Goodly Is Our Heritage

"Patterns of sublimation begin in childhood. So does binary and hierarchical thinking. The child must be trained to see in oppositions and on a scale of order. So the story of nation and people, race and culture begins as the bedtime story." (The author) How else, asks Rashna Singh, do we explain the uncanny physical resemblance between 'sama bin Laden and the evil Jaffar (of Disney's motion picture Aladdin)? Singh provides a most persuasive argument for why these sentiments are both insidious and compelling, and how they resonate to this day. While she includes such classic examples as The Secret Garden, Robinson Crusoe, and the Babar series, it is her inclusion of genuinely neglected fictions that lends her analyses a special richness. In an engaging narrative style, Singh demonstrates how constructions of character evolve into cultural imprints which encourage their young readers to choose the "goodly" side, with little thought of "badly" repercussions.

"Patterns of sublimation begin in childhood. So does binary and hierarchical thinking. The child must be trained to see in oppositions and on a scale of order. So the story of nation and people, race and culture begins as the bedtime story." (The author)

How else, asks Rashna Singh, do we explain the uncanny physical resemblance between Osama bin Laden and the evil Jaffar (of Disney's motion picture Aladdin)? Singh provides a most persuasive argument for why these sentiments are both insidious and compelling, and how they resonate to this day. While she includes such classic examples as The Secret Garden, Robinson Crusoe, and the Babar series, it is her inclusion of genuinely neglected fictions that lends her analyses a special richness. In an engaging narrative style, Singh demonstrates how constructions of character evolve into cultural imprints which encourage their young readers to choose the "goodly" side, with little thought of "badly" repercussions.

Rashna B Singh is a visiting professor at Colorado College and the author of The Imperishable Empire: British Fiction on India (1988), as well as numerous scholarly articles and conference papers on issues in British colonial and postcolonial literature. In 2003 Dr. Singh was awarded a grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities to participate in a seminar at Oxford University and in 1998 she was chosen by the Massachusetts Council of International Education to lecture on "Perceptions and Representations of the Other" at various colleges in the state.