Physical and metaphorical distance is used at length in Orwell’s short story.
It was only in a “job like that [a colonial position] you see the dirty work of the Empire at close quarters”. The close proximity to the colonial administration reveals the lurid details of the Empire. Here, working within the “machine” allows for a microscopic view of the Empire that churns out dirty linen.
“That is invariably the case in the East; a story always sounds clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it becomes”. In this instance, the closer one gets to the event [perhaps truth?], the more complicated and superfluous the event gets. This particular microscopic view provides too many details that one loses sight of the larger “picture” at hand.
The elephant, at a distance, “looked no more dangerous than a cow”. However, the elephant might charge if one went too close to him. This lends to the idea of appearances, and how things appear to us at a distance.
Metaphorically speaking, this idea of appearance and distances can be related to theory and practice. The idea of the modern state as a theory, with its “universality” is well and good. However, the actual practice of the implementation of the modern state seems to be a “misfit” with the colonized country.
Distance, in terms of time, also allows for a “clearer” picture or “different” picture for the viewer. Revisionist history works in the same temper. It is with temporal distance that historians can start drawing links of the events that occurred. I’m not purporting that revisionist history is an objective, detached one. I’m positing that the closer one is to the event, it seems, the more subjective and complicit one may be.
297 words
It was only in a “job like that [a colonial position] you see the dirty work of the Empire at close quarters”. The close proximity to the colonial administration reveals the lurid details of the Empire. Here, working within the “machine” allows for a microscopic view of the Empire that churns out dirty linen.
“That is invariably the case in the East; a story always sounds clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it becomes”. In this instance, the closer one gets to the event [perhaps truth?], the more complicated and superfluous the event gets. This particular microscopic view provides too many details that one loses sight of the larger “picture” at hand.
The elephant, at a distance, “looked no more dangerous than a cow”. However, the elephant might charge if one went too close to him. This lends to the idea of appearances, and how things appear to us at a distance.
Metaphorically speaking, this idea of appearance and distances can be related to theory and practice. The idea of the modern state as a theory, with its “universality” is well and good. However, the actual practice of the implementation of the modern state seems to be a “misfit” with the colonized country.
Distance, in terms of time, also allows for a “clearer” picture or “different” picture for the viewer. Revisionist history works in the same temper. It is with temporal distance that historians can start drawing links of the events that occurred. I’m not purporting that revisionist history is an objective, detached one. I’m positing that the closer one is to the event, it seems, the more subjective and complicit one may be.
297 words
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Very thoughtful Nadia!
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