Victorian Imagination
Dr. Ramirez
Rider Haggard's She


What do you make of this passage within the context of the Victorian imagination? Write for 10 minutes.

". . . for day by day we destroy that we may live, since in this world none save the strongest can endure. Those who are weak must perish; the
earth is to the strong, and the fruits thereof.  For every tree that grows a score shall wither, that the strong ones may take their
share." (Haggard 202-203)

Discussion of She:
Holly is a philosophical figure
She has eyes like a Basilisk
She has a vanity that can be flattered through praise 189
She is a woman of many moods

Materialism versus faith:
"It is weary work enough to argue with an ordinary materialist, who hurls statistics and whole strata of geological facts at your head, whilst you
can only buffet him with deductions and instincts and the snowflake of faith, that are, alas! so apt to melt in the hot embers of our troubles 193
Ayesha in hell, a tormented soul." (Haggard 199)

Deconstruction of "good and evil" 203
Reference to Amenartas 204
Ustane is marked with She's brand 207
Holly's dream of bones, of skeletons on the march 208
Amahagger Dance (popular episode in Haggard fiction)
Dance of death 218
Ustane and She confront one another, argue about Leo
Ayesha's love poem 233 (way of elevating her affection, and also giving it a sense of destiny)
Leo and Kallikrates are doubles 237 She destroys the original K.
Job's dream
The temple of Truth--Haggard plays with the reader but he also partakes
in the discourse of archeology