Jekyll and Hyde in the Colonies
| Published date | 01 June 1965 |
| Author | A. P. Thornton |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206502000207 |
| Date | 01 June 1965 |
| Subject Matter | Review Article |
Review
Articles
A.
P.
Thornton,
University
of
Toronto
Jekyll
and
Hyde
in
the
Colonies
When
M.
Mannoni's
book
La
Psychologie
de
la
Colonisation
was
first
published
in
1950,
it
caught
offguard
not
only
tout
Paris
but tout
Saigon.
It
was
held
to
have
worsened
the
situation
in Madagascar.
It
later
became
an
intellectual
battleground
over
which
the
supporters
of
Algerian
colons skirmished
with
the propagandists
of
the
F.L.N.-some-
what
moodily,
since
both
realized
that
in
doing
so
they
were
only
prov-
ing
the
doctor
even
more
irritatingly
right.
Now
it
appears
in
English,
under
the
title
of
Prospero
and
Caliban.
1 It
is
introduced
to
a new
readership
in
an
admiring
if
rather
thunderstruck
preface
by
Philip
Mason,
the
director
of
studies
in
race
relations
at
Chatham
House.
Sixteen
years have
passed
since
Mannoni
wrote
his
book.
During
them,
what
it
teaches
about
human
behaviour
under the pressure
of
a
colonial
situation
has
in
part
come
to
be
accepted-at
least
by
those
who
have
watched
others
behave
under
the
pressure
of
a
colonial
situa-
tion.
Yet
Mannoni's
work remains
in
isolation.
Mr.
Tarzie Vattachi,
a
journalist
from
Ceylon,
has set
out
an
account
of
what
he
calls, with
insight,
The Broum
Sahib:2
the
man
who
has
been
left
beached
in Asia
by
the
British
abdication,
the
product
of
an
alien
system
of
education,
a
"school
for
clerks",
which
taught
him "to
think
British,
feel
British,
talk
British, act
British,
and
buy
British"
(p.
54).
But
Vattachi
is
con-
tent
to
hold
this
unfortunate
up
to
ridicule,
and
to
leave
him
there,
in
a predicament not
of his
own devising.
Beyond
this,
there
are
the
anarchic
comedies
about
Malaya
by
Mr.
Anthony Burgess,
3
but
these
are
pitched
to
a
crescendo
of
personal
crisis,
and
do
not
try
to
mirror
the
routines
of
an
artificially-created
society
which
is
shaking
itself
to
pieces.
Mannoni's
nearest
scholarly neighbour
is
John
Plamenatz,
whose
essay
On
Alien
Rule
and
Self-Government
4
illuminates
both
these
sub-
jects with a detachment
and
clarity
that
have
been
rightly
admired.
But
Mr.
Plamenatz
is
a
political
scientist,
untroubled
by
doubts
con-
cerning the
provenance
and value
of
his
subject.
M.
Mannoni
in
contrast
does
not
believe in
detachment,
trusts
no
one
who
does
not
confess
to
doubt,
and
himself
doubts
that
anywhere
on
earth
is
such
a
thing
as
a
"subject"-or
that,
if
there
were
such,
a
human
intelligence
would
be
capable
of
isolating and
treating
it.
He
refuses
to
make a
distinction
1
Prospero
and
Caliban.
By
0.
Mannoni.
1964.
(New
York:
Frederick
A.
Praeger.
218
p .) 92Lno nr etc 2
2
The 'rown
Sahib.
By
Tarzie Vittachi.
1962.
(London:
Andrd
Deutsch.
127
pp.)
3
Cf.
his
Time
for
a
Tiger;
and,
Beds
in
the
East.
4
On
Alien
Rule
and
Self-Government.
By
John
Plamenatz.
1960.
(London:
Lonix-
mans.
219
pp.)
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