The Peacock Dress: The Language of British Imperialism in India, 1899-1905

Authors

Rebecca Onken, University of San Diego

Abstract

This essay aims to discuss the actualization of the imperialist language through the Peacock Dress of Lady Mary Curzon, the new viceroy’s wife in the British colonial India. As the essay argues, the Peacock Dress holds within it a history of appropriation, not appreciation. It highlights the unique colonizing language of the British rule, the racist cloaked as ‘civilizing’ sentiments of the West, the subjugation of the Indian textile industry, and the manifold ways that the British turned their Indian subjects into a colonial Other.

First Page

61

Last Page

75

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Onken, Rebecca (2022) "The Peacock Dress: The Language of British Imperialism in India, 1899-1905," Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History: Vol. 12: Iss. 1, Article 4.
DOI: 10.20429/aujh.2022.120104
Available at: https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/aujh/vol12/iss1/4