UNIT 62

THE COMMONWEALTH. CULTURAL DIVERSITY AND

DEVELOPMENT
OF
LINGUISTIC
VARIETIES.
INTERCULTURAL INFLUENCES AND MANIFESTATIONS: 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.

1/43

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 twentyfirst 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 Gordimers
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

2/43

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 Amrica del Norte. Gran Bretaa y Estados Unidos de Amrica (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.

3/43

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 17thcentury 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

4/43

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 worlds population and one-third

5/43

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.

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. KittsNevis (1983); Brunei (1984); South Africa (rejoined 1994); Cameroon, Mozambique (1995). The last significant
British colony, Hong Kong, was returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.

6/43

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 (19521954), Mr NS Swindon (1954-1960), Mr EA Dundas (1960-1961), Mr JM Henderson (19611964), 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 (2002present).
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 AGRBOs 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

7/43

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
GBEs 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 Offices 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, ComSupers 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,

8/43

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 (18371901). 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 (18701871),
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

9/43

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 Europes 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

10/ 43

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 Jamess 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 fathers 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 Marys 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.

11/ 43

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 (16891707), 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 Englands 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

12/ 43

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 mothercountry 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
colony 2 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.

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.

13/ 43

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 Marylands
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 coloniess 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,

14/ 43

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 Britains jurisdiction over her American
dominions; the Declaratory Act (1766) was established to secure the dependency of his
Majestys 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 wasnt 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

15/ 43

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 IIIs 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.

16/ 43

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

17/ 43

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 nations political agenda: the
flamboyant Benjamin Disraeli (18041881), who had a romantic vision of empire that the
sterner William Ewart Gladstone (18091898) distrusted and rejected. Disraelis expansionist
vision prevailed and was transmitted by newspapers and novels to a reading public dramatically
expanded by the Education Act of 1870.

18/ 43

Symbolically, the British Empire reached its highest point on June 22, 1897, the occasion of
Queen Victorias 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 Empire 3 , comparison
which was endlessly invoked in further discussions and literary works, for instance, at the start
of Conrads novel Heart of Darkness (1902) and in Thomas Hardys 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 Victorias 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, Britains 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

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).

19/ 43

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 (Victorias 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).

Victorias 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
20/ 43

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 Disraelis

21/ 43

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 Victorias 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

22/ 43

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 Hitlers 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, Britains 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 Victorias
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.

23/ 43

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 Communiqus.
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

24/ 43

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 Canadas 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
25/ 43

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
40,00060,000 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
Britains 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 Australias 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 Australias 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.

26/ 43

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 countrys
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.

27/ 43

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

28/ 43

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 worlds 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 Indians 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 countrys 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
29/ 43

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 systems enormous manpower requirements, vast numbers of black African slaves
were imported throughout the eighteenth century, thereby reshaping the regions 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 regions 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

30/ 43

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 AfroEuropean 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

31/ 43

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 Kings 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 Forsters reputation. Then Forster embarked upon a new novel with
a homosexual theme, Maurice, which shows the picture of British attitudes. It was revised

32/ 43

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 Forsters 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 mothers death in 1945, he
was elected an honorary fellow of Kings and lived there for the remainder of his life. In 1946
his old college, Kings 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, Forsters characters were not one-dimensional heroes and

33/ 43

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 Joyces 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, Forsters 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 fathers farm in what was then Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

34/ 43

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 Lessings 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 Marthas eventual
rejection of it. The sequel, A Ripple from the Storm (1958), is very much a nove l of ideas,
exploring Marxism and Marthas 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

35/ 43

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 Lessings 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, Lessings 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. Lessings 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

36/ 43

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, Lessings 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 Lessings 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 Gordimers 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,

37/ 43

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
childrens 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 authors 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 Africas 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; Livingstones 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 Burgers 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 Julys 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 Soldierss
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

38/ 43

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 postapartheid 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 womans
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, Gordimers 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 Gordimers 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

39/ 43

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

40/ 43

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 familys 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 students 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

41/ 43

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.

42/ 43

7. BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Alexander, M. 2000. A History of English Literature. Macmillan Press. London.
B.O.E. 2004. Consejera de Educacin y Cultura. Decreto N. 116/2004, de 23 de enero. Currculo de la
Educacin Secundaria Obligatoria en la Comunidad Autnoma de la Regin de Murcia.
B.O.E. 2004. Consejera de Educacin y Cultura. Decreto N. 117/2004, de 23 de enero. Currculo de
Bachillerato en la Comunidad Autnoma de la Regin 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, Lon. 1969. Panorama de las literaturas Daimon: Inglaterra y Amrica del Norte. Gran
Bretaa y Estados Unidos de Amrica. 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. Encyclopdia 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

43/ 43