Quote: “On the right was the majestic seated figure of a goddess. Her hands were crossed upon her knees, and she was naked from her waist upwards.I fancied it was meant for Isis. On her brow was perched agaily-apparelled beetle–that ubiquitous beetle!–forming a bright spot of colour against her coppery skin,–it was an exact reproduction of the creatures which were imaged on the carpet. In front of the idol wasan enormous fiery furnace. In the very heart of the flames was an altar. On the altar was a naked white woman being burned alive. There could be no doubt as to her being alive, for she was secured by chains in such a fashion that she was permitted a certain amount of freedom,of which she was availing herself to contort and twist her body into shapes which were horribly suggestive of the agony which she was enduring,–the artist, indeed, seemed to have exhausted his powers in his efforts to convey a vivid impression of the pains which were tormenting her.” (Marsh, Chapter 31)

Comment: This scene is when Marjorie stumbles upon an image of a human sacrifice to Isis. While the subject of this scene is only a painting, it troubles Marjorie because of the gruesome content. This passage jumped out to me because of the cultural implications. As shown in the painting, Isis is worshiped through human sacrifices, particularly of white women. In our present day mindset, we know that the act of human sacrifices were not regularly practiced in ancient Egypt. The only thing close to this was the act of retainer sacrifices in which some servants of a dead pharaoh or noble would be executed so that they could serve their masters in the afterlife. Even then, this wasn’t seen as human sacrifice and rather as a “duty” to their masters. This passage, therefore, shows a cultural bias that was present in Victorian England. Of course, we can look at this through a critical lens, as information wasn’t widely available during this time period and the idea of being politically correct wasn’t as big of an idea as it is today. I think that the inclusion of  blatantly incorrect historical information shows the disconnect between individuals in Victorian society to the rest of the world. The majority of white men, like Marsh, took advantage of the “otherness” and “exoticness” of different cultures to make them into (no pun intended) Victorian monsters. Showing a human sacrifice, particularly of a white woman, indicates a feeling that Egyptians are “savages” in English minds. 

Question: I wonder how our understanding of cultural insensitivity would change if the roles were reversed. Perhaps, if the main characters of this novel were Egyptian and the English were performing sacrifices on behalf of the queen, how might the vilified society respond?