So, growing up in post-WWII London is similar to other perspectives we have read, in my opinion. For young people like Karim, being British is not something that feels entirely right. Karim introduces himself by saying, “My name is Karim Amir, and I am an Englishman born and bred, almost” (Kureishi). That word 'almost' shows how race immediately affects his identity. Even though Karim was born in England, he is often treated as if he does not fully belong.
As a mixed-race teenager, Karim is often judged or stereotyped, even in spaces that claim to be open-minded. For example, Karim is cast in the theatre for his “authenticity,” which shows that his race is valued more as an image than for his actual skill or talent (Kureishi). His father’s role as a spiritual guide for white people reflects something similar, since his culture is treated as something to consume rather than fully understand. As a white American, I also enjoy learning about Indian culture, but I recognize that I hold more social power because of my skin color, even when I engage with or appreciate that culture. In contrast, modern media has begun offering more positive and complex representations of Indian identity. Shows like Never Have I Ever present Indian-American characters as layered individuals dealing with family, school, grief, and identity, not just cultural stereotypes. Similarly, Bend It Like Beckham portrays a young Indian woman navigating cultural expectations while pursuing her passion for football, showing that identity can include both tradition and personal freedom. These portrayals support the idea that identity is not one-dimensional. As one critic explains, Kureishi challenges the belief that British-Asian people must fit into a single, “authentic” version of who they are (Shapiro Library).
Sexuality further complicates Karim’s sense of belonging. London appears more open than the suburbs, but acceptance has limits. Karim explores his attraction to both men and women, but his family reacts harshly. When his father discovers Karim with Charlie, he responds with anger and insults (Kureishi). The ideas about masculinity still restrict personal freedom, even in a modern city, due to culture and personal beliefs that create a box. Karim’s sexuality becomes another reason he feels unsure of where he belongs in post-war England.
When compared to other characters in the course, Karim’s experience is it's own unique twist of the same topics we have been exploring. Stevens in The Remains of the Day struggles mostly with class and duty, not race or sexuality. His identity as a butler gives him structure, even though it costs him emotional connection (Ishiguro). Antoinette in Wide Sargasso Sea faces racial and gender discrimination that leaves her known as a 'mad woman' and is ultimately isolated, especially when she is judged by English standards she can never meet (Rhys). Karim’s struggle is different from the other two because he is constantly asked to explain himself in order to be accepted. The other two were not given the chance to do so.
Being British is not fixed—it depends on who you are, where you live, and how others see you. Not so different from today's America, yeah?
Works Cited
Bend It Like Beckham. Directed by Gurinder Chadha, performance by Parminder Nagra, Twentieth Century Fox, 2002.
Ishiguro, Kazuo. The Remains of the Day. Vintage International, 1989.
Kureishi, Hanif. The Buddha of Suburbia. Penguin Books, 1990.
Never Have I Ever. Created by Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher, performance by Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Netflix, 2020–2023.
Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea. W. W. Norton & Company, 1966.
Shapiro Library. “Hanif Kureishi and ‘The Brown Man’s Burden.’” Southern New Hampshire University, Shapiro Library.
Both The Remains of the Day and Michael Apted’s Up documentary series show that class continues to matter in Britain, even as society changes throughout the twentieth century. Although one is a novel and the other is a documentary, both reveal how class expectations and implicit biases shape what people believe they can do and who they think they can become.
In The Remains of the Day, the class system appears in an older, more traditional form. Stevens, the butler, has completely absorbed the class values of early-twentieth-century Britain. He believes that dignity means knowing his place and putting his employer’s needs above his own (Ishiguro, 1989). Because he assumes that upper-class men are naturally wiser and more moral, he never questions Lord Darlington’s actions. This class bias leads him to support political meetings that spread Nazi influence, and it also causes him to suppress his emotions so deeply that he cannot confess his feelings for Miss Kenton until it is too late. Through Stevens, Ishiguro shows how class expectations can damage both a person’s judgement and, ultimately, their personal happiness.
The Up series presents a Britain where class is somewhat more flexible but still very powerful. Walley (2013) explains that the first film portrayed class as a set of fixed “boxes,” such as wealthy boys in private schools, working-class children, and boys raised in a children’s home. Over the years, many of the children grow up to live the futures the documentary predicted, but some break away from expectations, like Nick, who grows up on a farm but becomes a nuclear physicist, and Sue, a working-class girl who becomes a university programme administrator (Walley, 2013). These examples show the tension between what society expects and what individuals are capable of achieving outside their “class” boxes.
John claims that class no longer matters and says his success is mostly due to his own talent. However, his path was supported by both cultural and economic capital (Walley, 2013). Some working-class participants say they “did what [they] wanted,” which Walley reads as a way of protecting the value of their lives, not as evidence that everyone had the same opportunities. Their feelings about class become especially clear when they talk about their children: they acknowledge that their own chances were limited, yet they support their children even when their choices keep them in the same class position (Walley, 2013).
The filmmaker’s perspective also introduces bias. Apted, who came from a middle-class background, sometimes frames working-class choices as failures. For example, he pressures Tony to admit he never succeeded as a jockey or actor, and he asks Symon whether he is “worth more” than manual labour. Some participants push back, especially Jackie, who challenges Apted’s belief that moving up the class ladder is the only meaningful sign of success (Walley, 2013). This dynamic suggests that class expectations may operate through the very stories people tell about one another.
It reminds me of a philosopher, Zhuang Zhou, who observes fish swimming freely and declares, “This is the joy of fish.” His friend Huizi challenges him, saying, “You are not a fish; how do you know the joy of fish?” The story reflects the difficulty of truly understanding another being’s perspective—something Apted also struggles with when interpreting the lives of his participants.
Both works argue that class continues to shape how people see their futures and what they believe they deserve. Stevens’ loyalty to the upper class keeps him from recognising his own moral responsibility and from pursuing personal happiness. In the Up series, participants still face class-based limits, even when those limits are described as personal choices. Whether it is Stevens trying to live up to an outdated ideal of service or Jackie defending the value of her life to a filmmaker from a higher class, both works show that class is more than a label.
Works Cited
Apted, M. (Director). (1964–2012). The Up Series [Documentary film series].
Ishiguro, K. (1989). The remains of the day. https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/remains/
Roger T. Ames & Takahiro Nakajima, eds. 2015, Zhuangzi and the Happy Fish. https://pages.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/chin/LaoJuang/JoyOfFishe.html
Walley, C. (2013). Class diaries: Reflections on Michael Apted’s Up series. Public Books. https://www.publicbooks.org/class-diaries-reflections-on-michael-apteds-up-series/
In the early twentieth century, British identity began to shift. Instead of being based on family traditions tied to the land, identity became shaped by city life—by travel, shopping, and how people presented themselves to others. Read together, Seamus Heaney’s “Digging,” Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street, and T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” show this change. They trace a movement from rural pride in physical work to fast-paced urban living and the self-doubt that sometimes came with it. The rapid growth of cities during the Second Industrial Revolution explains why city life felt both exciting and stressful, which I personally can relate too in our modern day of technology at our fingertips (OpenStax, 2022).
Heaney’s poem focuses on rural life and family history. The speaker watches his father and grandfather dig in the fields and feels connected to them through the sounds and smells of the earth (Heaney, 1966). But by the end, he chooses to “dig” with his pen instead of a shovel. The tradition of hard work remains, but it becomes creative work instead of farming that takes heart. I think in some ways this reflects the real shift in society as many people left the countryside to work in factories and offices in larger growing cities.
Woolf’s story shows London as a busy city ruled by the steady toll of Big Ben. The streets are full of cars, shops, and crowds. Clarissa notices how time has changed everything and even gloves are lower in quality after the war. When Clarissa repeats “Fear no more” and sits up straight after a loud explosion, she shows how city life expects people to stay calm and composed no matter what. Industrial cities offered entertainment, stores, and new public spaces, but also crowding, pollution, and sharp class differences (OpenStax, 2022). The London shop windows that fascinate Clarissa show the reader the rise of department stores and window-shopping, where simply looking could shape how a person's environment changed.
T.S. Eliot takes the city inward, showing how it affects the mind. His city is foggy, lonely, and full of depression. Prufrock constantly asks, “Do I dare?” and feels unsure of himself (Eliot, 1915). He says he has “measured out life with coffee spoons”, mocking how modern life can become repetitive and controlled. Prufrock feels lost in a world where he must “prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet”. The crowded city offers opportunity, but also pressure, judgment, and that 'rat-race' people used to talk about.
Change does not erase our past; instead, it challenges us to reshape who we are within new circumstances. That is the main idea I took from these readings this week. In each text, the characters and speakers carry their history with them, even as they face a world that is rapidly shifting around them.
What stood out to me most is how similar this feels to life today. We also live in a time of constant change, especially with technology, social media, and global movement. Just like people in the early twentieth century, we are often balancing where we come from with who we are becoming. The excitement of new opportunities can exist right alongside feelings of pressure, uncertainty, or loss.
References:
Eliot, T. S. (1915). The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44212/the-love-song-of-j-alfred-prufrock
Heaney, S. (1966). Digging. Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47555/digging
OpenStax. (2022). 10.2 Life in the industrial city. In World history, volume 2. https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-2/pages/10-2-life-in-the-industrial-city
Woolf, V. (1923). Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street. The Dial, 75 (July–Dec.), 5–14. Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/63107/pg63107-images.html
British children’s fantasy books often do more than tell exciting stories because they also teach young readers how to think about power, identity, and what it means to belong to their nation or culture. During the twentieth century, Britain experienced major change as it shifted from a powerful empire to a post-imperial country becoming more culturally diverse and liberal. These changes can be seen echoing within its modern and past literature read by children of the past, and today.
Two novels that show this shift within their character’s are C. S. Lewis’s The Horse and His Boy (1954) and Diana Wynne Jones’s Howl’s Moving Castle (1986). Although both novels follow young protagonists on magical journeys, they present very different ideas about identity, power, and belonging thanks to being written within two very different times in history. It’s for this reason The Horse and His Boy reflects imperial British values based on racial hierarchy, destiny, and fixed identity, while Howl’s Moving Castle reflects post-imperial British values based on personal choice, ethical responsibility, and flexible identity. By using postcolonial theory and historical context, British fantasy literature can be seen as changed along with British national identity in the forty years between both books.
When Lewis wrote The Horse and His Boy in 1954, Britain was beginning to lose its empire-status as colonizers. India had gained independence only a few years earlier, and many other colonies soon followed. Even though political control was fading, imperial beliefs about hierarchy, race, and national superiority were still deeply rooted in British culture. According to Naomi Wood, British children’s literature during this time often presented empire as “natural” and presented British people as rightful leaders. These books trained young readers to see hierarchy and control as normal parts of the world (Wood).
In contrast, Howl’s Moving Castle, published in 1986, reflects a Britain that no longer defined itself through empire. Social systems have changed even between 1986 and 2025, and identity is no longer defined wholly by birth, sex, or social rank. Jones signals this shift immediately by parodying inherited fate: as she writes it is “a misfortune to be born the eldest of the three,” because everyone “knows you are the one who will fail first” (Jones). This start to the narrative sets Sophie up as someone who believes one thing, then chooses to be the complete opposite of what she’d once thought when she learns differently. Instead of destiny making a hero of Sophie, Jones treats destiny as a script that can be questioned and resisted by a character who thinks beyond their thought culture or narrative.
Postcolonial scholars argue that empires survive not only through violence but through how people imagine the world. Aishwarya Subramanian explains that Narnia repeatedly centers an elevated European viewpoint that presents the land as visible, knowable, and therefore implicitly controllable. The author of the paper argues that the “whole of Narnia is bounded by human, British subjectivity,” meaning the world becomes legible mainly through British perception (Subramanian). Subramanian connects this to what Mary Louise Pratt calls the logic of “anti-conquest,” which lets European figures appear benevolent while maintaining authority: it allows the European subject “to secure their innocence in the same moment as they assert European hegemony” (Subramanian). This is exactly the kind of structural innocence Lewis builds into Narnia, where “benign rule” by British-aligned monarchs is contrasted with “overt tyranny” by “often-Orientalized” colonizers (Subramanian).
This framework clarifies how Lewis frames power as morally acceptable when it comes from the “right” rulers. In The Horse and His Boy, Aslan does not simply guide Shasta; he claims total authorship over his life and the narrative of the entire story. Aslan later tells Shasta that every major turning point in the plot was his doing: “I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis… I was the lion who gave the Horses the new strength of fear” (Lewis). Read through Subramanian’s lens, this kind of providential narration resembles imperial “stewardship,” in which control is portrayed as protective rather than coercive (Subramanian). Even when Shasta is told his pain matters, the logic remains hierarchical: “I am telling you your story, not hers. No one is told any story but their own” (Lewis). The message reassures the character, but it also narrows identity into a single authorized story granted by the “God-chosen” character.
Subramanian further argues that Narnia’s apparent timelessness supports this imperial legibility. Even though thousands of years pass between the children’s visits throughout the entire series, “Narnia’s material culture, norms, language, and fashions remain entirely constant,” so the land stays “immediately accessible and knowable” to returning British children (Subramanian). This stagnation is not neutral; it ensures the fantasy world remains readable through British assumptions. As Subramanian notes, portal fantasy can “fix” settings into a permanent “unchangingness,” making “fantasyland… Orientalized into the ‘unchanging past’” (Subramanian). This helps explain why Lewis’s identity model is fixed: Shasta does not invent himself, he is revealed by Aslan.
Ainhize Vela Galicia analyzes The Horse and His Boy using the idea of the “Hero’s Journey.” She shows that Shasta follows a traditional heroic path shaped by destiny, struggle, and final reward. His journey leads him to his “true” identity as a northern king. This supports the idea that Lewis presents identity as something discovered, not chosen. Shasta does not become a king because of his choices, but rather Aslan’s choices. He becomes king because he was always meant to be one. His identity is fixed by birth and bloodline, not by worth or morals, despite Aslan providing the children with a sense of worth (Vela Galicia).
Marvin Hinten explains that Lewis creates a strong cultural divide between the northern lands of Narnia and Archenland and the southern land of Calormen. Narnia is shown as good, noble, and fair, while Calormen is shown as cruel, dark, and dangerous. These descriptions match old British stereotypes of Middle Eastern cultures. Language, clothing, and behavior all mark the Calormenes as “Other.” This reflects what Naomi Wood describes as a pattern in British children’s literature where foreign cultures are shown as immoral while British-based cultures are shown as superior (Hinten; Wood). Lewis even generalizes moral capacity through enslavement, claiming that one of the worst results of slavery is losing “the power of forcing yourself” once no one compels you (Lewis). The line reads like a moral warning, but it also frames enslaved people as internally weakened—an idea that historically served imperial “civilizing” narratives.
Subramanian’s attention to mapping and aerial gaze also strengthens this imperial reading. She notes that secondary worlds are often circumscribed by cartographic authority: maps “fix the interpretation of a landscape” (Subramanian). She points out that Lewis repeatedly introduces Narnia through height and distance, describing terrain “spread out like a map” (Subramanian). This matters because representing space as blank can “actively erase… existing social and geo-cultural formations” (Subramanian). In other words, the fantasy gaze can quietly naturalize the logic of terra nullius—land as available once it is seen from above and narrated by the “right” observer (Subramanian).
Some readers argue that Lewis is against empire because many of his stories show tyrants being overthrown, like Narnia and Archenland overthrowing their opposition. At first, it seems like The Horse and His Boy supports a dual cultural identity; however, Subramanian explains that Lewis often uses a technique that allows British characters to appear innocent while remaining in control. The series can condemn violent colonizers while still preserving British authority through “anti-conquest,” projecting exploitation onto “convenient non-White others” (Subramanian). Violence and cruelty are blamed on foreign characters like the Calormenes in almost every book in the series, while northern rulers are presented as kind and rightful. This means Lewis does not reject the idea of rule itself; he only insists to young minds that the “right” people should rule. Therefore, the system of hierarchy remains intact (Subramanian).
Unlike Shasta, Sophie Hatter is not born special. She is not destined for greatness. At the start of Howl’s Moving Castle, she is shy, unsure of herself, and trapped by her own low expectations. Sophie’s sense that life happens elsewhere, “interesting things did seem to happen, but always to somebody else” (Jones) captures the quiet social scripting Jones critiques. Somkid and Yimwilai explain Sophie’s journey using psychological identity theory. They show that Sophie moves from confusion to confidence through experience, work, courage, and relationships. Her identity forms through what she does and not who she was born as. When Sophie is magically turned into an old woman, she becomes more confident. Losing youth and beauty frees her to speak honestly and act bravely, thus emphasizing that identity in Jones’s novel is flexible and shaped by experience (Somkid and Yimwilai).
Jane Hiddleston, using philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, explains that true ethics come from openness to other people, not control over them. Levinas argues that systems that try to lock people into fixed roles always fail. Lewis’s world reflects what Levinas calls “Totality”—a system where everyone has a fixed role based on race, nation, or species. Jones’s world instead reflects “openness.” Characters such as Howl, Sophie, and Calcifer are flawed, changeable, and morally complex. Jones’s ethical model is captured in the line “a heart’s a heavy burden,” which reframes love as responsibility rather than romantic destiny (Jones). Even Howl’s cowardice becomes part of moral honesty: he admits the only way he can do frightening things is to “tell myself I’m not doing it” (Jones). Identity in Howl’s Moving Castle is shaped through relationships and choices, not hierarchy (Hiddleston).
Lewis teaches readers to accept natural hierarchy and destiny.
Jones teaches readers to question authority and build identity through choice.
This is how British fantasy fiction written forty years apart mirrors Britain’s movement from imperial certainty to post-imperial self-reflection. These books still influence how young readers in 2025 think about power, race, sex, and identity. Lewis’s story quietly allows readers to accept hierarchy as natural or normal, if the ruler is a “chosen one” ready to lead justly (Wood). Jones’s story teaches readers to question power, keep their values, and build fortified relationships (Somkid and Yimwilai).
The Horse and His Boy reflects a British world shaped by empire, racial hierarchy, and destiny. Howl’s Moving Castle reflects a post-imperial Britain focused on choice, ethics, and personal growth. Together, these novels show that British identity is not permanent. It is fluid and changes with history, culture, and modernized storytelling. And because literature shapes how people think, these stories will continue to shape how young readers understand power, identity, and belonging today.
Works Cited
Hinten, Marvin D. “‘Myself’: Allusions in ‘The Horse and His Boy.’” The Lamp-Post of the Southern California C.S. Lewis Society, vol. 27, no. 2, 2003, pp. 13–22. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/45349757. Accessed 2 Dec. 2025.
Hiddleston, J. (2009). Understanding Postcolonialism (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315711669
Lewis, C. S. The Horse and His Boy. 1954. HarperCollins, 1980.
OpenStax. “Life in the Industrial City.” World History, Volume 2: From 1400, 2022. https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-2/pages/10-2-life-in-the-industrial-city
Somkid, P., and S. . Yimwilai. “The Quest for Identity in Howl’s Moving Castle”. Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Research in Asia, vol. 26, no. 1, May 2020, pp. 77-100, https://so05.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/psujssh/article/view/251958.
Subramanian, A. (2019). “The Whole Country Below Them”: Gazing Imperially on Narnia From Above. Space and Culture, 23(4), 370-381. https://doi.org/10.1177/1206331219845306
Wood, Naomi. Review of Empire's Children: Empire and Imperialism in Classic British Children's Books. The Lion and the Unicorn, vol. 26 no. 1, 2002, p. 126-130. Project MUSE, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/uni.2002.0015.
