Rebel Queen (36 page)

For Discussion

1. 
Rebel Queen
opens with an epigraph from George Bernard Shaw: “
Every Englishman is born with a certain miraculous power that makes him master of the world . . . that it is his moral and religious duty to conquer those who have got the things he wants.
” What tone does this quote set for the novel? How does
Rebel Queen
address the issue of colonization? Do you think the novel portrays the British as merely the aggressors, or are they also partly victims?

2. The aged Sita recounts running into a British journalist who wants to publish Sita’s story of the rani and the loss of the kingdom of Jhansi. When she hesitates, the journalist replies, “
We’ve all done things we’d rather keep in the dark. It’s only by shedding light on them that our demons can disappear
.” What “demons” does Sita have? Do you think telling her story rids her of these demons? Why or why not?

3. Discuss the ways in which gender roles are twisted and at times defied in
Rebel Queen
. Does Sita live her life according to her maid Avani’s belief that only “
a man can change his life . . . a woman can only change her appearance
”? When Sita joins the Durga Daal, does she change more than her appearance? Consider, too, how the rani and her husband fit into the question of true change versus the appearance of change. Is one character the most successful at changing?

4. How would you characterize the rani? Is she a likable character? Is she a good ruler of her kingdom? Is she just and compassionate? Do you think she lives up to the title of the Rebel Queen
,
and is being rebellious her tragic flaw?

5. Revisit the scene, beginning on page 129, when Kahini publicly embarrasses the young petitioner in the ladies’ durbar because she is from a poor village. How does Sita’s speech change not just the young girl’s future, but the future of the story as well? When she says, “
some people are so impoverished all they have is gold
,” which character do you think she is addressing? In Sita’s case, do you think her words are her riches, her own form of gold?

6. Many of the characters in
Rebel Queen
are cruel, and in fact Sita claims that moving to the rani’s palace made her “
understand more about cruelty
,” including the cruel nature of her own grandmother. Who would you name as the cruelest character in the novel? Is the cruelness understandable, if not justifiable? Why or why not?

7. Discuss the line of Rumi’s poetry that haunts Sita: “
Why are you so content with a love that turns you yellow?
” Do you agree with Sita that this line implies that some love is mediocre, or even unhealthy? Is it possible that love can lead to the worst version of yourself, rather than the best? Which examples of the many kinds of love might be labeled “yellow” in the novel? Consider the rani, Kahini, Sita, Arjun, Anu, and Sita’s grandmother in your response.

8. How does the death of the rani’s son change the course of the novel? Do you think his death prefigures the loss of her kingdom? Do both losses—the personal and the public—stem from greed? Explain.

9. Compare and contrast the rani with Queen Victoria of England. How are the two similar? How do they differ? Does each use their femininity as an effective source of power?

10. “
We stood around the breach in the wall, weapons readied, listening to the sound of birds calling to one another. It didn’t matter to them whether we slaughtered one another, or even who won. Tomorrow, they would be signing even if all of us were floating in the Ganges
.” Consider this quote as a commentary on the nature of war. Does Sita, the narrator of the novel, believe there is ever a winner in war? In this case, who won and who lost, and at what expense?

11. Sita writes, “
the enemy had come from within, not without
.” How does loss, interior and exterior, function as a possible theme in
Rebel Queen
? Do Kahini’s actions weaken the rani’s kingdom enough to make it susceptible to the British? Do you think that there is always an interior enemy who opens the door, so to speak, for the outside one? Consider Sita’s own family as an example.

12. Do you agree with Sita’s decision to leave her pregnant sister behind and rejoin the rani? What does this decision reveal about Sita? Would you have made the same decision in her place? Is it possible to forgive oneself for the misfortunes of those we love?

A Conversation with Michelle Moran

Rebel Queen
is full of references to canonical works of literature. Like Sita, are you most inspired by William Shakespeare? Who would you name as your top five favorite authors?

Without a doubt I am inspired by Shakespeare, and he is definitely among my top five favorite authors, along with Janet Fitch, J. R. R. Tolkien, Douglas Preston, and Erik Larson. I was extremely fortunate to be able to study Shakespeare with a brilliant professor, Martha Andresen, who is now retired. She was phenomenal, and the way she brought Shakespeare’s plays to life made you realize Shakespeare truly wasn’t of an age but for all time (as his contemporary, Ben Jonson, said). There’s a wonderful book by Harold Bloom called
Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human
, and he sums up better than I ever could what makes the Bard so unique among authors. Perhaps this is why Shakespeare is read in every part of the globe, including India.

This novel, much like your international bestseller
Nefertiti
, recounts a story based on the real life of a long-dead queen from antiquity. What draws you to characters like Rani Lakshmi and Nefertiti?

The characters from history that jump out at me are often women who managed to carve powerful roles for themselves in societies where women weren’t typically allowed positions of power or authority. They are also the ones who have lived through some sort of revolution and managed to weather it. Revolution is fascinating to me, whether it’s cultural, religious, or political. In
Rebel Queen
, the people of India are growing tired of England’s physical and political encroachment on their land. As they begin to voice their displeasure, however, England responds by tightening its grip, and once the people of India take up arms, England sees it as a revolution and acts accordingly, sending in an army to suppress what they see as a “rebellion.” Whenever a rebellion or revolution occurs in a society, new leaders emerge who are often tremendously charismatic or in some other way very interesting. In this case, one of those leaders was Rani Lakshmi.

Why did you decide to tell this story from Sita’s point of view? Is she your favorite character? If not, who is your favorite?

I was drawn to Sita because her position in society was so unique. Here was a woman raised in purdah (where women are veiled and confined to their houses) who became a part of the queen’s Durga Dal, an elite fighting force made entirely of women. What must that have been like? Women at that time were raised to believe that their place in society was at home—that to step outside the home was dangerous not only to their physical well-being, but to their moral and spiritual well-being, too. How would a woman like that feel if she suddenly shed her veil and stepped outside? Would she adapt, or would she flee back to what was familiar to her? I wanted to explore all of these emotions, and I couldn’t have done that with any other character but Sita, who is definitely my favorite, yes.

In your author’s note you mention you had to make a few changes to the story “in order to make nineteenth-century India more accessible.” How do you decide what should be changed and what must be preserved in historical fiction? Is it a fine line for you?

There is a fine line, but as a historical author you are always going to get mail questioning your judgment call on such things. For me, though, it’s not a terribly difficult choice. If names have changed over time, I go with what people are most familiar with today. If something in a character’s past is uncertain, I have no problem filling in the gaps, as long as the guesswork is plausible. If readers want a biography on Rani Lakshmi, plenty exist. But writing historical fiction means making history accessible to a wide audience.

Along similar lines, what was the research process like for
Rebel Queen
?

With each of my novels, the research always begins in the country where the novel takes place. In this case, it was India. Because I married an Indian man, the research for this novel was considerably easier than it would have been without someone to translate Hindi documents for me or take me on a tour of various sites within India. As with each novel, the research involved a lot of traveling and reading, which for me is one of the best parts about writing historical fiction.

Do you agree that loss is a major theme in
Rebel Queen—
both personal and shared loss? When you write, do you consciously choose themes or do they arise organically from the writing?

Loss is definitely a major theme in the book—the experience of it, why it happens, and finally, coming to terms with it. I don’t consciously choose the themes. I think each character I write about has events in her life that are so often repeated that they create a theme. Unfortunately for Sita, those events involved loss—of her kingdom, her family, and life as she knew it in Jhansi. But I also think
Rebel Queen
is a story of hope. That even in the most trying times, people survive; love survives.

Do you think that Sita comes to terms with her losses at the end of the novel?

I think she comes to accept them, yes. There is something cathartic in the retelling of a traumatic story, and I believe this is what she is doing by sending her memoirs to England, particularly since England was the source of so many of her life’s troubles. There is an oft-quoted saying that while a person might never get over trauma they can certainly move past it. I think this is what she does.

Would you characterize this novel as pre-colonial? What larger conversation about the nature of colonization do you hope to join? Is it important to you to show alterative points of view regarding this topic?

Yes, I would definitely consider it a pre-colonial novel, since England didn’t actually take over India until after Rani Lakshmi’s death. I think many people, myself included, hear the word colonization and immediately think of Africa. It wasn’t until I was married in India and began touring some of India’s historic sites that I began to think about England’s presence there and what life must have been like under British rule.

Is
Rebel Queen
a book that suggests gender roles might be fluid rather than static? What characters do you think push the gender envelope furthest in this story?

There is no doubt in my mind that gender roles are fluid. Historically, it seems very clear that Raja Gangadhar was more attracted to men than women. English soldiers who were in Jhansi at the time and Vishnubhat Godse, a Marathi writer who witnessed Jhansi’s fall, remarked on this, even talking about Gangadhar’s desire to play women’s roles on the stage and his liking for women’s dress.

The
Boston Globe
has said that your “artful storytelling skills bring(s) . . . to vivid life . . . ancient history.” Do you feel called to certain time periods or characters from history? How do you choose the setting for your novels?

Actually, I don’t feel called to certain periods in history. But I do feel called by certain stories, whether they’re set in Egypt, or Rome, or India. So far in my career, each of the books I’ve written have been inspired by various trips I’ve taken. In the case of
Nefertiti
, it was an archaeological dig in Israel, followed by a trip to Egypt. In the case of
Cleopatra’s Daughter
, it was a trip to Rome. And in the case of
Rebel Queen
, it was my marriage and subsequent tour of India.

What news can you share with us about upcoming projects? Do you have plans for a new novel?

I do, although unlike my previous novels, this one was inspired by something more personal.
The Typist
is set in Paris during the Second World War and tells the story of a young woman, Edie Boutin, who’s taken from her university class at the Sorbonne and, along with a dozen other women, is told by the French police that she is to type the list of Jews who will be rounded up and deported from France. There is no refusing the police, and this act sets off a chain of events that change not only Edie’s life, but also the lives of one particular Jewish family whose address she accidentally adds to the list.

The idea for the book came to me after my son was born. Because I love the field of archaeogenetics, one of the first things my husband and I did was to order an ancestry test for him. We used the company 23andMe, and what came back not only for him, but also for me, was very surprising. It turns out that I am Jewish, and not just a little. A significant portion of my DNA showed Ashkenazi Jew. We’d never talked about this in my family. It wasn’t a secret, but it wasn’t a topic of discussion either, and no one could tell me how a Jewish boy from Germany ended up marrying a German Catholic, or why they’d chosen to raise their daughter a Catholic instead of a Jew. It started me down a path that eventually led to the Holocaust, and sadly, the concentration camps as well. At the same time that I was discovering this family history, I took a trip to Paris, and it was while I was there that I began to realize just how complicated and controversial the German takeover of Paris had been. I started visiting the sites in Paris where the Jews once lived, and where they were held prior to being deported to various concentration camps across Europe. When my trip was over, I knew it would be the basis for my next novel.