Curiosity had changed to gaiety, and gaiety to sympathy, and when I stir the still pool in its depths the sympathy will be transformed into a desire upon whose taut strings I shall play as I wish.
page 38
This is pure power. It is manipulation at it's best. It is Boal accusing empathy of tearing away an observer's ability to think, to judge. In images we go from innocence to playfulness to depth something fluid and tranquil. That tranquility is disturbed and becomes something rigid that can be used and bent to a strong will. In many stories of conquerors the natives are depicted as slow and stupid. Even in Snow Crash we hear all kinds of prejudice about the people who come off the raft. At one point Stephensen describes how 'electricity is still new' in some of the places the refus came from. Not a very respectful view when the absence of a technological infrastructure is used as the judging criteria of someone's intellect.
Along with the characterization of natives as being slow, there is also the theme of curiosity. Early discoverers were seen as Gods because there was no other way of explaining their arrival in huge ships with unseen technologies and languages. It is just that curiosity that Salih plays at in this passage. Curiosity which was anticipated with the full intention of abuse. There is a sense of contempt that becomes obvious in this passage. Mustafa Sa'eed says he will play the prey's desires as he wishes. No where does it say what will be played or why. It's simply the ability to use Isabella Seymour. Having control is all he craves much like colonization was a race to have more than other European colonial powers. And much like those powers, once a colony lost it's usefulness, it was discarded and left to die.
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