African realities in Hilary Mantel’s novel “A Change of Climate”
https://doi.org/10.26907/2782-4756-2025-81-3-170-175
Abstract
The article examines the depiction of African realities in modern British literature, based on the novel “A Change of Climate” (1994) by the English writer Hilary Mantel. On the one hand, the work reflects the author’s personal experience; on the other, it addresses a specific period in the development of the South African state, in which the author refers to real historical facts and individuals. Due to their idealistic views on their mission and the role of white people in the lives of Africans, the main characters of the novel, missionaries Anna and Ralph Eldred, fail to soberly assess the dangers of their environment, leading to a tragedy – the loss of their child. By introducing into the novel descriptions of African realities, specifically historical, political, national, and cultural ones, Hilary Mantel emphasizes that the prolonged stay in the mission and the confrontation with the realities of South Africa during apartheid did not make the protagonists understand what truly was happening around them or how the local population perceived strangers.
About the Author
N. V. Romanova
Kazan Federal University
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Romanova Nataliya Vadimovna, graduate student,
18 Kremlyovskaya Str., Kazan, 420008
References
1. Proskurnin, B. M. (2023). Trilogiya Khilari Mantel o Tomase Kromvele: prodolzhenie val'terskottovskoi traditsii? [Hilary Mantel’s Trilogy on Thomas Cromwell: A Continuation of the Walterscott Tradition?]. P. 8–21. Tomsk, izdatel'stvo Tomskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. (In Russian)
2. Rogachevskaya, M. S. (2021). Istoricheskaya trilogiya Hilari Mantel: srednevekovyi khronotop i sovremennij diskurs [Hilary Mantel’s Historical Trilogy: Medieval Chronotope and Contemporary Discourse]. Yazykovaya lichnost' i effektivnaya kommunikatsiya v sovremennom polikul'turnom mire: materialy VII Mezhdunar. nauch.-prakt. konf., posvyashch. pamyati D. O. Polovtseva, Minsk, 28-29 okt. 2021 g., pp. 32–36. Minsk, BGU. (In Russian)
3. Lehnen, Ch. (2024). “The Dead Do Not Negotiate”: Hilary Mantel, The Mirror and the Light, and Britain’s Obsession with History. Rethinking History, No. 28:3, pp. 399–421. (In English)
4. Romanova, N. V. (2024). Natsional'naya spetsifika perezhivaniya travmaticheskogo opyta v romane Hilari Mantel “Peremena klimata” [National Peculiarities of a Traumatic Experience in H. Mantel’s Novel “A Change of Climate”]. Filologiya i kul'tura. No. 2(76), pp. 181–187. (In Russian)
5. Mantel, Kh. (2019). Peremena klimata [A Change of Climate]. Per. s angl. yaz. V. Zhelninov. 384 p. Moscow, AST. (In Russian)
6. Tryapkina, Yu. V. (2019). Imperskii mif R. Kiplinga [The Imperial Myth by R. Kipling]. Voprosy otechestvennoi i zarubezhnoi istorii, politologii, sotsiologii, teologii, obrazovaniya: Materialy nauchnoprakticheskoi konferentsii, pp. 129–134. Yaroslavl', 05– 06 marta 2019 g. Yaroslavl', Yaroslavskii gosudarstvennyi pedagogicheskii universitet im. K. D. Ushinskogo. (In Russian)
7. Khabibullina, L. F. (2010). Natsional'nyi mif v sovremennoi angliiskoi literature [The National Myth in Modern English Literature]. Filologiya i kul'tura. No. 20, pp. 183–187. (In Russian)
8. Bogomolova, N. I. (2013). Imperskaya ideya i viktorianskaya pressa: reprezentatsiya obraza kolonial'noi imperii Velikobritanii v 70–e gg. XIX veka: аvtoreferat dis. … kand. istor. nauk: [The Imperial Idea and the Victorian Press: The Representation of the Image of the Colonial Empire of Great Britain in the 1870s: Ph.D. Thesis Abstract]. Bryansk, 23 p. (In Russian)
9. Kogut, D. M. (2020). Opredelenie “angliiskosti” v sovremennom literaturovedenii [Definition of “Englishness” in Modern Literary Criticism]. Vestnik nauki. No. 6(27), pp. 37–43. (In Russian)
Review
For citations:
Romanova N.V. African realities in Hilary Mantel’s novel “A Change of Climate”. Philology and Culture. 2025;(3):170-175. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.26907/2782-4756-2025-81-3-170-175
Views:
34
Email this article 