11. Elephanta Suite

One aspect forThe Elephanta Suite’s, “The Elephant God” that added to the novel’s uniqueness was its ability to leave out almost all details of the past. Most novels begin with a simple saga of the character’s pre-trip lives; maybe a few facts about their broken marriage, the obvious catalyst for a vacation, or maybe the character struggles with school or their home life. The only bits of information we are given to create a foundation for Alice’s development as a character are her insecurities with her appearance. Only three key points are mentioned: she went to Brown, she used to be overweight, and since losing that weight and dropping her reputation as “fat”, she has been regarded as ugly and plain. These multiple personas resonate in the novel, but take on new forms: as Alice travels from place to place, her outlook is often molded by that particular place.
 
Alice at the Ashram isn’t the same Alice that teaches telemarketers English in Electric City; or at least Alice tries to keep these two selves separate in order to maintain a sense of balance between work and play, purpose and solidarity. Before considering the idea of finding a job while on sabbatical, Alice find the ashram to be a paragon of spiritual India, a retreat away from the hectic lifestyles in Mumbai and the sudden abandonment she feels when Stella leaves. But something was missing at the Ashram and it began to feel cult-like. What was once a place of complete selfless regard for one another became a place where Swami ruled. Patrons confused safety for freedom.  Upon realizing that nothing, even her stay at the Ashram, is free in life, Alice chooses to look for a job with the help of Amitahb, regretfully: “With the job, her life changed. The inner Alice was released, and she was able to be two different people in the two different parts of Bangalore…but really she was the same person using two different side of her personality.” (Theroux, 215)  Carrying on two different lives in the same place and keeping those lives completely separate from one another was a way for Alice to feel like her trip to India had principle.
 
Both situations harmoniously played off one another: “the ashram was a retreat from the ambition and worldliness of Electronics City. Electronic City was a refuge from the selfish spiritualism and escapism of the Ashram.” (229) But, the harmony Alice found in her life in Bangalore ended just as quickly as it was sought out. When Amitahb begins to learn American English, his personality changes for the worst, and of course, Alice blames herself for teaching a means of communication that generates such a change: “Indians were much ruder speaking English. They sounded more impatient. Naturally confrontational, these Indians now had a language to bolster their tendency and no longer had to rely on the subtleties of Hindi.” (223) After the rape incident, Alice experiences a drastic character change similar to Amitahb’s: “she was cold, she was sad, she was someone else now.” (251) Theroux constantly keeps the reader on his toes as he bounces back and forth between the ever-changing characters. By creating new situations, Theroux allows for the characters to become dynamic, and the dynamics keep the reader guessing what the next plot twist will be.

In both “The Gateway of India” and “The Elephant God”, the main characters struggle with their identities as Westerners in a foreign place. The stories read similarly to many of the other books we have read for this class where the main characters go abroad with the intention to define and/or redefine their identities and these two read almost like an existentialism-free Sheltering Sky, complete with the exploitation, romance, and mystery updated half a century later for the information age.

Globalization has become a growing force of social change since the post-war period of Bowles, and the information technology industry in India is a perfect example of how Western culture travels across great distances and leads to homogenization. Theroux incorporates this phenomenon into both novellas and explores how Western culture is somehow both attractive to the natives, such as in the case of Shah and Amitabh, while also being somewhat repulsive to Westerners like Dwight and Alice.

It would be too simplistic to argue that both sides experience a sort of “grass is greener on the other side” draw towards the new cultures that they are experiencing, but it seems to be the most convenient explanation available because it doesn’t involve looking into the historical origins and sociological implications of globalization.   

As a case study, Dwight seems to be a classic example of a Westerner looking to part with material possessions in order to experience some higher spiritual consciousness. Near the end of the story his gives up his cell phone, blackberry, and laptop to Shah for safe keeping and enters the Hindu temple to find the peace that he had been searching for in his life as a “skinny, sun-burned geek” clad in a turban and a loincloth. Dwight realizes how silly he looks, but he embraces his spiritual quest, all while Shah is embracing the Harvard account that he just secured and the material success that is sure to follow. While this may seem like a win-win situation along the lines of “different strokes for different folks”, it has a certain moralistic bent, as if Dwight knows the true value of Indian culture better than Shah who is abandoning it for material success in the West.

This paternalistic tone of “you don’t know what you’re giving up” is also evident in “The Elephant God” when Alice laments that Amitabh has switched out his original telephone greeting, “Can you please inform me, what is your good name, madam?” with the more Westernized  “So who am I talking to?” It’s almost as if Westerners believe that the Indians are foolish for abandoning what they perceive as a more authentic way of life, which leads them to oppose globalization and the spread of Western culture to protect non-Westerners from it when in reality they are really trying to preserve these non-Western cultures for what seem like sentimental and slightly selfish reasons.

Paul Theroux writes of two people, living completely separate lives, but living quite similar realities. The two both start out with a jarring experience to take their trip to India in a direction they didn't think it would go. For Dwight, it was his first meeting with the girl. He hated India, but at the first sign of kindness, learned that there might be something to like about it. For Alice, it was the betrayal of Stella which made her reexamine her real reasons for taking the trip.

The next step was feeling comfortable. Both Dwight and Alice soon grew very comfortable in their new homes, and almost felt a part of the culture. Dwight sank into his daily routine of the monotonous meetings, then taking a taxi to meet Indru, while simultaneously Alice spent most of her day in Electric City working at InfoTech and then took a taxi back to the ashram at Sai Baba at night. These are what Dwight would call "indian surprises", what makes you realize that India is more than a business trip, more than a graduation trip, but something like a home. These are also extremely strong contrasts of the two sides of India, which take turns playing the dominant role in its image to the outside world. One is the industrial working world of India, where the lights never stop shining and labor is cheap. The other side is the spiritual side, the familial side, which Dwight and Alice both thought they fit into perfectly.

Then, the both of them had an unfortunate realization. For Dwight, it was the day on the beach when his secret was revealed. And for Alice, it was the series of events with Amitabh, leading in her being raped. Both of these climactic moments lead to a serious reevaluation on how much either character truly "belonged" in India. Before, race was never an issue either of them had considered. But now, they both felt a racial and cultural divide in everything they did. They realized they couldn't pretend to be part of such a tight knit family as the culture of India that doesn't trust easily. Dwight felt "wisible" while Alice felt the extreme divide on the train with the women and their children. 

Finally, the two characters both had a spiritual experience at the end which reaffirmed the entire situation for them. It put things in perspective for both of them and, thankfully, made it so both trips had a positive end. For Dwight, he finally was free of his bad cravings and only wanted to live life, sort of like the Jain philosophy. For Alice, she was finally freed of her pain she felt from being raped when she released her spiritual guide, the elephant, freeing him and freeing her soul as he also stomped away all of the pain that was brought to her in this terrible time.
 

The greatest part of these parallel stories is that Theroux implies that these two people are just two of the millions of American travelers that think they can assimilate into Indian culture. Every day, he seems to say, there could be another that falls victim to the confrontational family that is India. But in the end, he hopes, they will come out of it better, more spiritual, more thoughtful, more caring, or anything. India will effect you one way or another, and you just have to stay long enough so that it is a positive effect.

Throughout “The Gateway to India,” differing beliefs, cultures, and environments are examined. What may prove to be simple cultural differences ultimately result in a drastic impact for the main character. Among the environmental distinctions are the locations throughout Mumbai. While walking through the streets lined with neon-lit strip joints, Dwight described how the sour air and surrounding poverty enveloped his mind. Comparing this to Shah’s and Winky’s apartments, we see the clear distinction of the two separate worlds of India. There’s the lavish lifestyle of the rich and the desperate, meager one of the poor. Dwight notices how “at Shah’s, India almost did not exist, except in the paintings and photographs” (151). Going from this luxurious home to “the stew and stinks and harsh voices” (151) of Indru’s room shows this distinction. Additionally, we see the juxtaposition between the eating habits of Shah and the rest of the upper class. With Shah focusing on the importance of everything living, he follows Jainism, respecting “all living things, great and small” (150). When in a restaurant on a business venture, the waiter offers him succulent, cooked choices, but he and Dwight opt for simple beans and rice, so as to make sure no living being was harmed in the process of making the food. Comparing the cultures of the United States and India also occurs. Before departing for business to America, Shah lived a simple life. Upon returning, however, he sported the latest in all accessories, including a Harvard tie, a Brooks Brothers suit and a new, fancy watch. Dwight’s relationships also changed in their nature. At home, Dwight had been married, and even after his divorce, had clung to his ex-wife. In India, after going through several girls needing money, and after finding out that the two girls he’d been supporting for months didn’t even know his name, he finally realized that they were merely using him. Additionally, one day at the beach, when he ran into the older woman whom he met on his first day out, Dwight was surrounded by young adults and was yelled at and almost attacked. What at first proved to make him feel new and alive ultimately made Dwight feel lost and in need. Shah takes him to the wilderness. The novella ends with him falling asleep gazing up at the night stars, finally on his way to recovery. 

“The Gateway of India” was an interesting tale of a trip to India provoked by loss. We see that Dwight decides to make the journey to India in order to induce some sort of reaction in his ex-wife. When she does not provide the elicited response, Dwight embarks on the trip blinded and without direction. This wealthy businessman is constantly choosing to act in order to get a reaction from another person. His lack of self-confidence and his artificial sense of power create a life for Dwight that is unproductive and that becomes meaningless.
 
We as readers can see the decline of Dwight as the story progresses. He is judgmental of the Indians, contradictory to his reputation as a worldly person. From the onset, Dwight does not take Shah as seriously as he should; later, the dynamic is reversed and Shah becomes the successful businessman while Dwight becomes submissive. Dwight expects the Indians to wait on him and for them to build up his ego, leading for an overwhelming, not to mention false, sense of authority. “You can make anything in India” is a reoccurring theme as Dwight explores the boundaries of this statement.
 
The slow decline of morality exhibited by Dwight is first introduced with the old woman and her gypsy children. A common American visitor to India would be aware of the beggars that exist there and take action to avoid confrontation with this danger. Dwight, on the other hand, seems to invite the interaction. He somewhat denies the old woman but he is entranced by her, and later the children, so much so that he follows her to an unknown building. This thirst for adventure and passion becomes and inner-conflict for Dwight because, as is referred to a few times, he knows that what he is doing is wrong.
 
Even when he returns home to Boston, Dwight has to fight the urge and desire to return to India, a place detested by his coworkers. This shows that he is not focusing on the place or even how his life will be when he is there; he is only thinking about the passion that he felt in being there. So much so that Dwight gave Indru his wedding ring, a symbol of love, which he carried with him at all times since the end of his marriage with Maureen. He essentially discarded the ring and any sense of real love along with it. Indru then used the ring to pay for a house and later she grew so attached to Dwight’s presents and payments that the relationship became mutually greedy. He was hungry for desire and she for wealth.
 
Dwight’s morals and feelings lessen in importance throughout the story, leading to the eventual downfall of his character. His decisions, prompted by desired reactions, led him to act in ways the denied everything he had ever known; a feeling to which he became addicted. 

Both “The Gateway of India” and “The Elephant God” tell the story of a character caught between American culture and Indian culture.  Both Dwight and Alice are faced with some of the same challenges, and their stories reflect how they deal with these challenges. Within India, Dwight’s business job that mostly takes place within the hotel represents his attachment to The United States. His “hideout” in Indru’s apartment shows his attachment to India. In Alice’s case, the Ashram is where she is partly assimilated into Indian culture and Electronics City is where she has to be American and teach English to the Indian employees. Unfortunately, by doing this Alice (who is purposely trying to leave American culture behind) thereby Americanizes the Indians she is teaching.
 
At the beginning of  “The Gateway of India,” Dwight despises India and everything about it. The only part of it that he likes is Shah, his business helper and a Jain. He respects and admires Shah and his sect of Hinduism. Even though Dwight repeatedly goes back to Indru’s house and at first says he is “happy” there and feels as if “[he is] home” (127), he realizes that something is not quite right there. Indru and Padmini help Dwight discover his sexuality but only for a cost. Dwight calls himself their “benefactor” but the ominous thunder in his head in and in the background enforce that he is lying to himself. Soon Dwight grows sick of Indru and her endless, pitiful stories of rape and abuse. In the final stage of the story, he decides to leave behind everything that ties him to America and become a true Jain. Dwight strips himself of his American clothing, his valuables and even Shah, who has been Americanized by the end of the story. He is left alone and finally sees happiness in a long term which wasn’t at all planned, “seeing things as they were.” (186)
 
In “The elephant God” Alice wantsto make a similar commitment to India, but she isn’t able to strip herself of her American-ness the way Dwight does. Like Dwight understands that something isn’t right about his position at Indru’s apartment, Alice sees that something is off at the Ashram (even though she likes it there). At the ashram, she spends most of her time with two Indian women who represent the wealthy portion of India, which is not what most of India is like. At first, her job at Electronics City, makes Alice feel fulfilled and proud, but soon she comes to resent the fact that her polite, respectful Indian students soon become rude imitations of Americans through her teaching of English. The only place that Alice is really happy is when she is with the chained elephant. The elephant is physically in middle of Alice’s two positions and represents the fact that Alice also feels trapped by her American-ness.  Towards the end of the story Alice tries to have a similar transformation to Dwight, but is unable to because the, now westernized, Amitabh (a symbol of American Culture) follows her wherever she goes. Amitah and his wester-ness destroy Alice’s mission for self-discovery. Alice is only able to truly be free when she frees the chained elephant (a manifestation of herself) which tramples Amitabh. Then Alice sets out without her belongings, praying to Ganesha, alone.

Paul Theoroux’s “The Gateway of India” is a travel story that illustrates how travel can be transformative. The protagonist changes from being down, recently divorced, and an uncaring American moneyman to a happier and more spiritual person.

In the beginning,  Dwight Huntsinger is an American businessman whose life changes on his business trip to India. On his first trip he does not touch any Indian food because he does not think of it as food but poison. He’s been recently divorced and is not in the best state of his personal life when he is forced to go through “a week of Indian hell—a secular hallucinatory underworld of actual grinning demons and foul unbreathable air.” Dwight, absolutely disgusted, frightened, and appalled, basically hates India even though he stays at the best and the most luxurious hotel and spends most of his time inside. In this misery and suffering, however, is money and wealth. Once he returns home, he is assigned to go back to India, “not a place to enjoy but one to endure, like going down a dark hole to find jewels.”

On this second trip, he encounters a polite and submissive woman, her children, and an old man, who he later suspects them as having been acting as a team to exploit money from wealthy Americans like himself. Just like Dwight goes to India, a place where you can make anything, to make money, the people of India work to make money from these foreigners who come to their country to exploit.  The experience he has in this isolated Indian place that the auntie of the street children he saves makes him feel debauched and aroused; “he felt he belonged here and could not remember how long he’d been in Mumbai or when he was supposed to leave, and didn’t care.” With women described as “submissive and polite, bowing to him, he [feels] powerful and at the same time annoyed with himself for even caring.” Far away from home, he says thing s he would not have said back home without thinking. Meeting Indru, his life changes even more so, manipulatively arranging to go back to India. When he returns to Boston office, he is regarded “as a real traveler and risk taker” and people give “him credit for enduring the discomfort, talk[] only of illness and misery, and sa[y] he was a kind of hero[,] congratulat[ing] him on the deals he’d done.”

From having been fearful and hateful of India, Dwight changes and grows to love the country; from seeing India as a representation of everything negative, “chaos and night,” he decides to stay at the end while his friend Shah leaves to America…

Once again I find myself reminded of Aschenbach from Death in Venice and even Kit from The Sheltering Sky with these words from Theroux’s second novella in The Elephanta Suite: “He left that night…a changed man.  Or was he changed?  Perhaps these impulses had always slumbered in him and now India had wakened them, allowing him to act,” (pg. 108).  Just as Tadzio (and Venice) brought out new sides of Aschenbach and Kit found a new, freer part of herself after the death of Port, Dwight is let loose by India for better or worse.  At least, he realizes he has to control himself before it’s too late (unlike Kit and Aschenbach).  On the Road is also brought to mind with this quotation: “…India could be bliss…” (pg. 110).  The characters in On the Road were always in search of blissful moments, and the scene of Dwight Theroux leaves us with at the end seems to be one of these blissful moments we seek in life: “…lying on a narrow cot in the tidy room freshened by the fizz of leaves and the morning air…he saw himself again, a skinny sunburned geek in a turban and loincloth…craving nothing except more life—happy, seeing things as they were,” (pg. 186).  Blissful moments are filled with extreme contentment and transcendence.  Dwight seems to be imagining himself in said state of contentment here.  This final image also reminds me of the final image we get of Kit in The Sheltering Sky when she runs off into the Casbah.  The reader doesn’t know where Dwight is going and whether he’ll ever go back to his American life.  He has cast of all his connections to the modern world and has gone into the Indian landscape as Kit went into the desert and into the crowds of the Casbah.  It’s simultaneously dangerous, exhilarating, and freeing.
 
Also, I was reminded of our sadomasochism-in-everyday-life conversation last week when Dwight reflects that: “…it all revealed to Dwight a culture of both punishment and sexual frustration, for the two always went together,” (pg. 134).   This only breeds dominant/submissive, master/servant, “exploiter” (pg. 147)/exploited relationships.  Dwight later refers to Indru, one of his liaisons as “…a Scheherazade of sadism,” (pg. 157).  Sublimation is dangerous in any society especially in a society of constant “want”.  At least for a while, India helps Dwight find himself sexually (pg. 159).  He comes off as a creeper sometimes though in his sexual dalliances.  In the end, he transcends that need, having had enough of it, and finds himself spiritually or starts on the road (I guess the pun might as well be intended) to find himself spiritually. 

I found myself extremely irritated by the second novella, " The Elephant God." Alice as a character proves herself to be an unlikeable individual: pessimistic, disagreeable, anti-social. I found her to be one of those types of people we've discussed, people who view themselves as intellectually and spiritually above Western society and who want to obtain a form of purity and spiritual guidance through their travels. Alice seems to find everything about The United States worthless, and does not  even bother keeping in touch with her family during her trip. She makes superficial, half-hearted opinions about finding her spiritual side in India, and instead of finding her connection with the elephant to be touching and wholesome, I was just further irritated because of her attitude towards Indian people. Alice likes the idea of being able to say that she went to an ashram and was spiritually cleansed,but is constantly putting down Indian people and looking for faults in each different sector of the society that she encounters. Her job as an English instructor just emphasizes the sense of superiority: she is not teaching these people English because she feels a compassionate desire to better the lives of these people and empower them. She wants to feel like they need her for a skill, and is shocked when this turns on her and she corrupts their former authenticity. One thing that especially annoyed me about Alice was when she would speak to the Indians in broken English, almost mocking them. Since she was so insecure about herself in almost every aspect of her life, she tried to create a superiority through her skills with language. I am not sure what I think about Alice's rape, and the way that she kills off Amitabh. She considers herself damaged and injured, but at the same time refuses to let him win. Tables turn and she is the victim: not only in the sense that she was assaulted, but through the chauvinism she encounters after she presses charges. I felt that this just further antagonized India from Alice's point of view. Like the first novella,( however, that one did not bother me quite so much) the Elephant God shows India to be gruesome and wild, unpredictable and playing tricks on the Westerners who think they have conquered it. Just when they think that they have established a rule over the natives of this exotic land, there is always a force lurking in the shadows- whether a looming sense of malaise or the realization that the savvy American is completely and utterly alone. 

In both of these novellas we see our main characters take advantage of their foreign destinations.  While the past novels we have read deal with characters that also take advantage of their destinations, Dwight’s and Alice’s experiences abroad seem particularly centered around exploitation.  Interestingly, this exploitation is not only a product of the characters’ manipulative nature (in fact in Alice’s case it seems she is not originally abusive in this way), instead it I a product of India itself, which seems to welcome exploitation through its poverty and acceptance of outsourced jobs.
 
India’s poverty, prominently described in both novellas, offers Dwight and Alice a chance to be significant.  Dwight can stand out as a business mastermind, even though he contributes very little to the projects, because he is a white man from America.  More relating to the poverty, Dwight is able to act as a benefactor to the poor girls he sleeps with because these girls live in the nationally desperate conditions.  Alice too is able to stand out in India thanks to the same conditions.  She easily gets a job and shines because she posses unique educational skills that is celebrated in India (because India’s poverty requires that the nation is subservient to America in that it’s workers must perfect the “American language”).  In both of these cases, had India not been victimized by exploitation, neither Dwight nor Alice would have been able to assume their positions of power.
 
These new positions of power in the poverty stricken environment allow both Dwight and Alice to further take advantage by living lives that are seemingly unattainable back in the States: both Dwight and Alice live “double lives.”  Dwight is a businessman by day and a womanizing, “takes-what-he-wants” man that goes on perverse sexual escapades at night.  Alice also leads a double life: she lives in the ashram by day and works in the ideologically opposing, capitalist Electric City in the afternoons. 
 
Once again the poverty of Indian, and the characters’ superiority seems to allow offer the easy option of living these double lives (because no one it seems is truly checking up on these superior people). However Dwight’s case is particularly perverse in the way that he enjoys his superiority in India.  Dwight makes this most clear as he remembers his feelings about sleeping with Sumitra, “It was reckless, but he was in India. Who cared?” (103).  This sort of world without consequences is a clear product of rich people feeling superior in a poverty stricken environment.
 
I am not willing to reduce Alice’s motives and enjoyment of poverty stricken India to such a perverse level as Dwight’s.  Nonetheless, as mentioned above, India’s poverty does catalyze Alice’s ability to be superior and live double lives.  At home, despite her prestigious degree and intelligence, Alice is reduced and defined by her looks.  However, India, concerned more with capitalist gain to reduce poverty, is infatuated with her ability as a moneymaker.  However, Alice too makes exploitative decisions with this new power as she continues to train her students to be rude Americans, even after she notices the horrible personality she is creating and promoting.   
 
Overall, I believe these two novellas offer our class new motives for travel, in which the traveler enjoys their time abroad because they assume power in this destination thanks to the destination’s poverty.  However, Theroux also suggests that these travels have to wake up sometime from the their love for their superiority, and this can be a a very rude awakening.

Dwight Huntsinger notices the role of perspective on one’s view of a new place in Paul Theroux’s The Elephanta Suite as he is continually deceived. At first, India intimidates him. It’s known for dirtiness, havoc in the streets, and the bad condition of the food and water. Dwight rents out the Elephanta Suite and attaches himself to Indru while surprising himself how well he adapts to Indian life.

He takes on a new perspective on life when he abandons his relationships from his home and finds Indru’s “family” to take care of. Shah introduces to him Mahavratas, Karma, and other Indian views, which date to before Christianity began. They change Dwight convincing him that the Indians have strong morals and it gives him a sense of duty when he finds out Indru was beaten and raped. Indru is not just a prostitute, but she represents sensuality in India. Dwight finds it okay to be with her because India is a more sensual place than the states and she needs him for support  

One of the points the Mahavratas tries to make is to “lack all possessions”. Near the end of the 2nd book, Dwight spends almost no time in his room, lives frugally and notices materialism in everyone he has met. Indru is not struggling for muster up money for food at all; she uses him out of greed. She even quit her job because Dwight can sustain her with presents and money. Dwight really starts to question the morality of the Indians after Shah returns from taking care of some of his own business meetings in the United States.

Theroux writes, “… Shah had praised the Americans he met: very moral, very decent, very faithful, very humble, truthful in all things” (170) when there evidently is immorality all over. Shah tries to just say “the meetings went well” as a report so Dwight does not know about secret deals. Shah even prevents the Harvard men from meeting Dwight so he can take credit for the deals out of greed. I first wondered whether Dwight thought he would skew their opinions of India or something. I couldn’t piece why Dwight’s clients would be with Shah until it comes out. Shah who shared his own beliefs defied them too for the sake of greed.

The Elephanta Suite by Paul Theroux details the lives of Americans travelling in India. The novel, which is set in modern times, explores concepts of neo-colonialism and exploitation. The Elephanta Suite is actually a story told in three novellas; the last three novellas in particular explore issues of sexuality, outsourcing, and spirituality. Though, there are moments of genuine spirituality seen throughout “The Gateway of India” and “The Elephant God”, overall spirituality is used as a means to manipulate American tourists. Dwight and Alice both fall victim to this. Dwight is betrayed by Shah, but relieved by this, saying that the duplicity “had been a favor, a gift” (186). Similarly, Alice is urged by her companions to earn money for her swami. Without their urging, it is unlikely that Amitabh would have raped her. In Shah’s case, the reader is introduced to him as true believer of Jain, the belief that all life must be preserved. Alice goes to the swami looking for some sincere enlightenment. But their spirituality is dirtied. For Shah, this is due to the fact that he deals with American. For Alice, this is due to the fact that she becomes disillusioned when her rape is not vindicated. Spirituality in the novellas serves two functions. First, to remind the reader that Americans are not alone in their manipulation of the Indian population. Second, to show that the interaction between American and Indian culture leads to the desecration of the holy.

Perhaps the most prominent element of The Elephanta Suite is sexuality, specifically sexual relations between tourists and natives. What is notable is that there is never a sense that the relationships are egalitarian or even purely consensual. Dwight’s relationship with Indru is nothing more than that between a “John” and a prostitute, yet he regards himself as a generous benefactor. In some ways, Theroux is nearly obtuse with his metaphor of the exploitation of India by America. However, in “The Elephant God” the situation is changed. With Alice’s rape, the relationship between India and America is called into question. Before the rape, Alice made numerous references to how cheap India was to navigate around, which re-introducing the commercial exploitive theme seen earlier in the novel. However, when Amitabh rapes Alice he becomes the one exploiting her femininity, her weakness. The entire relationship changes. Within the novel, sexuality is closely tied to the ideas of exploitation. Theroux also cares to remind the reader that manipulation often works both ways.

Finally, there is the issue of outsourcing, which is closely tied to the issue of economic exploitation. Dwight, who at first bemoans the fact that he would be sent to conduct business in India, notes, “Everyone gets what they want. But at the same time you’re going something you didn’t bargain for” (154). He becomes very comfortable with the fact that India can supply his company with exactly what they need, at a great profit, however he remains weary of the idea. On the other hand, Alice does not go to India for business, but rather for strict enjoyment and personal growth. Her experience with outsourcing was coincidental. There is a theme that echoes in both “The Gateway of India” the “The Elephant God” when it comes to the idea of economic exploitation and that is simply this: as much as Americans are abusing the resources of India, the Indians are always making a profit. Even when Americans are not making a profit, Indians are. At its heart, the story is about the exploitation of India, but more than that it is about the power struggle between two nations and culture, which are deeply enmeshed due to business and tourism.

Desire can drive us to do crazy things; pursue something or someone that we know is wrong or seek revenge on someone who has hurt us. It can drive simple minded individuals into becoming materialistic or rude and it can take seemingly innocent people and turn them into criminals. Sadly, it hits everyone. Even the pious man who is committed to doing no harm can be conquered by a wanting. No one can predict when they are going to be overcome by a wave of lust or yearning. It is inevitable. But, it’s what we do with it that counts. 

 

The Gateway of India and The Elephant God, two novellas in Paul Theroux’s The Elephanta Suite, first come across as completely opposite stories: the business man’s not-quite-appropriate trysts versus the young woman on the quest for self discovery in an ashram. But farther and farther into the stories, it became blindingly apparent; these aren’t the stories of saviors coming into a culture more disturbed than their own and aiding those they meet, these are the stories of blind-sighted Americans creating monsters out of others and of themselves from an all-consuming desire. 

 

Dwight and Alice, both Americans, travel to India for different purposes. On Dwight’s first trip, he comes unwillingly on business, and is constantly hoping that someone would “get [him] out of here” (84). For Dwight, it was “a week of Indian hell,” and he desperately wanted to go home, even though his home life was not much better (84). In his grand sweeping generalization of India, Dwight felt that it was “not a place to enjoy but one to endure” (86). Although Alice is disappointed with India at first, it’s not like the disgust Dwight feels. Alice imagined India to be full of splendor, and rather than coming to the land she had pictured, with “jokes, the love affairs, the lavish marriage ceremonies, the solemn pieties, the virtuous peasants, the environmentalists, the musicians, the magic, the plausible young men,” she found that it was lonely and “a land of empty corners” (190,197). 

 

Eventually, the two find comfort in aspects of India, whether it be through the people or merely through developing a routine. They soon move on in their feelings of comfort to feel almost like they are needed and powerful and this is where they display the greatest shift in personality. Dwight’s downfall comes in the form of Indru and her sister Padmini. On their first meeting, her “formality [and] the mode of her politeness [make] hims feel, if not powerful, then dominant--in charge in this lonely place” (105). He immediately feels that he has control, even though it was she, that approached him and filled him with enough desire to lose interest in Sumitra. Dwight sees Indru as an image of innocence. The white dress that she wears on their first meeting and “her willingness to kiss seemed like the proof that she wasn’t a whore” (106). He thinks these girls are victims and is blinded by the thought that the girls think of him as a hero. Ironically, he is just the type of men that usually use these young girls and victimizes them. His attendance of Shrinaji Gala Dinner dance to Aid Women in Crisis is an irony in itself. By going, he thinks of himself even more highly as others praise him for his coming. 

After all the coddling that he provides the girls, they soon to rely on him for materialistic goods, knowing that he will deliver. Because Dwight believes that “giving her [Indru] money when she said ‘ring money gone’ was his way of possessing her,” he continues to do so (132). Dwight almost sees himself in these girls, believing that he too was once “India’s victim” (138). In his mind, if he can overcome the hardships there, why shouldn’t they? Soon, he changes his view of himself, modifying it so it is now that of a superman, not a possessor. Even though he once admitted it to himself that he was enjoying the power, he worries that others will see him that way and insists (at least to himself) that “he [is] a benefactor,” and “had rescued” both girls (147). 

 

It is not long after this that he starts to put himself even higher on the food chain and see the girls not as victims, but as “parodies” (157). They continue telling him their stories and he becomes fed up with the repetition. He wanted Indru to speak out to help her overcome the hardships, but now that she is, he wishes to silence her once more. In his mind, his only release from her talking is sex. Dwight created a whimpering, materialistic girl in his attempts to make himself into the hero he wished to be. By the end of the story, he “had had a vision of himself as a holy man on a dusty road” (186). His opinion of himself is so high now that he sees himself in the same way as Shah’s pious relative. To sum up: the desire that Dwight felt to the girls and for the feeling of being a hero, led him to create a monster both out of himself and out of the “victims.” Quickly too, similarly to the girls, by sending Shah to the states, Dwight changed him, making him into someone who “had been persuaded that he was interesting” (168). But I want to move on the The Elephant God. 

 

Excuse the slightly briefer discussion of the next story. Regardless, In The Elephant God, Alice too creates a monster out of Amitabh. She teaches him to speak in an American sounding way to sound better on the telephone lines for his job. While she intends to just help him with his accent, she accidentally modifies his personality along with it. He goes from being polite and earnest to being stubborn and abusive. At his worst, he rapes her and turns her into a victim of the law system. The desire to seek revenge on Amitabh is what leads her to forcing the elephant on him, and even though she was in an ashram that insists upon peacefulness, she is driven by her strong emotions to kill him. 

 

 

The author plays around with a theme that we haven’t really touched upon in class, which is the idea that a foreigner can change the ways of the native people of the place he travels to. This is interesting in The Elephant God especially, because Alice notes that her influence on the Indians’ English language abilities changes their personalities. This idea of a new personality is conveyed as something bad, because she is stalked and raped afterwards by Amitabh. This is significant because it is really her actions that changed the originally helpful and sensitive Amitabh into a type of unfeeling monster that comes back to hurt her. Perhaps this is somehow a reflection on the faults of American culture, specifically sexism, since the story involves Alice teaching him how to speak “American,” and through this changes his personality for the worse.


Sexism is a strong theme in this novel. In The Gateway of India, we see Dwight take advantage of several different women, all desperate because they need money. Interestingly enough, Dwight doesn’t at first recognize that he is exploiting the native people. He instead feels that he is gradually becoming more “Indian,” and this may be true at the end when he finally gives up his life as a rich businessman to seek spiritual enlightenment. However, he must first realize that he is not a saint for leading these girls out of poverty as he would like to believe but instead a sexual fiend. This moment of transformation happens when he realizes that even the partner he respects most, Shah, knows of his sexually perverse lifestyle. The fact that everybody is connected in a social network and everybody knows everything makes Dwight’s actions a crime against the Indian people as a whole. This novel does this to draw a strong distinction between America and India. A similar technique used to draw contrast is when Alice must fight for her case to be seen in court, it appears that it is her against all of Indian society.


Dwight’s transformation is paralleled to Shah’s transformation. The character of Shah may also be a reflection of the faults of American society, as America turns Shah into an impersonal, conniving jerk. Shah even seems to plot to get rid of Dwight by introducing him to a spiritual path. It seems that with both Dwight and Alice, they first get caught up in a type of unrealistic mentality in which they think they are living an authentic Indian lifestyle. But this notion of integration is phony. Dwight has to lure people to him with money he earned as an American businessman, and Alice has to pay her way through this minimalistic spiritual retreat center, which hypocritically frowns upon anything related to money-making. Dwight eventually realizes his disgusting ways and Alice realizes that her once imagined spiritual environment cannot be applied to the real world (Swami does not give her helpful information when she goes to him for help after being violated). At the end, these characters become completely authentic, because they realize who they really are and what matters to them in the world. They finally learn to see things as they truly are.