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Chapter 19
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Babel, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Colonization and Racism
Language, Translation, and Power
Race, Gender, and Intersectionality
Violence and Nonviolence
Complicity
Summary
Analysis
Robin, Victoire, Ramy, and Letty go to Professor Lovell’s home in Hampstead to stay the night. When they arrive, a neighbor calls out. Her name is Mrs. Clemens. The group is worried because they’ve been spotted at the house of the man who Robin just killed and whose murder they have all helped cover up. They do their best to explain their presence to Mrs. Clemens and say that they’re expecting Lovell to meet them soon. Mrs. Clemens leaves and comes back with a spare key to Lovell’s house that they can use. She also brings them food because she knows Lovell doesn’t keep the pantry stocked when he’s gone.
Robin, Victoire, Ramy, and Letty have a close call with the neighbor when they go to Lovell’s house. That close call illustrates the kind of danger that Robin and his friends will face from this point on. After covering up Lovell’s death, they’re all one slip up away from getting caught. That also shows the kind of stress that the friends are under, and will continue to be under, as the novel continues. The book will then show how that stress and anxiety impact their actions.
Themes
That night, they decide to take turns keeping watch in case someone comes to the house. During his shift, Robin flips through the pages on Professor Lovell’s desk. As he starts reading, he realizes that many of the letters detail plans for an upcoming war between Britain and China. Based on those letters, it becomes clear that Robin and his cohort went to China as a pretext and that England wanted the trade talks to break down. That way, England would have an excuse to do what they really wanted to do: declare war on China. In the letters, Lovell comes across as especially hawkish. He thinks the war will provide him and Babel with vast lexical resources. The letters also describe Chinese people in virulently racist terms.
This passage shows that the British Empire intended to militarily invade China all along and that the dispute over opium imports was just a pretext the Empire used to advance its plans. The novel also explicitly connects those efforts to invade China to the racist ideas of those who support the invasion. The people advocating for war, including Lovell, use racism to justify the violent exploitation, subjugation, and oppression of others. That makes it clear that racism is the guiding idea of British imperialism, as the White Englishmen treat people in China inhumanely because they view non-White people as less worthy of respect and consideration than White people.
Themes
Ramy then comes into the room and asks Robin what he’s looking at. Robin says that they’re war plans and explains what he’s read. Victoire comes in not long after, and Ramy and Robin explain to her what they’ve found. They talk about what they’ll do next. Gradually, each one of them realizes they won’t be able to return to Oxford as if nothing has happened. Instead, they decide they’ll have to bring the plans to the Hermes Society. Only the Hermes Society might stand a chance of doing something about those war plans.
Notably, the war plans Robin looks at belong to Lovell. The novel uses Lovell as a character to show how his personal actions—including his racist abuse and exploitation of people of color like Robin—are mirrored in the global policies of the British Empire, as the Empire uses racism as grounds to violently exploit, subjugate, and abuse people of color around the world.
Themes
Letty then walks into the room and asks what the Hermes Society is. Ramy, Robin, and Victoire begin to explain to her what it is, but Letty has trouble understanding why they would want to be affiliated with the group. She asks if they like Oxford, and each of them explains the kinds of racism they routinely face at the school. Besides, Ramy says, it’s not about whether they like Oxford or not; it’s about what their consciences compel them to do. Letty tries to come up with possible solutions and asks why no one told her about the Hermes Society. Ramy says that she and her country have reaped the benefits of empire, but what England is doing to other countries, including their countries of origin, is wrong.
The novel suggests that the friends’ personal experiences of racism and the Empire’s racist colonization of other countries are discrete but also related phenomena. That is, the novel suggests that the racism that Robin, Ramy, and Victoire experience is emblematic of a racist society. That society treats people within England with racism and also chooses to look away from its country’s racist exploitation of other countries around the world. Letty is a representative of that racist society. She is a White person from a privileged background, and she fails to grapple with the racism her friends face and cannot understand issues like racism, colonialist violence, and discrimination as systemic.
Themes
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Victoire adds that Babel sells silver bars to those who trade in enslaved people to help keep people enslaved. Letty is reluctant to believe what she is hearing. Ramy says that there’s almost no limit to what people like Letty will look the other way about as long as they get their tea and coffee for breakfast. Victoire says that if Letty’s not with them, then she hopes that Letty will at least keep their secrets. Letty says that she’s going to stand with them because they are her friends and bursts into tears. While Robin knows Letty’s emotions are genuine, he’s also put off by the fact that after everything Robin, Ramy, and Victoire have explained to her, Letty is the one who needs comforting.
Victoire adds more concrete evidence showing how Babel is complicit in the crimes of the British Empire as well as in the crimes of other people who buy the silver bars that Babel creates. Ramy also argues that the English public is complicit because people are willing to overlook the racist brutality of the Empire as long as they are able to enjoy the benefits and privileges that colonialism affords them. In contrast to the English public, Ramy, Robin, and Victoire have all confronted their complicity in Babel and the British Empire’s crimes and have decided to fight against Babel and the Empire rather than remain apathetically complicit in wrongdoing.
Themes
