The Half Caste Sparknotes

Dinah Craik’s The Half-Caste appears to focus mainly on the role women play in Victorian society; however, beneath the surface, the novella is really about colonialism and the indifferent attitude this society had of it at the time.
Through Zillah’s physical transformation, the importance of female beauty can be observed. When we are first introduced to Zillah, she is described as having a “dull, heavy face [with] the stupidity of an ultra-stupid child” (13), and is called an “ugly little devil” (19) by her guardian. During the time that she is described as having these physical attributes, she is also treated very poorly by her family and does not have an equal status to any of them. However, this status changes when she grows older and is instead described as beautiful by many. By including this parallel to the way she looks to the way she is treated, Craik makes a point about the importance placed on women to look a certain way. While this analysis of gender roles
Through the character of Zillah, the inequalities and discriminatory practices of colonization are addressed by Craik, even if it is not implicitly stated in the text. For an example of this bias, we can look to Zillah’s education: “It must be taken into account that she was rarely suffered to remain with me half the school-hours without being summoned to some menial duty or other” (20). Women of a certain class were expected to be educated to a certain point, although it was mainly education in how to act like a proper lady. However, Zillah is not able to participate in this education equally to her female cousins because she is treated like a servant due to her mixed race. This is an implicit reference to colonialism because various colonies were given