the act of colonialism

Woolf seems to paint colonialism as something akin to a farcical act and I got a first hint of this when he says that it was the act of pretending to be grand “in a strange Asiatic country’ that “gave the touch of unreality and theatricality” to the lives of the White ruling caste. In London, they were what they were, they were not acting. But in Ceylon, they “were all always…playing a part, acting upon a stage”; the backcloth of which was imperialism” (24).

This notion of theatricality and acting is continued when Woolf describes how he attained a good impression in Jaffna. He says, “My reputation as …a Sahib…was therefore established within three hours of my arrival, for a civil servant, wearing bright green flannel collars and accompanied by a dog who within the space of ten minutes killed a cat and a large snake, commanded respect”. Here, the comical and almost ludicrous manner by which Woolf gained this immediate respect as a White master undermines his own prestige because it is almost as if White respectability depended not on true substance, but on whether one possessed the right costumes and props to pull off the White master’s act of prestige.

This idea of acting is also evident in how the civil servants met every evening for a game of tennis, which had become something like “a ritual, almost a sacrament”, before adjourning for social conversation—“the ritual of British conversation which inevitably followed British exercise”. All these social rituals seem to me like outward shows of sophistication and civility, mere acts of the white man’s supposed prestige and superiority over the natives. All these definitely reduce colonialism to a very empty and substance-less shell for me—a very staged-up act that is ultimately hollow at the core.