The Failure of Animal Symbolisation in the Plantationocene of “The Adventure of the Crooked Man” (1893) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Ming Panha — 2026-06-23

This paper argues that “The Adventure of the Crooked Man” (1893) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle uses animal symbolism, especially of snakes, birds and mongooses, to express hopes and fears at the time of British imperial decline, concerning the public memory of the Sepoy rebellion in 1857. However, the short story’s attempt to use the mongoose to support imperial authority symbolically fails, as the mongoose plays two contradictory roles, as the hero against snake-like rebels and as the unsuccessful attacker of a caged canary, which popularly symbolised Victorian women. Furthermore, reading the mongoose symbol in the context of colonial plantations, this paper argues that the commodification of the mongoose to perpetuate colonial power disrupts the colonial symbolisation of the mongoose in both aspects and exposes the British Empire as the origin of racist and anthropocentric violence.

Representation of Anti-Feminine Mental Habits in George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss

Chayanin Nuamphummarin — 2026-06-23

This article situates The Mill on the Floss (1860) in nineteenth-century theories of the mind, particularly the implications of psychological theories of habit on gender. Significantly, “anti-feminine mental habits,” the term I have coined here, refer to mental habits in female protagonists that contradict the psychological writings of major nineteenth-century psychologists, who typically assigned to women traits that served to degrade them while elevating the status of men as the superior sex. In fact, William James, Herbert Spencer and Henry Maudsley—all major figures in nineteenth-century psychology—agreed that women were more susceptible to mechanical thoughts and actions than men, contributing to the prevailing binary opposition that pitted feminine mental weaknesses against masculine mental powers. Additionally, mental habits that were considered feminine all placed women far below men in terms of free-thought, free will and originality. I argue that, in an attempt to rewrite misogynistic nineteenth-century physiological psychology and refute prominent evolutionary theories proposed by major mental scientists, George Eliot created a female protagonist in The Mill on the Floss who possesses superior mental habits, namely a spirit of enquiry, independence of mind, and suspense of judgement (as opposed to hurried judgement).

Thoughts

The Failure of Animal Symbolisation in the Plantationocene of “The Adventure of the Crooked Man” (1893) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Representation of Anti-Feminine Mental Habits in George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss