Oxfords and Babels — Reflections on R.F. Kuang’s Babel
I finished Babel this afternoon. It took me five days, with a day’s rest in between to digest it. Compared to East of Eden, this felt like a heavier lift — not because the themes were unfamiliar, but because the technicalities were more complicated as I was being introduced to a relatively new universe. The linguistic complexity took more effort to process, but the heart of the story resonated deeply.
As someone who has lived with the generational consequences of colonialism, I didn’t find the book as heavy-handed as some critics claim. Truthfully, it didn’t feel heavy to me at all, as I have long been familiar with the weight that has pressed on my bloodline and my country for generations under colonial rule.
“Why, he wondered, did white people get so very upset when anyone disagreed with them?” ― R.F. Kuang, Babel
I have noticed, often, the critics are white or Western readers whose histories tie them to the very systems the novel critiques. The realities of exploitation, theft of resources, and cultural erasure aren’t just abstract concepts; they’re lived experiences for Asians, Africans, Latinos, and countless others. For us, Babel is not an exaggerated allegory — it’s a reminder of what was stolen and how those wounds persist until the present time.
The Story and Its Characters
The novel follows a group of exceptional students:
Robin from China
Ramy from India
Victoire from Haiti
Letty, an Englishwoman
All but Letty are colonial subjects, orphans or children stripped from their homelands, chosen and “groomed” by privileged whites to be acceptable in elite Oxford society. They are trained in multiple languages: Latin, Greek, Chinese, French and the like, and shaped into ideal candidates for the Royal Institute of Translation, eventually becoming the renowned “Babelers.”
Their work centers on silverworking, a magical system that uses the nuances of translation to imbue silver with power. This magic is the foundation of Britain’s wealth and dominance during the Industrial Revolution, fueling its economy and global influence. While the rich profit from their labor, the poor remain oppressed, not just in Britain but across the colonies whose people and resources are exploited.
Themes and Real-World Parallels
Kuang’s world is fictional, but the dynamics hold true. The “white savior” archetype, the assimilation into elite spaces at the cost of identity, the use of intellectual and physical labor from colonized subjects while degrading them — all mirror the historical playbook of imperialism.
Colonizers took gold in the guise of God, then rewrote our identities. They benefited from our labor and culture while thinking we are an inferior people, scoffing and turning us into slaves and parading us like monkeys in a circus.
A central contradiction that Babel exposes in every character interaction is how the rich profit from the foreign students’ and faculty’s silver-working skills while keeping the poor firmly in their place , not only in Britain, but across the globe. The story reveals a natural interconnection among nations, where power and exploitation are in constant play, and no country remains untouched when the balance of power tips.
Selfish Shelves: Porcelains and Teas
“But Babel gave you everything.” Letty seemed unable to move past this point. “You had everything you wanted, you had such privileges — “Not enough to make us forget where we’re from.” “But the scholarships — I mean, without those scholarships all of you would have been — I don’t understand — ” “You’ve made that abundantly clear,” Ramy snapped. “You’re a proper little princess, aren’t you? Big estate in Brighton, summers in Toulouse, porcelain china on your shelves and Assam in your teacups? How could you understand? Your people reap the fruits of the Empire. Ours don’t. So shut up, Letty, and just listen to what we’re trying to tell you. It’s not right what they’re doing to our countries.” His voice grew louder, harder. “And it’s not right that I’m trained to use my languages for their benefit, to translate laws and texts to facilitate their rule, when there are people in India and China and Haiti and all over the Empire and the world who are hungry and starving because the British would rather put silver in their hats and harpsichords than anywhere it could do some good.” ― R.F. Kuang, Babel
This is the story of Babel and the story of us. What our colonizers do is take things from others and repackage it as their own. They take Assams and turn into their English breakfasts, Chinas into Porcelains — these are an accumulation, a trophy of their conquest for what was stolen.
Robin, Richard and Griffin — The Killers
He had become so good at holding two truths in his head at once. That he was an Englishman and not. That Professor Lovell was his father and not. That the Chinese were a stupid, backwards people, and that he was also one of them. That he hated Babel, and wanted to live forever in its embrace. He had danced for years on the razor’s edge of these truths, had remained there as a means of survival, a way to cope, unable to accept either side fully because an unflinching examination of the truth was so frightening that the contradictions threatened to break him.”
It’s in their blood, you know. Just that they are cocktail mix that led them to differing directions, all of which are driven by a cause. One being foolishly convinced of something that minimized the value of other beings, and others, did what they had to do for a perceived greater cause.
Richard foolishly did all he could to preserve his kind, his ego and everything that came with his throne and whiteness, he did not murder others the way his children did but everything he stood for has and will lead to a million deaths. Whereas his children, in cold blood, killed upfront, in an attempt to save the many. In the end, they all died and the power remains with the wealthy.
Letty and the Failings of English Rose
You were either a part of this institution, one of the bricks that held it up, or you weren’t.” R.F. Kuang, Babel
To me, the conclusion of Letty’s character was the inevitable result of learned and inherited behavior. It was always us versus them — and she would never truly grasp the horrors and convictions that shaped the outsider. She was upset she couldn’t win the affections of another man of Oxford, but not the Oxford man, Ramy. In the end, she was never truly part of the group she would ultimately lead to ruin. Her blindness was not ignorance but refusal: a willful turning away from the atrocities her country and ancestors inflicted on those they exploited. She was the rose among the thorns, and in the end, she cut them off whilst gaining minor sympathies of those whom she had slain.
She represents the colonizers and faux allies who with all good intentions, fail and somehow manage to cast themselves as the victim. Woe is me: I had to choose between my people and the foreigners.
Mother of Tongue
Reflections of a Filipino who no longer dreams in her native tongue, and shamefully, have only recently found out Filipino and Tagalog are not the same. One being influenced by her colonizer, the other being true to her motherland.
“That’s the beauty of learning a new language. It should feel like an enormous undertaking. It ought to intimidate you. It makes you appreciate the complexity of the ones you know already.” ― R.F. Kuang, Babel
I don’t know how to feel now that synchronistically, upon reading the book — I am reminded that I am learning the words and ways of my colonizer, make that plural, my colonizers, I say that as though I own them, when infact, they have owned me for so long I live in the illusion of independence when we are all infact, a product of another and many others.
We are ashamed of our Filipino, Indian, Chinese, Japanese accent , in attempts to impress or adapt the fluency of native English speakers who are surely no better in forming proper sentences with correct sentence structure and spelling correctly, and yet we are mocked for sounding silly speaking their tongue, trying to be “included”.
If you were shaped by colonialism, you already know: we all have our Babels, and we all have our Oxfords —those places that need-not-demand we give up who we are, just to be allowed in. Maybe it’s time to go outside.