Sewell’s Black Beauty: An Allegorical Representation of Subalterns
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Department of English
Abstract
This research concentrates on how the plight and predicament of horses represent the subaltern conditions of neglected, excluded and subjected groups of people. In Sewall’s Black Beauty, horses are subjected to severe conditions of overwork, exhaustion and underfeeding. The owner and the caretaker of stable do not heed the pathetic voice of the horses. They do not bother to know if the horses are thirsty and hungry. They use horses only at the time of work. This plight and predicament of horses refer to the pathetic and painful plight of underclass workers who are subjected to exclusion, ostracism and dehumanization. The subaltern people who are unrecognized and excluded into the mainstream society are forced to remain silent and subdued. As ginger and black beauty cannot express their pathos and anguish, so is the plight of the underclass groups of people. The foremost target of research is to examine how elitism of the English society foster and fabricate the ideal of a loyalty and how this notion becomes the tool of exploitation of underclass subaltern characters. The excluded people have an intense inner sense of realization about how much they are dehumanized and excluded. But they are not able to give expression to their thoughts and agony. In Sewall’s Black Beauty, the names of horses, who allegorize the groups of ostracized, excluded and oppressed people, are subjected to the severe conditions of oppressions, exclusions and ostracism. Subaltern figures are indoctrinated by leading figures of mainstream society of England. The privileged people of England have no regard and concern with the excluded people on whose contribution and sacrifice they have to depend.