expansion in general terms,

where we shall analyse first the difference between the concepts imperialism vs. colonialism,

which will lead us to what historians call the two British empires. First of all, it is quite relevant

to differenciate between the concepts ‘imperialism’ and ‘colonialism’ so as to better understand

the imperial expansion of Great Britain. Thus, whereas the term ‘imperialism’ refers to the

principle, spirit , or system of empire, and is driven by ideology, the term ‘colonialism’ refers to

the principle, spirit, or system of establishing colonies, which is driven by commerce. Hence,

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the worldwide system of dependencies –colonies, protectorates, and other territories- that over a

span of three centuries came under the British government.

Secondly, within this policy of imperial expansion and the establishment of new colonies all

over the world, historians make a distinction between two British empires which follows a

temporal classification within different centuries. Thus, according to www.wwnorton.com

(2004), the first British empire is to be set up in the seventeenth century, “when the European

demand for sugar and tobacco led to the development of plantations on the islands of the

Caribbean and in southeast North America. These colonies, and those settled by religious

dissenters in northeast North America, attracted increasing numbers of British and European

colonists”. Hence, “the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries saw the first British

Empire expanding into areas formerly controlled by the Dutch and Spanish Empires (then in

decline) and coming into conflict with French colonial aspirations in Africa, Canada, and India.

With the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the British effectively took control of Canada and India, but

the American Revolution (1776) brought their first empire to an end”.

On the other hand, a further phase of territorial expansion that led to the second British Empire

was initiated by the exploratory voyages of Captain James Cook to Australia and New Zealand

in the 1770s. “This reached its widest point during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901). At

no time in the first half of her reign was empire a central preoccupation of her or her

governments, but this was to change in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871),

which altered the balance of power in Europe”.

During the next decades, the British empire was compared to the Roman empire because of its

extension, but the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (up to the present day) were just about to

see the development in the dismantling of the British Empire with the declaration of

independence of the British colonies in India (1947) and Hong Kong (1997). So, one by one, the

subject peoples of the British Empire have entered a postcolonial era, in which they must

reassess their national identity, their history and literature, and their relationship with the land

and language of their former masters (www.wwnorton.com).

2.3.1. The first British empire.

2.3.1.1. XVth and XVIth century.

There is no doubt that the political, social and economic background of the seventeenth-century

Great Britain established the main basis for the policy of colonial expansion in the following

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centuries (the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries). Yet, previous events, which trace back to the

fifteenth century and take place within the field of exploration, mark the beginning of this

colonial adventure on the part of the most powerful empires at that time, thus Scandinavia,

Spain, Portugal, France and Great Britain.

Before British colonists reached the Atlantic Coast of North America, other non-British colonies

did it much earlier. For instance, the Viking Leif Eriksson discovered North America

accidentally on October 9, 1000; then nearly five hundred years later, Portugal, which was a

leading country in the European exploration of the world, began charting the far shores of the

Atlantic Ocean before Spain began.

Yet, in 1492, Cristobal Columbus brought this land to Europe’s attention on behalf of Spain , the

main colonial power of the day, which focused its efforts on the exploitation of the gold-rich

empires of southern Mexico (the Aztec) and of the Andes (the Inca). Portuguese explorers

(Pedro Alvares Cabral) landed in American coasts (Porto Seguro, Brazil) on April 22, 1500,

eight years later than Spain did.

Yet, after them no serious colonization efforts were made for decades, until England, France,

and Spain began to claim and expand their territory in the New World. In fact, the first French

attempt at colonization was in 1598 on Sable Island (southeast of present Nova Scotia). Next,

during the 17th century, Dutch traders established trade posts and plantations throughout the

Americas. However, Dutch settling in North America was not as common as other European

nations’ settlements. Many of the Dutch settlements had been abandoned or lost by the end of

the century, with the exception of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba , which remain Dutch

territory until this day, and Suriname, which became independent in 1975.

Also, Denmark started a colony on St Thomas in 1671, and St John in 1718, and founded

colonies in Greenland in 1721, which is now a self-governing part of the Kingdom of Denmark.

During the 18th century, the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Sea were divided into two

territorial units, one English and the other Danish, which were also used as a base for pirates.

Finally, other countries followed such as Russia, whose explorers discovered Alaska in 1732.

2.3.1.2. XVIIth century.

The seventeenth century has its starting point in the death of Elizabeth I (1603) and the

accession of James I to the crown. This period, known as the Stuart Age (1603-1713) and also

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called the Jacobean Era, the age of Cromwell and the Restoration, is characterized by crisis,

civil wars, the Commonwealth and the Restoration, and establishes the immediate background

to the Industrial Revolution and the establishment of the first American colonies.

Therefore, the political background is to be framed upon the Stuart succession line, thus under

the rule of James I (1603-1625). Under his rule, he achieved the unification of the crowns of

England and Scotland, and brought the long war with Spain to an end. Although this greatly

helped the English treasury and also James’s reputation (as rex pacificus), the policy was, in

part, unpopular because peace meant that both the English and the Dutch had to acknowledge

the Spanish claim to a monopoly of trade between their own South American colonies and the

rest of the world.

His son, Charles I (1625-1642), ruled until civil war broke out in 1642. He became King of

Great Britain and Ireland on his father’s death from 1625 to 1642, but soon friction between the

throne and Parliament began almost at once. For eleven years, Charles ruled without parliament,

a period described as ‘the Eleven Years’ Tyranny’, which led to civil war and his eventual

judicial execution in 1649 (called a ‘regicide’). This is the reason why we may note that in the

succession line, there is an eighteen-year interval between reigns (1642-1660), called

Interregnum, when first Parliament and Oliver Cromwell established themselves as rulers of

England.

Next, Cromwell (1642-1660) controlled the political affairs until monarchy was restored by

Charles II (1660-1685); this was followed by his brother, James II (1685-1689) who, in 1668,

fled before his invading son-in-law, the Dutchman William of Orange became William III. Then

William and Mary II (1689-1707) were succeeded by Mary’s sister, Queen Anne (1702-1713).

Each of their contributions were crucial for the development and administration of the British

empire all over the world.

These events contributed to the most influential change of the seventeenth and early eighteenth

century, that of population. Whereas for the first half of the century the population continued to

grow and, as a result, there was pressure on food resources, land and jobs, and increased price

inflation, the late seventeenth century saw the easing, if not the disappearance of these

problems. Family-planning habits started to change and new methods of farming increased

dramatically. From the 1670s, England became an exporter as opposed to a net importer of

grain. The seventeenth century is also probably the first in English history in which more people

emigrated than immigrated, hence the period of American colonization.

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Yet, undoubtely, the most important step which favoured the imperial expansion was made in

the economic field: the foundation of the Bank of England in 1694. As mentioned above, the

continental wars of James II (1685-1689) and William of Orange, known as William III (1689-

1707), were really expensive, and as a result, England was forced to raise a considerable

national debt. In 1694, the Scotsman William Paterson founded the Bank of England to assist

the crown by managing the public debt, and eventually it became the national reserve for the

British Isles. Yet, in 1697, any further joint-stock banks were forbidden just to secure its

position of prominence in England.

It was this debt that forced the British government to use the colonies as a source of economic

income. In fact, the Secretary of state for the South was established in London so as to deal with

colonial business. Other government departments, such as the treasury, the customs, the

admiralty, and the war office also had representatives in the colonies, where the chief

representative of the Imperial government was the governor, appointed by the king or by the

proprietors with his approval.

The general desire in this century was for the American continent and islands serve as a source

for products and as a market for their manufacturers. Till the end of this century the pressure of

France expansion on almost all sides of the American colonies, except the sea, was a constant

remainder to them of their ultimate dependence on England’s military support and their main

aim was to develop a naval supremacy over France.

So, in North America the establishment of American colonies meant the starting point of British

colonial activity in the Western hemisphere and also, a new place for immigrants to hide from

political and religious crisis in England. The political history of Colonial America will make us

comprehend the preparation of the whole people for the radical change of government they were

so soon to undergo in British colonies, and the strong spirit of democracy which led Britain to

the loss of the American colonies with the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

In the XVIIth century we distinguish two types of earlier colonies: non-British and British;

whereas the first group namely includes Viking, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Dutch and Danish

colonists, the second group is formed by Anglosaxons. Moreover, non-British colonies, namely

French and Dutch, were founded on aristocratic principles and strove vigorously to gain liberal

institutions. Following Daimon (1969), had their political circumstances been different in

Europe, they could have also gained the control of the continent. Yet, Holland was quite

wealthy and had few immigrants, and France had a great number of immigrants but was not

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interested in the snow land. Yet, the struggle for control of this land would continue for more

than a hundred years.

The thirteen British colonies of America were formed under a variety of differing conditions.

The settlement of Virginia was the work of a company of London merchants, that of New

England of a body of Puritan refugees from persecution. Most of the other colonies were formed

through the efforts of proprietors, to whom the king had made large grants of territory. None of

them were of royal or parliamentary establishment and therefore, the government of the mother-

country took no part in the original formation of the government of the colonies, except in the

somewhat flexible requirements of the charters granted to the proprietors.

The colonies were classified into (1) New England colonies, made up by Rhode, Connecticut,

New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Among them, the most famous first colonies were

Plymouth colony (1620) and Massachusetts Bay Colony (1629), which were settled by two

groups of of religious dissenters who escaped religious persecution in England: the Pilgrims and

the Puritans; (2) the rest of British colonies in America followed after Plymouth and

Massachusetts Bay, consisting of Middle colonies, such as New York, Pennsylvania, the three

counites of Delaware, and Maryland, which were namely characterized by a wide diversity, both

religious, political, economic, and ethnic; and (3) the southern colonies which include

Maryland, Virginia, Georgia and the two Carolinas (north and south). Yet, the most important to

mention is Virgina colony, which is considered to be the first permanent settlement in North

America under the name of the English colony of Jamestown (1607), was the first English

colony2 in America to survive and become permanent and become later the capital of Virginia

and the site of the House of Burgesses.

But the main causes of social decentralization were soon to be noticed. As the colony of

Virginia was so heavily influenced by the cultivation of tobacco and the ownership of slaves, in

1619 large numbers of Africans were brought to this colony into the slave trade. Thus,

individual workers on the plantation fields were usually without family and separated from their

nearest neighbours by miles. This meant that little social infrastructure developed for the

commoners of Virgina society, in contrast with the highly developed social infrastructure of

colonial New England.

2 The settlement was struck by severe droughts in centuries and as a result, only a third of the colonists furvived the first winter, and even, source documents indicate that some turned to cannibalism. Yet, the colony survived in large part to the efforts of John Smith, whose moto was ‘No work, no food’. He put the colonists to work, and befriended Pocahontas, daughter of Chief Powhatan, who supplied the colony with food.

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By this time, the English colonies were thirteen: Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut,

Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North

Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Although all these British colonies were strikingly

different, throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries several events took place and

brought relevant changes in the colonies: whereas some of the them sprung from their common

roots as part of the British Empire, others led up to the American Revolution, and to the final

separation from England.

2.3.1.3. XVIIIth century.

The eighteenth century was to witness the most important consequences of the industrial

revolution within the British colonial expansion, both in America and overseas. Although there

was general properity in the Middle and Southern colonies, as well as social and political

struggle, American colonies had to face the arrival of loads of immigrants from Europe. Their

economy, based on the production of rice, indigo and naval stores, was booming in contrast to

the hostile attitude of Indians at the frontier. In the upper south, Virginia and Maryland’s

tobacco prices were falling and crop failures became very usual. Yet, in New England, the

social and political atmosphere was quite calm, but not the economy since the Sugar Act

imposed taxes and new commercial regulations on them. The main causes which led the thirteen

colonies to revolution are stated as follows:

• The first event relates to the French and Indian War (1754-1763), which meant the

American extension of the general European conflict known as the Seven Years’ War.

The war takes its name from the Iroquois confederacy, which had been playing the

British and the French against each other successfully for decades. Eventually, in the

Treaty of Paris (1763) , France surrendered its vast North American empire to Britain.

During the war the thirteen colonies’s identity as part of the British Empire was made

truly apparent, as British military and civilian officials took on an increased presence in

the lives of Americans.

The war also increased a sense of American unity in men who might normally have

never left their colonies to travel across the continent, and fighting alongside men from

decidedly different. However, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom at the time

(William Pitt), decided to wage the war in the colonies with the use of troops from the

colonies and tax funds from Britain itself, which was a successful wartime strategy. Yet,

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this dispute was to set off the chain of events that brought about the American

Revolution.

• The Royal Proclamation (1763) was a prohibition against settlement west of the

Appalachian Mountains, on land which had been recently captured from France. In

issuing this decree, the government was no doubt influenced by disgruntled taxpayers

who did not wish to bankroll the subjugation of the native people of the area to make

room for colonists. Yet, for most Americans, it seemed unnecessary to accept an

unproductive piece of legislation stated by a far-away government that cared little for

their needs, although Parliament had generally been preoccupied with affairs in Europe,

and let the colonies govern themselves. The policy change would continue to arouse

opposition in the colonies over the next thirteen years and through a series of measures,

which were to be named as acts.

• Thus, the Sugar Act (1764), which increased taxes on sugar, coffee, indigo, and certain

kinds of wine, and it banned importation of rum and French wines; the Stamp Act

(1765-1766), which was carried out by the British Parliament to tax activities in their

American colonies; as a result, the British Parliament passed at least two laws, known

as the Quartering Act. The first one became law on 24 March 1765, and provided that

Britain would house its soldiers in America first in barracks and public houses, and the

second (also called the Intolerable Acts, the Punitive Acts or the Coercive Acts) was one

of the measures that were designed to secure Britain’s jurisdiction over her American

dominions; the Declaratory Act (1766) was established to secure the dependency of his

Majesty’s dominions in America upon the crown and parliament of Great Britain. This

act states that American colonies and plantations are subordinated to, and dependent

upon the imperial crown and parliament of Great Britain; and that the King’ majesty as

full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to

bind the colonies and people of America, subjects of the crown of Great Britain.

The Townshend Revenue Act (1767) placed new taxes on glass, lead, paints, paper,

and tea. Therefore, colonial reaction to these taxes was the same as to the Sugar Act and

Stamp Act, and Britain eventually repealed all the taxes except the one on tea. In

response to the sometimes violent protests by the American colonists, Great Britain sent

more troops to the colonies; the Tea Act (1773) gave a monopoly on tea sales to the

East India Company. Since the East Indian Company wasn’t doing so well, the British

wanted to give it some more business. The price on this East India tea was lowered so

much that it was way below tea from other suppliers. But the American colonists saw

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this law as yet another means of “taxation without representation” because it meant that

they could not buy tea from anyone else (including other colonial merchants) without

spending a lot more money.

Their response was to refuse to unload the tea from the ships in Boston, a situation that

led to the Boston Tea Party in 1773. Angry and frustrated at a new tax on tea,

American colonists (calling themselves the Sons of Liberty and disguised as Mohawk

Native Americans) boarded three British ships (the Dartmouth , the Eleanor, and the

Beaver) and dumped 342 whole crates of British tea into Boston harbor on December

16, 1773. Similar incidents occurred in Maryland, New York, and New Jersey in the

next few months, and tea was eventually boycotted throughout the colonies. The Boston

Tea Party was an amusing and symbolic episode in American history, an example of

how far Americans were willing to go to speak out for their freedom.

The punitive effect of these laws generated a reaction in a great and growing sympathy

for the colonists of Massachusetts, encouraging the neighbouring colonies to band to

together which would help lead to the American Revolutionary War. Eventually, in

1775, under George III’s reign, the British North American colonies revolted in

Massachusetts due to the previous frustration with the British crown practices, and

namely to their opposition to British economic explotiation and also their unwillingness

to pay for a standing army. Anti-monarchist sentiment was strong, as the colonists

wanted to participate in the politics affecting them.

The next year, representatives of thirteen of the British colonies in North America met in

Philadelphia and declared their independence in a remarkable document, the Declaration of

Independence. The committee had intrusted that task to Thomas Jefferson, who, though at that

time only thirty-three years of age, was chosen for two main reasons: first, because he was held

to possess a singular felicity in the expression of popular ideas and, second, because he

represented the province of Virginia, the oldest of the Anglo-American colonies.

Jefferson, having produced the required document, reported it to the House on the 28th of June,

where it was read, and ordered to lie on the table. After the conclusion of the debate on the

resolution of independence on 2nd July, the Declaration was passed under review. During the

remainder of that day and the two next, this remarkable production was very closely considered

and shifted, and several alterations were made in it, namely the omission of those sentences

which reflected upon the English people, and the striking out of a clause which severely

reprobated the slave-trade.

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The debate on the proposed Declaration came to a termination two days later, on the evening of

the 4th of July. The document was then reported by the committee, agreed to by the House, and

signed by every member present, except General Dickinson. The signature of New York was

not given till several days later, and a New Hampshire member, Matthew Thornton, was

permitted to append his signature on November 4 (four months after the signing). With the help

of their French allies they were eventually able to win the American Revolutionary War against

Great Britain, settled by the Treaty of Paris (1783). So, we can say that the United States of

America was founded in 1776 from British colonies along the Atlantic Coast of North America

and was declared to be independent in 1778.

The debate on the proposed Declaration came to a termination two days later, on the evening of

the 4th of July. The document was then reported by the committee, agreed to by the House, and

signed by every member present, except General Dickinson. The signature of New York was

not given till several days later, and a New Hampshire member, Matthew Thornton, was

permitted to append his signature on November 4 (four months after the signing). With the help

of their French allies they were eventually able to win the American Revolutionary War against

Great Britain, settled by the Treaty of Paris (1783). So, we can say that the United States of

America was founded in 1776 from British colonies along the Atlantic Coast of North America

and was declared to be independent in 1778.

In the rest of the world, interests expanded through the eighteenth century to such extent that in

the early years of the 18th century the East India Company proves successful regarding

commercial interchanges in India and, in fact, a statutory monopoly of trade was established

between England and India (1708). The number and importance of factories made the English

Company have the control on the area (it had three presidencies at Bombay, Calcutta and

Madras) although Bombay was the only absolute possession in French or English hands.

Despite the fact that it was not a pure trading company, it found no rivalry from other European

states in India since the Portuguese and Dutch, which had established their position in India, left

with few and unimportant possessions or factories.

Overseas, during the earlier half of the century the British empire established more successful

trading companies not only in the West Indies but also in Africa (the Royal African Company)

and in the South Sea (the South Sea Company). On the American Continent, the Caribbean

islands not only provided Britain with sugar and slave trade but also with strategic possessions,

which was a crucial issue in the fight between England and France for colonial possessions. In

fact, as stated above, the British government established the Navigation Act (1773) so as to

monopolize the trade of its products (namely tobacco and sugar) and therefore, establish a close

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economic system and guarantee a sheltered market in Britain, not subject to competition from

other colonies, such as those of France, Portugal and Spain.

In the second half of the century, some remaining British colonies were lost temporarily after

the treatise, for instance, the Caribbean islands were controlled by France and Tobago and

Minorca were no longer British. However, the rest of colonies were not economically strong

enough to think of independence even if they had wanted it, as it was the case of South Africa,

which was a military and trading port, a naval station and a port of call. Canada was of greater

economic importance in the sense that its citizens were free to manage their local affairs, so the

demand for self-government did not imply a wish for separation. The colonies were therefore

asking for something like municipal independence.

In 1768, the first British empire reached the second phase of expansion with the exploratory

voyages of James Cook, who undertook the first of three voyages to the Pacific, surveying New

Zealand, modern Australia, Tahiti and Hawaii. His second voyage (1773) made him the first

Britain to reach Antarctica, and his third voyage (1778-1779) led him to discover and name

island groups in the South Pacific, such as the Sandwich Islands. Unfortunately, Cook was

killed on Hawai on 14 February 1779.

Eventually, the colonisation of the Antipodes, that is, Australia and New Zealand took place as

an attempt to find a place for penal settlement after the loss of the original American colonies.

The first shipload of British convicts landed in this largely unexplored continent in 1788, on the

site of the future city of Sydney. Most convicts were young men who had only committed petty

crimes. In the nineteenth century (1819) new settlers were allowed to set up in New South

Wales and by 1858 transportation of convicts was abolished.

2.3.2. The second British empire: XIXth century.

Following the information given in www.wwnorton.com, “During the next decades, two great

statesmen brought the issue of imperialism to the top of the nation’s political agenda: the

flamboyant Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881), who had a romantic vision of empire that the

sterner William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) distrusted and rejected. Disraeli’s expansionist

vision prevailed and was transmitted by newspapers and novels to a reading public dramatically

expanded by the Education Act of 1870.

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Symbolically, the British Empire reached its highest point on June 22, 1897, the occasion of

Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, which the British celebrated as a festival of empire. It was a

great moment where the British Empire was compared to the Roman Empire3, comparison

which was endlessly invoked in further discussions and literary works, for instance, at the start

of Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness (1902) and in Thomas Hardy’s Poems of Past and Present

(1901).

In 1897 the Empire seemed invincible, but only two years later British confidence was shaken

by the news of defeats at Magersfontein and Spion Kop in the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902).

Those and other battles were lost, but eventually the war was won, and it took two world wars to

bring the British Empire to its end. Those wars also were won, with the loyal help of troops

from the overseas empire”.

The political background is namely represented by the accession of Queen Victoria to the throne

when her uncle, William IV dies in 1837. So Victoria would reign from 1837 to 1901 and would

be the longest reigning British monarch. In general terms, during Victoria’s reign, the revolution

in industrial practices continued to change British life, bringing about urbanisation, a good

communications network and wealth. In addition, Britain became a champion of Free Trade

across her massive Empire, and industrialisation and trade were glorified in the Great

Exhibitions. Yet, by the turn of the century, Britain’s empire was being challenged successfully

by other nations such as France and Germany on the continent.

We consider worth reviewing the main political benchmarks under her rule since important

changes took place in her colonies. Thus:

• From the 1850s, Britain was the leading industrial power in the world. Superseding the

early dominance of textiles, railway, construction, iron- and steel-working soon gave

new impetus to the British economy by expanding territories in Africa (namely

railways).

• Yet, the most outstanding event after 1837 was the Great Exhibition in 1851, in which

the British empire was compared to the Roman empire. It was an imperial and industrial

celebration which was held in Hyde Park in London in the specially constructed Crystal

Palace, whose profits allowed for the foundation of public works such as the Albert

3 “The Roman Empire, at its height, comprised perhaps 120 million people in an area of 2.5 million square miles. The British Empire, in 1897, comprised some 372 million people in 11 million square miles. An interesting aspect of the analogy is that the Roman Empire was long held - by the descendants of the defeated and oppressed peoples of the British Isles - to be generally a good thing. Children in the United Kingdom are still taught that the Roman legions brought laws and roads, civilization rather than oppression, and in the second half of the nineteenth century, that was the precedent invoked to sanction the Pax Britannica” (www.wwnorton.com).

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Hall, the Science Museum, the National History Museum and the Victoria and Albert

Museum.

• Other important events were the Crimean War between 1854 and 1856, which at first

was between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, and later Britain and France were

involved. During this war Britain maintained their colonial possessions.

• Between 1857 and 1858, there was an Indian Mutiny between Indian soldiers (Hindu

and Muslim) who opposed their British commanders following a series of insensitive

military demands which disrespected traditional beliefs. The mutiny led to the end of

East India Company rule in India and its replacement by direct British governmental

rule.

• Following the death of Albert (Victoria’s husband) in 1861, she had increasingly

withdrawn from national affairs and criticism of the Queen lessened and she resumed

her interest in constitutional and imperial affairs (she was created Empress of India in

1877).

• Victoria’s death in January 1901 was an occasion of national mourning.

• Finally, to close the century we find the Boer War (1899-1902) which started as Britain

attempted to annex the Transvaal Republic in southern Africa. In December 1880, the

Boers of the Transvaal revolted against British rule, defeated an imperial force and

forced the British government to recognise their independence. Finally, the peace of

Vereeniging in May 1902 annexed the Boer Republics of Transvaal and the Orange

Free State to the British Empire (which, in 1910, became part of the Union of South

Africa).

Generally speaking, the nineteenth century development and administration of British colonies

was focused on the consolidation of existing colonies and the expansion into new areas,

especially in Africa, India and Canada. Actually, in the early nineteenth century new British

colonies were to be acquired or strengthened because of their strategic value, thus Malaca and

Singapore because of their trading ports of growing importance, and the settlements of Alberta,

Manitobba, and the British Columbia in Canada as potential areas of British migration. The

main causes for other new acquisitions were, among others, the Treaty of Amiens (1802) by

adding Trinidad and Ceylon; the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) with the addition of the Cape of

Good Hope; the War with the United States (1812) brought about the Canadian unity; and the

first Treaty of Paris (1814) gained Tobago, Mauritius, St. Lucia and Malta.

Also, between the years 1857 and 1858 Britain acquired in India the cities of Agra, Bengal and

Assam after some local wars against French influence. Perhaps the Napoleonic Wars brought

about more new acquisitions to the British empire in this century than any other war, since the

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Crimean War (1854-1856), the pacification programs in Africa, and some conflicts in New

Zealand (against the Maoris) made little or no difference to the British empire. Yet, the most

serious conflict was just about to come towards the end of the century with the War in Sudan

(1884) and the Boer War (1881, 1899-1902). So, as we can see, still in the nineteenth century,

Great Britain maintained her political and imperial sovereignty.

In order to control these colonies, the British government created a sophisticated system for

colonial administration: the Colonial Office and Board of Trade (1895-1900). Already in the

1850s, they were ruled by legislative bodies, since the colonies continuously asked for

independence. They were separate departments with an increasing staff and a continuing policy

of establishing discipline and pressure on the colonial goverments. Hence most colonial

governements were left to themselves.

However, these legislative bodies governing the new settlements were soon to be replaced by an

executive body which took over the financial control. This elected assembly would be

represented by the figure of the governor and would be responsible for the colonial government.

Therefore, these settlements became ‘crown colonies’, and were subject to direct rule, as we can

see in the African and Pacific expansion where the crown colony system was established. Let us

examine how this new colonial governing body was applied in the colonies of Australia, Asia

and Africa.

• In the Antipodes, New Zealand and Oceania were systematically colonized in the 1840s

under the pressure of British missionaries. Yet, territorial disputes were brought up

between the new colonists and the homeland tribes, the Maoris. Hence the Maori Wars

(1840s-1860s) which eventually ended with the withdrawal of British troops and a

peaceful agreement of settlement for the newcomers. In the last quarter of the century,

the British empire took the control over other islands in the Pacific, again because of

missionary pressure and international naval rivalry and, eventually, the Fiji Island was

annexed in 1874. Three years later the governement established a British High

Commission for the Western Pacific Islands (1877) as well as a protectorate in Papua

(1884) and in Tonga (1900). These protectorates were soon to be governed by Australia

and New Zealand.

• In Asia , India was conquered and therefore, had an expansion policy. As stated

previously, the suppressed Indian ‘mutiny’ (1857) gave way to the abolishment of the

East India Company (1858) and, therefore, the local executive body was replaced by

that of the crown. Known as ‘the brightest jewel in the British crown’ (a Disraeli’s

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phrase), India was a strategic settlement for the British empire and her conquest was

justified in terms of benefits and discipline. Further acquisitions (Burma, Punjab,

Baluchistan) provided new crucial settlements in the area in order to set up a new route

in India. Since the opening of the Suez Canal, new territories were under the influence

of Britain within this route: Aden, Somaliland, territories in southern Arabia and the

Persian Gulf. Moreover, further expansion took place with the development of the

Straits settlements and the federated Malay states; Borneo (1880s), Hong Kong (1841);

and adjacent territories in China, Shangai (1860, 1896), which had trading purposes.

• Finally, the greatest development of the British Empire took place in Africa in the last

quarter of the century. The reign of Queen Victoria brought about a great enthusiasm

for a ‘similar Roman empire’, whose power might extend from the Cape of Good Hope

to El Cairo. This idea fascinated the British citizens who, in Queen Victoria’s two

jubilees, offered colonial conferences, the search of new areas of opportunity, and the

discoveries and wars for mining wealth in South Africa. In fact, the spread of the British

empire comprised by the nineteenth century nearly a quarter of the land surface and

more than a quarter of the population of the world.

From 1882 onwards Britain controlled Egypt and Alexandria (by force), and a joint

administration half British-half Egyptian was established in the Sudan area in 1899.

Also, on the western coast the Royal Niger Company began the expansion over the area

of Nigeria. By then there were two main British Companies: the Imperial British East

Africa Company, which operated in nowadays Kenya and Uganda, and the British

South Africa Company in the areas now called Rhodesia, Zambia, and Malawi. Hence

the missionary migrations to Africa in the eventual transfer of these territories to the

crown.

2.3.3. The dismantling of the British empire: XXth and XXIst century.

Therefore, by 1897 the Empire seemed invincible, but only two years later British confidence

was shaken by the news of defeats at Magersfontein and Spion Kop in the Anglo-Boer War

(1899-1902). Hence, after the Boer War (1902), the countries of the overseas empire wanted a

greater measure of self-government, and those and other battles were lost. Yet, eventually the

war was won, and it took two world wars to bring the British Empire to its end. Those wars also

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were won, with the loyal help of troops from the overseas empire (more than 200,000 of whom

were killed in World War I alone)”.

After a century of almost unchallenged political security, Britain perceived the aggressive

militarisation of the new German state and Hitler’s empire as a threat. Britain and, therefore, her

empire, lost a large part of a generation of young men in the First World War. Yet, after the

First World War the British Empire continued to grow and, in addition to the self-governing

territories of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, it annexed large tracts of

Africa, Asia and parts of the Caribbean. Also, following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire,

Britain included Iraq and Palestine.

Soon nationalist movements were to be strongly felt in India, Egypt and in the Arab mandated

territories. In 1922 Egypt was granted a degree of independence by Britain and full

independence in 1936. Similarly, Iraq gained full independence in 1932. On the other hand,

India achieved its independence in 1947 after the movement of Indian nationalism, boosted by

the 1919 Amritsar Massacre. In 1931, the British Parliament, by means of the Statue of

Westminster, recognized the legislative independence and equal status under the Crown of its

former dominions and the Irish Free State within a British Commonwealth of Nations. The

resultant relationship is sometimes thought to have been a precursor to the post-war British

Commonwealth.

During the Second World War, Britain’s civilian population found themselves under severe

domestic restrictions, and occasionally bombing. Also, conflict accelerated many social and

political developments and growing nationalist movements impacted both on the British rule of

Empire and on the individual nations of the British Isles. Hence, most of the remaining imperial

possessions were granted independence, for instance, fifty years after Queen Victoria’s

Diamond Jubilee, India was cut in two to become the Commonwealth countries of India and

Pakistan.

The most recent development in the dismantling of the British Empire was the restoration to

Chinese rule, under a declaration signed in 1984, of the former British crown colony of Hong

Kong, on the southeastern coast of China, where the Union Jack was finally and symbolically

lowered on July 1, 1997. So, one by one, the subject peoples of the British Empire have entered

a postcolonial era, in which they must reassess their national identity, their history and

literature, and their relationship with the land and language of their former masters.

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3. CULTURAL DIVERSITY AND DEVELOPMENT OF LINGUISTIC VARIETIES.

With this background in mind, Chapter 3 shall approach the Commonwealth member states in

terms of their cultural diversity and development of linguistic varieties individually as it is

expected from the association of 54 different states which consult, co-operate and work together

with the aim of promoting international understanding and world peace. “Diversity is central to

the Commonwealth. Membership includes people of many different races and origins,

encompasses every state of economic development, and comprises a rich variety of cultures,

traditions and institutions” (Secretariat, 2003).

So, we shall try to present an overview of the Commonwealth cultural and linguistic variety by

addressing (1) the Commonwealth principles and values, and how these principles and values

are present in (2) the countries which founded the Commonwealth, namely (a) Canada, (b)

Australia, (c) New Zealand, (d) South Africa, (e) India, and (f) the Caribbean Islands.

3.1. The Commonwealth: principles and values.

The Commonwealth strengths lie in the following principles and values. First of all, among the

three most important principles we include (Secretariat, 2003): first, “the combination of the

diversity of its members with their shared inheritance in language, culture and the rule of law”;

secondly, “seeking consensus through consultation and the sharing of experience”; and finally,

“sharing a commitment to certian fundamental principles set out in a Declaration of

Commonwealth Principles agreed at the Singapore meeting in 1971 and in followi-up

Declarations and Communiqués.”

On the other hand, “Commonwealth ‘values’ are the principles that bind Commonwealth

member countries together and they derive from various Commonwealth Declarations and

Principles agreed upon at various Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings (CHOGMs).

These values are enshrined in the 1991 Harare Commonwealth Declaration (Zimbabwe), which

enshrines common interests and a set of basic principles. At Millbrook (New Zealand) in 1995,

Heads of Government adopted an action programme to fulfil their commitment to the Harare

Principles. At Coolum (Australia) in 2002, Heads of Government committed to ‘The Coolum

Declaration on the Commonwealth in the 21st Century: Continuity and Renewal’.”(Secretariat,

2003).

Then, Commonwealth values include: “respect for diversity, human dignity and opposition to all

forms of discrimination; adherence to democracy, rule of law, good governance, freedom of

expression and the protection of human rights; elimination of poverty and the promotion of

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people-centred development; and finally, international peace and security, the rule of

international law and opposition to terrorism” (Secretariat, 2003).

“The adherence to democracy, rule of law, good governance, freedom of expression and the

protection of human rights is reflected through the capacity building programme to strengthen

civil society organisations;” and by means of documenting good practice. For instance, “the

Foundation has produced a document ‘NGO Guidelines for Good Policy and Practice’ to guide

civil society organisations and is available in ten languages.” It is worth mentioning that all

these states have at some time been under British rule so in some of them, English is the first

language; others, with several different languages of their own, find English the most

convenient means of communication.

3.2. The Commonwealth: cultural and linguistic diversity.

3.2.1. Canada.

As mentioned above, Canada was given the dominion status in 1867, and by the time of the

Commonwealth founding, it was one of the state members. It is regarded as a transplanted

society (Maxwell, 1982) as well as Australia and New Zealand since the majority of its

population is of European origin and had to change the already established cultural habits in the

new land. So, it retained a non-indigenous language.

Historically speaking, the first settlement in Canada traces back to the 16th century under the

figure of the Frenchman Jacques Cartir. Therefore, until the eighteenth century most European

immigrants who arrived in Canada came namely from France in opposition to the North

American coast, which received English, Irish and Scottish population. Similarly, it is said that

the bulk of Canada’s immigrants arrived namely from Continental Europe in the twentieth and

twenty-first century.

In linguistic terms, Canada has developed a type of Canadian English which is difficult for us to

understand since it is different from other North American varieties. It is regarded as a

homogeneous language, which has not been affected by its nearest linguistic neighbour,

American English. The differences lie mainly in vocabulary and pronunciation, since Canadian

spelling preserves some British forms (theatre, centre, colour, behaviour) and there are no

distinctive grammar features. We also highlight the fact that there are also several words of

Canadian origin (chesterfield).

Regarding its cultural diversity, Canada is nowadays still headed by British population (around

45%), followed by French (25%) and the rest (30%) belong to other nationalities rather than

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British or French. The influence of French colonization is still present in culture, since America

has influenced this country through the media. Yet, the French-speaking population, namely set

up in Quebec, has a powerful separatist movement which addresses their affiliation to France.

No literature works are worth mentioning within the neo-colonialism movement in Canada.

3.2.2. Australia.

Following Britannica (2004), “Australia has long been inhabited by Aboriginals, who arrived

40,000–60,000 years ago. Estimates of the population at the time of European settlement in

1788 range from 300,000 to more than 1,000,000. Widespread European knowledge of

Australia began with 17th-century explorations. The Dutch landed in 1616 and the British in

1688, but the first large-scale expedition was that of James Cook in 1770, which established

Britain’s claim to Australia. The first English settlement, at Port Jackson (1788), consisted

mainly of convicts and seamen; convicts were to make up a large proportion of the incoming

settlers.”

“By 1859 the colonial nuclei of all Australia’s states had been formed, but with devastating

effects on the indigenous peoples, whose population declined sharply with the introduction of

European diseases and weaponry. Britain granted its colonies limited self-government in the

mid 19th century, and an act federating the colonies into a commonwealth was passed in 1900.

Australia fought alongside the British in World War I, notably at Gallipoli, and again in Wor ld

War II, preventing Australia’s occupation by the Japanese.”

“It joined the U.S. in the Korean and Vietnam wars. Since the 1960s the government has sought

to deal more fairly with the Aboriginals, and a loosening of immigration restrictions has led to a

more heterogeneous population. Constitutional links allowing British interference in

government were formally abolished in 1968, and Australia has assumed a leading role in Asian

and Pacific affairs. During the 1990s it experienced several debates about giving up its British

ties and becoming a republic.”

In linguistic terms, Australian English starts in the second half of the eighteenth century when

pidgin English appeared due to the interrelationship of settlers and Aboriginals. The Aboriginal

vocabulary of Australian English has become one of the trademarks of the national language

(boomerang, jumbuck –sheep-). Yet, the number of Aboriginal words in Australian English is

quite small and confined to the naming of plants, trees, animals, and place-names. Nowadays,

though English is the official language, Australian English is known for its preserving nature,

since it still keeps eighteenth and nineteenth-century lexis from the European Continent

(Wessex, Scotland, Ireland). Moreover, it has no regional variation of accent.

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Regarding its cultural diversity, since it is “the smallest continent and sixth largest country (in

area) on Earth, lying between the Pacific and Indian oceans,” its population was about

19,702,000 in 2002. Among them, “most Australians are descendants of Europeans. The largest

nonwhite minority is the Australian Aboriginals. The Asian portion of the population has grown

as a result of relaxed immigration policy. Australia is rich in mineral resources, s the country’s

economy is basically free-enterprise; its largest components include finance, manufacturing, and

trade. Formally a constitutional monarchy, its chief of state is the British monarch, represented

by the governor-general. In reality it is a parliamentary state with two legislative houses; its

head of government is the prime minister.”

3.2.3. New Zealand.

New Zealand was originally inhabited by Polinesian population which traced back to the early

Christian centuries. In the eighteenth century it was explored by J. Cook between 1769-1770

and soon it was a target for European settlement in spite of some indigenous Maori resistance.

Then the 19th century saw the arrival of catholic missionaries and English protestants and the

reorganization of New Zealand started. Subsequently, the two races achieved considerable

harmony. Yet, unlike Australia it was a free colony, as in practice it has been self-determining

since 1901.

In linguistic terms, the New Zealand language has been influenced by its Australian neighbours

(bush lawyer, bush telegraph) as well as by the Scottish language, namely in family names

(Dunedin, Murray). From Australia, many Zealanders were influenced by the native Maori

culture, hence many maori words were borrowed on making reference to animals, plants and

local trees (kiwi). In addition, Zealanders created their own vocabulary for some places, roads

and local places (lines).

Regarding its cultural diversity, New Zealand still has a certain attachment to Britain that is

unheard of Australia (BBC news) and contemporary population seem hesitant to use the

pragmatic initiative used in the eighteenth century. The cultural background in New Zealand is

actually conditioned by a society which is egalitarian in the extreme and shows a tendency

towards conformity. Yet, today Maori people are determined to make their contribution to

increase their self-respect and confidence in their own culture. Actually, Maori language is

offered in many secondary schools as an optional second language.

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3.2.4. South Africa.

Before British colonization, certain highlands of East Africa attracted settlers from Europe since

these colonies were confined to coastal enclaves. British penetration of the area began at

Zanzibar in the late 19th century and before WWI most of the European conquest of Africa had

been accomplished. Actually, in 1888 the British East Africa Company established claims to

territory in what is now Kenya. British protectorates were subsequently established over the

sultanate of Zanzibar and the kingdom of Buganda (now Uganda) and in 1919 Britain was

awarded the former German territory of Tanganyika as a League of Nations mandate. Yet, all

these territories achieved political independence in the 1960s.

In linguistic terms, the development of the English language in Africa is related to the term

‘pidgin’, hence ‘pidgin English’ is commonly spoken in Africa. Traditionally, pidgin languages

are defined as those auxiliary languages that have no native speakers and are used for

communicating between people who have no common language. Actually, we find two different

English versions in Africa: East and West African English.

On the one hand, East African Commonwealth countries had no contact with Britain until the

early twentieth century when they were colonized, so the use of English was limited to military

and administrative vocabulary (white administrators and army officials), still used in the East

African states of Kenya. Yet, in Uganda and Tanzania, Swahili is the used as lingua franca and

goes through ethnic and political boundaries whereas English is the main language of education

(secondary, tertiary). So, we may say that the language of Black Africa is pidgin English, not

standard British or American English (Uganda, Zambia, Simbabwe).

On the other hand, West African Commonwealth countries use pidgin English as a result of the

slave experience of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. For instance, in Sierra Leona,

pidgin English has evolved into ‘Krio’, a mixture of English and an African language (Yoruba),

with includes Portuguese elements, which is used everywhere. Brought by traders and

missionaries to Nigeria and Cameroon, it influenced the local pidgin. Recent governments are

trying to establish Krio as the national language of Sierra Leone, even though English is still the

official language.

Regarding its cultural diversity, we highlight the fact that in all African countries the majority of

the population is indigenous, except in those African countries which belong to the

Commonwealth and have European population (Zimbabwe, Zambia and Kenya). Hence, the

most common population group within these countries are the ethnic groups, that is, tribes. This

means that ethnic groups have in common a sense of culture and identity, and therefore, of

distinct religion and language. The new African nations that emerged after the mid-20th century

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were not based on the traditional units of the pre-colonial era. African natural resources (mining,

safari hunting) have attracted people of many different cultures speaking a variety of languages.

3.2.5. India.

Historically speaking, India is the home of one of the world’s oldest and most influential

civilisations of South Asia. By the early seventeenth century, the East India Company was

founded and attracted many European visitors up to the eighteenth century. In linguistic terms, it

was in the nineteenth century that, at the highest peak of the British empire, there was a flood of

English administrators, educators, army officers and missionaries who spread the English

language throughout the sub-continent. Hence by the turn of the century English had become

the prestige language of India.

After a century, the Jewel of the Crown had added many Indian words into the English

language, so as to be able to express different concepts. In addition, Indian English possesses a

number of distinctive stylistic fatures, some of which are inspired by local languages and some

by the influence of English educational traditions (change of heart vs. God is merciful).

Nowadays, even after Indian’s independence (1947), there are more speakers of English in India

than in Britain (over 70 million). English became the official language of everyday life at any

sphere. It is worth noting that, though the speakers of English belonged to the educated ruling

elite, English is taught at every stage of education in all the states of the country.

Regarding its cultural diversity, India is regarded as a subcontinent rather than a country. Its

wide range of races, languages and religions, art and culture show the cultural wealth that has

developed over many centuries. Yet, there are still strong divisive influences such as caste, the

status of untouchability and linguistic chauvinism. Another important aspect is that over 80 per

cent of the country’s total population are Hindus, and also, that Hinduism is the unifying factor

that has kept the large mass of the peoples of India together.

3.2.6. The Caribbean Islands.

The Commonwealth Caribbean Islands.have a distinctive history. The Encyclopaedia Britannica

(2004) states that “permanently influenced by the experiences of colonialism and slavery, the

Caribbean has produced a collection of societies that are markedly different in population

composition from those in any other region of the world. Lying on the sparsely settled periphery

of an irregularly populated continent, the region was “discovered” by Christopher Columbus in

1492. Thereafter, it became the springboard for the European invasion and domination of the

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Americas, a transformation that historian D. W. Meinig has aptly described as the "radical

reshaping of America."

“Beginning with the Spanish and Portuguese and continuing with the arrival more than a

century later of other Europeans, the indigenous peoples of the Americas experienced a series of

upheavals. The European intrusion abruptly interrupted the pattern of their historical

development and linked them inextricably with the world beyond the Atlantic Ocean. It also

severely altered their physical environment, introducing both new foods and new epidemic

diseases. As a result, the native Indian populations rapidly declined and virtually disappeared

from the Caribbean, although they bequeathed to the region a distinct cultural heritage that is

still seen and felt.”

“During the sixteenth century, the Caribbean region was significant to the Spanish empire. In

the seventeenth century, the English, Dutch, and French established colonies. By the eighteenth

century, the region contained colonies that were vitally important for all of the European powers

because the colonies generated great wealth from the production and sale of sugar. The early

English colonies, peopled and controlled by white settlers, were microcosms of English society,

with small yeoman farming economies based mainly on tobacco and cotton. A major

transformation occurred, however, with the establishment of the sugar plantation system.”

“To meet the system’s enormous manpower requirements, vast numbers of black African slaves

were imported throughout the eighteenth century, thereby reshaping the region’s demographic,

social, and cultural profile. Although the white populations maintained their social and political

preeminence, they became a numerical minority in all of the islands. Following the abolition of

slavery in the mid-nineteenth century, the colonies turned to imported indentured labor from

India, China, and the East Indies, further diversifying the region’s culture and society. The result

of all these immigrations is a remarkable cultural heterogeneity in contemporary Caribbean

society.”

“The abolition of slavery was also a major watershed in Caribbean history in that it initiated the

long, slow process of enfranchisement and political control by the nonwhite majorities in the

islands. The early colonies enjoyed a relatively great amount of autonomy through the

operations of their local representative assemblies. Later, however, for ease of administration

and to facilitate control of increasingly assertive colonial representative bodies, the British

adopted a system of direct administration known as crown colony government in which British

appointed governors wielded nearly autocratic power. The history of the colonies from then

until 1962 when the first colonies became independent is marked by the rise of popular

movements and labor organizations and the emergence of a generation of politicians who

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assumed positions of leadership when the colonial system in the British Caribbean was

dismantled.”

“Despite shared historical and cultural experiences and geographic, demographic, and economic

similarities, the islands of the former British Caribbean empire remain diverse, and attempts at

political federation and economic integration both prior to and following independence have

foundered. Thus, the region today is characterized by a proliferation of mini-states, all with

strong democratic traditions and political systems cast in the Westminster parliamentary mold,

but all also with forceful individual identities and interests.”

In linguistic terms, we may highlight the fact that the tiny Indian population, once native to the

region, speak creolized forms of the invading European languages, and from this merging we

obtained a Caribbean English and a Caribbean culture. Of all the varieties of Caribbean English,

the most appealing is the Jamaican creole , defined as a language that has evolved from pidgins

used by speakers of unintelligible people. So, we may differenciate two different types of

language: on the one hand, standard English, used in newspapers and news reporting, engages in

conversation, journalists; and on the other hand, Jamaican English, which is virtually

unintelligible to the outsider since this is the language of the streets (originally oral, recently

written).

Regarding its cultural diversity, we may say that the Caribbean is fragmented since each island

has its own strong loyalties and traditions. For example, Trinidad Island is heavily influenced by

French, Spanish, Creole and Indian traditions. The most English of the islands are Jamaica,

Antigua and Barbados. Nowadays, the Caribbean population is namely African and Afro-

European in origin. Despite size, ancestry, language, history and population differences, the

countries of the Caribbean share a common culture, the result of their parallel experiences as

plantation colonies for distant European economic and politic powers. Jamaica has alwasy had a

lively independent culture, namely reflected in this Third World nationalism and reggae music

as the result of a mixed multi-cultural heritage.

4. INTERCULTURAL INFLUENCES AND MANIFESTATIONS: THE NOVELS OF E.M.

FORSTER, D. LESSING AND N. GORDIMER.

With this background in mind, we are ready to address in Chapter 4 the intercultural influences

and manifestations of subject peoples of the British Empire who have reassesed one by one their

national identity, their history and literature, and their relationship with the land and language of

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their former masters (www.wwnorton.com). The already mentioned respect for diversity, human

dignity and opposition to all forms of discrimination is reflected through the creation of

foundation works on gender equality issues; supporting the work of various Commonwealth

professional associations; promotion of cultural diversity by supporting various cultural and arts

awards, including the Commonwealth Writers Prize, the Commonwealth Arts and Crafts

Awards, the Commonwealth Short Story Competition and the Commonwealth Photographic

Awards.

It is within this Commonwealth literary background that we shall approach the novels of (1)

Edward Morgan Forster, (2) Doris Lessing and (3) Nadine Gordimer in terms of life, main

works and style so as to frame their lives in an appropriate social and political context to make

him coincide with the late consequences of the British imperialism.

4.1. Edward Morgan Forster (1879-1970).

Edward Morgan Forster was born in London on January 1 (1879) as the son of an architect, who

died before his only child was two years old. His childhood and much of his adult life was

dominated by his mother and his aunts, though it was the legacy of her paternal great-aunt

(Marianne Thornton) who gave later Forster the freedom to travel and to write. As a teenager he

attended Tonbridge School where he suffered from the cruelty of his classmates. Then he

attended King’s College, Cambridge (1897-1901), where he met members of the later formed

Bloomsbury group (hence his friendship with Virginia Woolf). There he felt free to follow his

own intellectual inclinations and gained a sense of individual uniqueness.

After graduating and travelling in Italy and Greece with his mother, he began to write essays

and short stories for the liberal Independent Review and by 1905 he had spent several months in

Germany as a tutor. Actually, these classical and Mediterranean countries would prepare the

ground for his first novel, Where Angels Fear To Tread (1905) and also would make him lecture

on Italian art and history for the Cambridge Local Lectures Board (1906). Next year he

published The Longest Journey (1907), which was followed by A Room with a View (1908),

based partly on the material from extended holidays in Italy with his mother.

Two years later, he wrote Howards End (1910), a story that centered on an English country

house and dealt with the clash between two families, one interested in art and literature, the

other only in business. The book not only brought together the themes of money, business and

culture, but also established Forster’s reputation. Then Forster embarked upon a new novel with

a homosexual theme, Maurice, which shows the picture of British attitudes. It was revised

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several times during his life, and finally published posthumously in 1971. Forster used to hide

his personal life from public discussion, but in 1930 he had a relationship with a London

policeman. This important contact continued after the marriage of his London friend.

Between the years 1912 and 1913 Forster travelled in India and during WWI, Forster spent

some years in Alexandria, where he joined the Red Cross doing civilian war work. From 1914

to 1915 he worked for the National Gallery in London. After WWI, Forster returned to India in

1921, where he worked for a time as a private secretary to the Maharajah of Dewas. It was

there, in India, that he set the scene of his masterwork A Passage to India (1924), an account of

the country under British rule. It was Forster’s last novel since he decided to devote himself to

other activities. Thus, for the remaining forty-six years of his life Forster wrote two biographies

Goldsworthy Lowes Dickenson (1934) and Marianne Thornton (1956); the essay collections

Abinger Harvest (1936) and Two Cheers for Democracy (1951), a portrait of India with

commentary The Hill of Devi (1953); and a posthumous publication was the collection of short

stories The Life to Come (1972).

Regarding his contributions, Forster colaborated with reviews and essays to numerous journals,

most notably the Listener and he was an active member of PEN. In 1934 he became the first

president of the National Council for Civil Liberties, and after his mother’s death in 1945, he

was elected an honorary fellow of King’s and lived there for the remainder of his life. In 1946

his old college, King’s College, gave him an honorary fellowship, which enabled him to make

his home in Cambridge. Three years later (1949) Forster refused a knighthood. Yet, he was

made a Companion of Honour in 1953 and in 1969 he accepted an Order of Merit. Forster died

on June 7, 1970.

Broadly speaking, Forster was a noted English author and critic, member of Bloomsbury group

and friend of Virginia Woolf. After gaining fame as a novelist, he mainly wrote short stories and

non-fiction, and among his five important novels four appeared before World War I: Where

Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908), and

Howards End (1910), since A Passage to India (1924) was published after WWI.

In his works his major concern was that individuals should connect ‘the prose with the passion’

within themselves. Since he was a novelist, essayist, social and literary critic, his work is

primarily linked to a realistic mode. Forster often criticized in his books one of his favourite

themes: Victorian middle class attitudes and British colonialism through strong woman

characters. Hence his dominant theme is the habitual conformity of people to unexamined social

standards and conventions, for instance, shown in Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905) and A

Room with a View (1908). However, Forster’s characters were not one-dimensional heroes and

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villains, and except his devotion to such values as tolerance and sense of comedy, he was

uncommitted.

Other relevant themes for him include homosexuality, clearly shown in the English domestic

comedy Maurice (1971), which was published posthumously; the theme of continuity and the

future of England in The Longest Journey (1907) is reflected in a partly autobiographicl story of

the artist as a young man that predates Joyce’s classic with a weak idealistic hero (Rickie

Elliot); the need for men and women to achieve a satisfactory life, as it is reflected in Howards

End (1910). This ambitious novel, which brought Forster his major success, centers on an

English country house and deals with the clash between two families, one interested in art and

literature, the other only in business. The book brought together the themes of money, business

and culture.

On the other hand, within his favourite theme, Forster’s experiences in India, we include A

Passage to India (1924) and The Hill of Devil (1953). Both of them offer an account of his life

in India , but from different perspectives. Thus, The Hill of Devil (1953) shows a negative

perspective against the vaster scale of India and is told through seriousness and trthfulness,

represented mainly by the British officials (administrators, visitors) and their wives, and the

local Indian army. On the contrary, A Passage to India (1924), is usually regarded as a

masterpiece not only to its linguistic features, but also to the approach to its subject matters,

such as the values of truthfulness and kindness, and a reconciliation of humanity with nature.

There is a subtle symbolism which highlights the religious dimension.

Regarding his style, we may say it is a consistently light and witty style, with a mix of irony and

comedy. These features, together with his personal way to express his view of life, made him

achieve relevance for generations who do not conform to social conventions. He mainly wrote

about the importance of beauty, personal relations, the quest for harmony and non-conventional

attitudes. His characters are elusive but harmonic and the reader may notice a mysterious

attitude beneath his real characters’ life.

4.2. Doris Lessing (1919-).

Doris Lessing was born Doris May Tayler in Kernashah, Persia (now Iran) to British parents on

22 October, 1919. Both of her parents were British: her father, who had been crippled in World

War I, was a clerk in the Imperial Bank of Persia and her mother had been a nurse. Lured by the

promise of getting rich through maize farming, her family moved to Southern Africa where she

spent her childhood on her father’s farm in what was then Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

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She lived in Rhodesia until 1949 and, when her second marriage ended, she moved to London

and settled there as a full-time writer.

There she wrote her first novel, The Grass is Singing (1950), which explores the complacency

and shallowness of white colonial society in Southern Africa and established Lessing as a

talented young novelist. Her African experience, trying to live an Edwardian life among

savages, provided her with the appropriate material.The story is about the relationship between

a white woman (Mary Turner), and her black houseboy (Moses). The main theme of this novel

is the great taboo of colour which represents the barrier between the black and white races, and

also the tragic results (death). Lessing addresses this theme as an important issue in the social

and political upheavals of the 20th century regarding culture and society (intense anger,

catastropic outcomes, and social injustice).

After her first novel, she was devoted for nearly ten years to the five books in the ‘Children of

Violence’ series (1952-69), which are strongly influenced by Lessing’s rejection of a domestic

family role and her involvement with communism. The five books display her concern about

politics and society in terms of reactions against her white, colonial, middle -class background in

both its social and political aspects. In a sense, the novels are autobiographical in many respects,

telling the story of Martha Quest (1952), a girl growing up in Africa who marries young despite

her desperate desire to avoid the life her mother has led. The second book in the series, A

Proper Marriage (1954), describes the unhappiness of the marriage and Martha’s eventual

rejection of it. The sequel, A Ripple from the Storm (1958), is very much a novel of ideas,

exploring Marxism and Martha’s increasing political awareness as well as of love for people.

By the time that this book was written, however, Lessing had become disillusioned with

communism and had left the party.

Her next novel, The Golden Notebook (1962), made Lessing become firmly identified with the

feminist movement. The novel concerns Anna Wulf, a writer caught in a personal and artistic

crisis, who sees her life compartmentalised into various roles (woman, lover, writer, political

activist). Her diaries, written in different coloured notebooks, each correspond to a different part

of herself. Anna eventually suffers a mental breakdown and it is only through this disintegration

that she is able to discover a new ‘wholeness’ which she writes about in the final notebook.

The attack for being ‘unfeminine’ in her depiction of female anger and aggression and the

pressures of social conformity on the individual and mental breakdown revitalised her writing

about the political theme and published Landlocked (1965) and Four-Gated City (1969). These

two works gave the Children of Violence an optimistic ending. Her interest and radical visions

of the self was something that Lessing returned to in her next two novels, Briefing for a Decent

into Hell (1971) and The Summer Before the Dark (1973). Briefing for a Decent into Hell is a

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story about an inner space fiction dealing with madness in which a man, who is found

wandering the streets of London, had no memory of a ‘normal’ life, while Kate, the central

character of The Summer Before the Dark , achieves a kind of enlightenment through what

doctors would describe as a breakdown.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s Doris Lessing began to explore more fully the quasi-mystical

self-insight and turned almost exclusively to writing fantasy and science fiction developing

ideas which she had touched on towards the end of 'Children of Violence', thus inner-space

fiction with cosmic fantasies (Briefing for a Decent into Hell, 1971), dreamscapes and other

dimensions (Memoirs of a Survivor, 1974), and science fiction probings of higher planes of

existence (Canopus in Argos: Archives, 1979-1983). These reflect Lessing’s interest, since the

1960s, in Idries Shah, whose writings on Sufi mysticism stress the evolution of consciousness

and the belief that individual liberation can come about only if people understand the link

between their own fates and the fate of society.

In the 1980s, Lessing’s other novels include The Marriages between Zones, Three, Four and

Five (1980), a story about the nature of the kinds of relationships men and women must make

and the kinds of societies that must be developed. Also, we include two novels under the

pseudonym Jane Somers (The Diary of a Good Neighbour, 1983, in which she made a return to

realist fiction, and If the Old Could..., 1984). Also, The Good Terrorist (1985) and The Fifth

Child (1988). These recent novels have continued to confront taboos and challenge

preconceptions, generating many different and conflicting critical opinions.

For instance, in The Good Terrorist (1985), Lessing returned to the political arena, through the

story of a group of political activists who set up a squat in London (the book was awarded the

WH Smith Literary Award); and The Fifth Child (1988), which is also concerned with

alienation and the dangers inherent in a closed social group. The book depicts a family who

lives within the hedonism and excesses of the 1960s, childbearing and domestic bliss, and

whose fifth child, however, emerges as a malevolent, troll-like and angry figure who quickly

disrupts the family idyll.

Other several nonfiction works include the acclaimed first volume of her autobiography, Under

My Skin (1994), which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1995, and was followed by

a second volume, Walking in the Shade: Volume II of My Autobiography 1949-1962 (1997). She

was made a Companion of Honour by the British Government in 1999, and is President of

Booktrust, the educational charity that promotes books and reading. Lessing’s recent fiction

includes Ben, in the World (2000), a sequel to the The Fifth Child, and, more recently, The

Sweetest Dream (2002), which follows the fortunes of a family through the twentieth century,

set in London during the 1960s and contemporary Africa. In the same year she received the

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David Cohen British Literature Prize (2001) and two years later she wrote her latest book, the

grandmothers, a collection of four short novels centred on an unconventional extended family

appeared in 2003.

At present, Doris Lessing lives in London. She is now widely regarded as one of the most

important post-war writers in English. Her novels, short stories and essays have focused on a

wide range of twentieth-century issues and concerns, from the politics of race that she

confronted in her early novels set in Africa, to the politics of gender which lead to her adoption

by the feminist movement, to the role of the family and the individual in society, explored in her

space fiction of the late 1970s and early 1980s

As mentioned above, Lessing’s fiction is deeply autobiographical, much of it emerging out of

her experiences in Africa. Drawing upon her childhood memories and her serious engagement

with politics and social concerns, Lessing has written about the clash of cultures, the gross

injustices of racial inequality, the struggle among opposing elements within an individuals own

personality, and the conflict between the individual conscience and the collective good. Her

stories and novellas set in Africa, published during the fiftie s and early sixties, decry the

dispossession of black Africans by white colonials, and expose the sterility of the white culture

in southern Africa. In 1956, in response to Lessing’s courageous outspokenness, she was

declared a prohibited alien in both Southern Rhodesia and South Africa.

Over the years, Lessing has attempted to accommodate what she admires in the novels of the

nineteenth century to the demands of twentieth-century ideas about consciousness and time.

After writing the ‘Children of Violence’ series (1951-1959), a formally conventional

bildungsroman (novel of education) about the growth in consciousness of her heroine, Martha

Quest, Lessing broke new ground with The Golden Notebook (1962), a daring narrative

experiment, in which the multiple selves of a contemporary woman are rendered in astonishing

depth and detail.

4.3. Nadine Gordimer (1923-).

Nadine Gordimer was born into a well-off family in Springs, Transvaal, a small gold-mining

town in South Africa outside Johannesburg (the setting for Gordimer’s first novel, The Lying

Days, 1953). Her father was a Jewish jeweler and her mother of British descent, the latter being

a dominant influence on her life since from her early childhood, Gordimer was often kept at

home by a mother who thought she had a heart disease. As a child, Gordimer witnessed how the

white minority increasingly weakened the rights of the black majority so, for these two reasons,

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she began writing at the age of nine. Gordimer was educated in a convent school and spent a

year at Witwaterstrand University (Johannesburg) without taking a degree. Since then she has

been devoted to her writing in South Africa and has lived in Johannesburg since 1948.

Her first short story, ‘Come Again Tomorrow’, was published at the age of fifteen in the

children’s section of the liberal Johannesburg magazine Forum and during her twenties, her

stories appeared in many local magazines. For instance, her first collection of short stories, Face

to Face: Short Stories (1949), in which Gordimer has revealed the psychological consequences

of a racially divided society. In 1951 the New Yorker accepted a story, publishing her ever

since. Hence the short story collection The Soft Voice of the Serpent and other Stories (1952),

and her novel The Lying Days (1953) was based largely on the author’s own life and depicted a

white girl, Helen, and her growing disaffection toward the narrow-mindlessness of a small-town

life.

Other works in the 1950s and 1960s include her early short story collections Six Feet of the Six

(1956), and the novels Not for Publication (1965); A World of Strangers (1958), in which she

used the perspective of an outsider coming to South Africa (disillusion, fragmented nature of

life); Occasion for Loving (1963), which was concerned with South Africa’s cruel racial law

through an illicit love affair between a black man and a white woman; and The Late Bourgeois

World (1966). In these novels Gordimer studied the master-servant relations, spiritual and

sexual paranoias of colonialism, and the shallow liberalism of her privileged white compatriots.

In the 1970s we highlight her novels A Guest of Honour (1970), which examines the problem of

new independence in an unidentified African country; Livingstone’s Companions (1971), a story

in which the historical context of the racial divided society; The Conservationist (1974), with

which Gordimer won early international recognition for her short stories and novels. In it

Gordimer juxtaposed the world of a wealthy white industrialist with the rituals and mythology

of Zulus; also, her novel Burger’s Daughter (1979), which was written during the aftermath of

Soweto uprising. In the story a daughter analyzes her relationship to her father, a martyr of the

antiapartheid movement. She was also prolific in her essays, thus On the Mines (1973), making

reference to her birthplace and literary criticism The Black Interpreters (1973), being a study of

indigenous African writing.

In the 1980s she wrote July’s People (1981), a futuristic novel about a white family feeing from

war-torn Johannesburg into the country, where they seek refuge with their African servant in his

village; and also her short story collections, which include: an ‘Oral History’ from A Soldiers’s

Embrace (1980), in which Gordimer examines coolly the actions of her protagonist, linking the

tragic events in the long tradition of colonial policy. In the background of the story is the war of

independence in Zimbabwe (1966-1980), where she uses the mopane tree as a symbol of life

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and death; Something Out There (1984), and Jump and Other Stories (1991). Later on, in her

novel The House Gun (1998) Gordimer explored the complexities of the violence ridden post-

apartheid society through a murder trial, where two white privileged liberals, Harald and

Claudia Lindgard, face the fact that their architect-son, Duncan, has killed his friend Carl

Jesperson.

By the turn of the century she wrote The Pickup (2001), whose basic setting reminds in some

points the famous film Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1962), in which starring Catherine

Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo, start a love affair, though they belong to different cultures. The

main themes are the background that separates them, sex crossing all the cultural barriers, the

striving for money and success, the good things of life that the West can offer, and the woman’s

maturation. Finally, her latest book, Loot and Other Stories (2003), is a collection of ten short

stories widely varied in theme and place.

In short, we have seen how Ms. Gordimer rose to world fame for her novels and short stories

that stunned the literary world and made her win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991. In

addition to ther twelve novels, ten collections of short stories and essays on topics including

apartheid and writing, Gordimer’s credits include screenplays for television dramas based on

her own short stories (1981-82), the script for the BBC film “Frontiers” (1989), and television

documentaries, notably collaborating with her son Hugo Cassirer on the television film

Choosing Justice: Allan Boesak. Winner of eleven literary awards and fourteen honorary

degrees, her most recent novel is entitled “The House Gun” and a documentary film entitled

“Hanging on a Sunrise”.

She was a founding member of Congress of South African Writers, and even at the height of the

apartheid regime, she never considered going into exile. Actually, since 1948 Gordimer has

lived in Johannesburg. She has also taught in the USA in several universities during the 1960s

and ‘70s. Gordimer has written books of non-fiction on South African subjects. Hence most of

Nadine Gordimer’s works deal with the moral and psychological tensions of her racially divided

home country.

5. EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING.

Literature, and therefore, literary language is one of the most salient aspect of educational

activity. In classrooms all kinds of literary language (poetry, drama, novel, prose, periodicals –

newspapers, pamphlets-), either spoken or written, is going on for most of the time. Yet,

handling literary productions in the past makes relevant the analysis of the Commonwealth

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literature and, in particular, in English-speaking countries, originally colonies of the British

empire, as reflected in the three authors under study (namely Africa and India). Hence it makes

sense to examine the historical background of the Commonwealth so as to provide a particular

period of time with an appropriate context (imperialism, post-colonial literature).

Currently, action research groups attempt to bring about change in classroom learning and

teaching through a focus on literary production under two premises. First, because they believe

learning is an integral aspect of any form of activity and second, because education at all levels

must be conceived in terms of literature and history. The basis for these assumptions is to be

found in an attempt, through the use of historical events, to develop understanding of students’

shared but diverse social and physical environment. This means that literary productions are an

analytic tool and that teachers need to identify the potential contributions and potential

limitations of students before we can make good use of the historical events which frame the

literary period.

So, the Commonwealth may be easily approached to students by familiar issues, such as racism

in South Africa (apartheid), the Gibraltar question, India as the Jewel of the Crown (drawn from

contemporary novels, such as The Jungle Book (1894) or historical figures such as Indira

Ghandi), by establishing a paralelism with the Spanish one (age, literature forms, events). Since

literature may be approached in linguistic terms, regarding form and function (morphology,

lexis, structure, form) and also from a cross-curricular perspective (Sociology, History, English,

French, Spanish Language and Literature), Spanish students are expected to know about the

history of the Commonwealth and its influence in the world.

In addition, one of the objectives of teaching the English language is to provide good models of

almost any kind of literary productions for future studies. Following van Ek & Trim (2001), ‘the

learners can perform, within the limits of the resources available to them, those writing (and

oral) tasks which adult citizens in general may wish, or be called upon, to carry out in their

private capacity or as members of the general public’ when dealing with their future regarding

personal and professional life.

Moreover, nowadays new technologies may provide a new direction to language teaching as

they set more appropriate context for students to experience the target culture. Present-day

approaches deal with a communicative competence model in which first, there is an emphasis

on significance over form, and secondly, motivation and involvement are enhanced by means of

new technologies. Hence literary productions and the history of the period may be approched in

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terms of films and drama representations in class, among others, and in this case, by means of

books (novels: historical, terror, descriptive), paper (essays), among others.

The success partly lies in the way literary works become real to the users. Some of this

motivational force is brought about by intervening in authentic communicative events.

Otherwise, we have to recreate as much as possible the whole cultural environment in the

classroom by means of documentaries, history books, or their family’s stories. This is to be

achieved within the framework of the European Council (1998) and, in particular, the Spanish

Educational System which establishes a common reference framework for the teaching of

foreign languages where students are intended to carry out several communication tasks with

specific communicative goals, for instance, how to locate a literary work within a particular

historical period.

Analytic interpretation of texts in all genres should become part of every literary student’s basic

competence (B.O.E., 2004). There are hidden influences at work beneath the textual surface:

these may be sociocultural, inter and intratextual. The literary student has to discover these, and

wherever necessary apply them in further examination. The main aims that our currently

educational system focuses on are mostly sociocultural, to facilitate the study of cultural themes,

as our students must be aware of their current social reality within the European framework.

6. CONCLUSION.

Since literature reflects the main concerns of a nation at all levels, it is extremely important for

students to be aware of the close relationship between History and Literature so as to understand

the main plot of a novel, short story, or any other form of literary work. In this unit, we have

particularly approached the issue of the Commonwealth and British Imperialism as a time of

great changes, colonial expansion and wars. For the better, or for the worse.

The aim of this unit was to provide a useful introduction to the Commonwealth from a general

overview regarding its cultural diversity and development of linguistic varieties as well as in

terms of intercultural influences and manifestations which, as we have seen, are namely

reflected in the novels of E.M. Forster, D. Lessing and N. Gordimer. In doing so, we have dealt

with the entity of the Commonwealth in terms of definition; brief history regarding origins,

membership, and organization, that is, its evolution as an international organization up to the

present day; and also from a historical perspective so as to get a general overview of the

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development and administration of the British colonial empire from the seventeenth century to

the present day.

Secondly, we have approached in Chapter 3 the Commonwealth country members’ cultural

diversity and development of linguistic varieties individually, but before we have examined the

Commonwealth principles and values so as to provide a framework to the cultural and linguistic

variety in the countries which founded the Commonwealth, namely Canada, Australia, New

Zealand, South Africa, India, and the Caribbean Islands. Finally, with this background in mind,

we have approached in Chapter 4 the intercultural influences and manifestations present in the

novels of E.M. Forster, D. Lessing and N. Gordimer by examining their writings in terms of

their own experiences, works, themes and style.

So far, we have attempted to provide the reader in this presentation with a historical background

on the vast amount of literature productions of the Commonwealth, and its further contributions

up to twenty-first century. This information is relevant for language learners, even 2nd year

Bachillerato students, who do not automatically establish similiarities between British, Spanish

and worldwide literary works. So, learners need to have these associations brought to their

attention in cross-curricular settings. As we have seen, understanding how literature developed

and is reflected in our world today is important to students, who are expected to be aware of the

richness of English literature, not only in Great Britain but also in other English-speaking

countries.

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7. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Alexander, M. 2000. A History of English Literature. Macmillan Press. London. B.O.E. 2004. Consejería de Educación y Cultura. Decreto N.º 116/2004, de 23 de enero. Currículo de la Educación Secundaria Obligatoria en la Comunidad Autónoma de la Región de Murcia. B.O.E. 2004. Consejería de Educación y Cultura. Decreto N.º 117/2004, de 23 de enero. Currículo de Bachillerato en la Comunidad Autónoma de la Región de Murcia. Council of Europe (1998) Modern Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. A Common European Framework of reference.

Magnusson, M., and Goring, R. (eds.). 1990. Cambridge Biographical Dictionary. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Sanders, A. 1996. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. Oxford University Press.

Speck, W.A. 1998. Literature and Society in Eighteenth-Century England: Ideology Politics and Culture 1680-1820. Book Reviews.

Thoorens, Léon. 1969. Panorama de las literaturas Daimon: Inglaterra y América del Norte. Gran Bretaña y Estados Unidos de América. Ediciones Daimon.

Other sources include: Microsoft (R). 1997. Encyclopedia Encarta. Microsoft Corporation. Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia (The). 2003. 6th ed. Columbia University Press. "British Empire." Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. 2004. Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service. 28 May 2004 <http://www.britannica.com/ebc/article?eu=383356>. The Commonwealth at a glance: a brief guide to the association, Commonwealth Secretariat, June 2003. www.bbc.com www.wwnorton.com