Babel - Entry 4
May 8, 2024 * literature, babel * part 4
Contents
In this portion of the book, the four get through their exams and attend a dance, after which they head to a sort of afterparty where everyone except Ramy gets drunk. Letty cries on Robin’s shoulder about how Ramy isn’t loving her back.
Robin finds Victoire and Ramy almost getting caught for stealing for Hermes, learning that they too were recently recruited, and saves them, but ends up getting trapped himself and is arrested and brought to Lovell for stealing for Hermes. Lovell is angry at him, bringing out his typical racist rhetoric, but decides to give him a second chance, in exchange for Robin giving him the location of a safe spot. Later, Lovell is seemingly sympathetic to him and how distant he always was. Lovell also says that Griffin brutally murdered a student while stealing from Hermes, showing him the silver bar he used, and giving it to him as a reminder. Ramy and Victoire haven’t been found out.
There’s tension between Ramy, Victoire, and Robin as they head to Canton for a senior trip as a sort of internship, and they can’t find time to talk until Letty leaves them alone. Robin and Ramy fight over Robin betraying Hermes, but they eventually make up once they reach Canton. In Canton, Robin discovers the cruelty of the white man negotiating trade with the native Cantonese, and learns that they plan to force China to keep the Opium trade open, even though it’s creating a problematic epidemic.
The Chinese explode Opium barrels on the docks, and the students are quickly ushered back into the boat back home. Robin is left horrified by what he sees, and realizes that what the British are doing to the rest of the world is very very real, and not as detached from him as he had thought. He confronts Lovell on the deck, where the two get into a very heated argument, and as Lovell leans across to strike him, Robin draws the silver bar given to him as a reminder before, and kills Lovell in a blaze of fury and panic.
The four immediately panic, trying to figure out how to cover this up, and end up getting Letty involved, who insists on not being left out and wanting to help them.
Analysis/Reflection
I think here we see a pretty drastic shift in Robin’s perspective on his role in the overarching conflict of British colonialism, and while he’s shocked by the murder he committed, he doesn’t feel regret, and resolves himself to fight for Canton and rejoin the Hermes Society.
I enjoyed this change in perspective, as it shows the change in Robin’s character and the beginning of his tendency towards violence as the only reasonable response to the horrific things the British were doing.
Additionally, this part of the book portrayed Ramy as a fairly hot headed character, which somewhat added to his charm, and showed how he remained steadfast to his faith, as to me, it partly explains why he was so indifferent to Letty’s affections throughout the book. I think the very blatant portrayal of the cruelty of the British translators here does lack nuance, but it gets across the point that the British didn’t really care for the wellbeing of the locals in their quest for colonial dominance, and used convoluted economics and arguments of free trade to justify it. I think these discussions on free trade can be somewhat related to justifications for things countries use today, and how profit is often used to justify things that are less than great. We also see Letty sort of alienated by the rest of the cohort, as she’s a white girl from a wealthy background, but that comes across as somewhat unfair to me. She’s been incredibly loyal to the three throughout the book, if a bit uptight, and has repeatedly backed Victoire whenever others were being racist to her. I feel like isolating people who, while they may not be in the same situation as you, but are able to empathize and help you, is counterproductive to what they were actually trying to achieve.