The Other Theme Analysis

Mister Pip is a novel that contains distinct groups of people who ostracize one another, frequently by pointing to racial divides. Mr. Watts, who is the only white person living in a black village, has difficulty interacting with the townspeople, who are suspicious of his foreign ways. Furthermore, the villagers themselves are torn between two opposing military factions, the Bougainville Revolutionary Army and the Papua New Guinea Defense Force (whom they call “redskins,” a racial slur for Papua New Guineans). Mister Pip explores these tensions, ultimately showing that to think of people from different groups or ethnicities as “other” only leads to misunderstanding and conflict.

Jones illustrates that viewing people as “other” is often the result of reductive, narrow-minded thinking. Dolores’s dislike of Mr. Watts is an example of this outlook. Matilda notes her mother’s quick judgment of Mr. Watts, which reduces him to nothing more than his race: “She thought she had Mr. Watts summed up. She could not see what us kids had come to see: a kind man. She only saw a white man. And white men had stolen her husband and my father. White men were to blame for the mine, and the blockade.” Dolores doesn’t give Mr. Watts’s individuality any thought because of what he represents in her mind, while Matilda—who doesn’t approach him as an “other”—sees that he is a “kind man.” Unfortunately, she is unable to change her mother’s mind, and Dolores allows herself to view Mr. Watts as an enemy, prompting her to steal Great Expectations, which sets off a succession of events that leads to both Dolores and Mr. Watts’s death.

Similarly, the rebel soldiers and the “redskins” each promote their own ideas regarding one another. These black-and-white beliefs make it easier for them to cling to their own notions regarding who’s right and who’s wrong. To understand this, it’s helpful to consider the beginnings of the Bougainville Civil War. Many native Bougainvilleans were unhappy that the island’s large copper mine was bringing workers to the island who weren’t Bougainvilleans (particularly workers who were racially different). Eventually, groups of Bougainville rebels attacked the mine in a bid to restore the island’s purity and original way of life. At this point, the Papua New Guinea government deployed the Papua New Guinea Defense Force to protect the mine and the land around it, but the Defense Force soon spread to the rest of the island, waging war on the villages and rebel factions. As such, both sides thought of one another as malicious others: the Bougainvillean rebels saw the Papua New Guinea Defense Force as an invasive oppressor, while the Papua New Guinea Defense Force saw the Bougainvillean rebels as rowdy and lawless guerilla units who didn’t have their own island’s best interests in mind (since they had destroyed the mine). As a result, there was very little empathy and understanding between the two sides, which made it easier for each group to advance only their own interests.

Exploring the thinking of the two armies, Jones shows that enemies are easier to fight when they are reduced to a single opposing viewpoint. The villagers of Bougainville, by contrast, don’t choose sides. Though many resent the “redskins,” they also resent that the rebels attacked the mine and shut it down. Of course, some of them support the rebels—who claim to be fighting for them—but others do not: “Everyone else just wished the fighting would go away, and for the white man to come back and reopen the mine,” Matilda says. By recognizing the benefits of the mine, these villagers exhibit tolerance of outside cultures. Perhaps they aren’t thrilled by the influx of white people and Papua New Guineans that the mine attracts, but they don’t hate their new neighbors. Instead, they focus on the economic benefits of the mine and appear willing to accept the diverse and integrated community it creates. Unfortunately, the mine doesn’t reopen, leaving these culturally tolerant villagers trapped in the middle of a conflict between two sides determined to view one another as evil.

Similar to how many Bougainvilleans embrace the diversity the copper mine introduces to their community, Matilda’s classmate Daniel demonstrates cultural tolerance and perspective when he interacts with Mr. Watts. Rather than assuming he knows everything about his teacher based on the man’s race, he straightforwardly asks, “What is it like to be white?” In doing so, he puts himself in a position to actually learn about somebody from a different race and culture. This question represents a productive open-mindedness when it comes to connecting across racial or social divides, and enables him to successfully exist in the gray area between two opposing cultures. Asking this question makes it impossible for him to simplify Mr. Watts into a stereotypical “other,” instead inviting the man to share parts of his life that Daniel otherwise wouldn’t know or understand. In this way, Jones holds up open-minded communication as a way to avoid turning somebody from another culture (or somebody with different beliefs) into an enemy.