The Glass Palace

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2000

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Character Analysis

Rajkumar Raja

Rajkumar Raja is the key protagonist in The Glass Palace. Introduced as “an Indian, a boy of eleven [and] not an authority to be relied upon” (4), his growth from spindly young boy into a stiff-limbed old man is perhaps the main through-line of the novel. As an Indian boy who fled to Burma following a plague in his village, he seems at first to be little more than an innocent, orphan bystander, watching the pillage of the country by the British. But as the story progresses, his role in the colonization of Burma becomes more complicated. He indentures Indian workers to harvest Burmese oil and sells teak across the region, making himself a fortune in the process. Eventually, as Burmese attitudes turn against the Indian population in the country, it is Rajkumar’s actions that help explain to the audience why the ire of the local people is turned against their fellow South Asians, rather than the British. Rajkumar becomes emblematic of the infectious nature of colonialism and the manifestation of the subjugation of the Burmese people. That he makes a great deal of money doing so provides a hint as to the incessant nature of colonialism and why it is truly hard to eradicate.

Rajkumar is a more complicated character than he might seem. Fiercely apolitical, he is imbued with a work ethic and a determination that sets him apart from most of the cast. Though he is willing to bend the rules at times–such as when he uses his contacts to secure a lucrative timber contract–he believes in the value of hard work above everything else. When the Burmese people turn against the Indian population in their country, he is unable to grasp why he is not considered a local, as he has spent most of his life in the country, speaks the language, and is fully integrated into the society. Rajkumar seems unable to grasp the racial and ideological foundations that underpin the British Empire.

However, he is occasionally forced to reckon with this truth. Uma, a person who develops an acute awareness of the political situation in Burma, laments that Indian people and Burmese people are at odds, and believes that they should be fighting the same battle. Rajkumar replies that this is “nonsense” (217) and is offended when Uma accuses him of being complicit in the riots. He believes that his standing as a businessman–someone who provides jobs, who has built a company–absolves his moral quandaries. As they continue to argue, he orders that the car be stopped. He exits the vehicle and elects to walk home. When confronted with the truth, he does not have the political discourse to argue vehemently with Uma and, by the end of the novel, appears to have accepted her opinions on political matters. Being forced to confront the crimes of Empire, even on this small scale, is a dominant theme in the text, and Rajkumar’s character arc is a neat summation of this discussion.

Early in the novel, however, Rajkumar is defined by his love for Dolly. He falls in love with her at first sight and then spends twenty years building the political and financial capital that might be able to win her to his side. This determination creates a sense of sympathy toward Rajkumar; even as he does immoral things, he believes that he is acting in the name of love. When he transports workers from India to Burma, he is doing so with the image of Dolly fixed firmly in his mind. While not forgiving his crimes, it certainly diminishes the audience’s dislike of the character. His nervousness when meeting Dolly again after so long is, again, a sympathetic trait. This self-confident young man who announced the arrival of the British cannon and built an empire of his own is stunned into silence by the memory of a handmaiden. Dolly’s initial rejection and eventual marriage to Rajkumar makes it seem as though their story will be one of requited love, something akin to a fairytale.

But tragedy is never far from Rajkumar’s life. He arrives in Burma after the death of his family. He is abandoned by Ma Cho, the only maternal figure in his life. He faces abuse and hard work, though eventually finds success. But his story does not end in a fairytale manner. Rajkumar and Dolly eventually fall out of love and she decides to retire to a nunnery. Though an unbreakable affection remains between the two, it is fitting for the character that the Rajkumar’s main motivation in life–to find Dolly and win her heart–should peter out into nothingness. He becomes estranged from Dinu and Neel dies in Rajkumar’s timber yard (the latter an example of Rajkumar’s hubris and bullishness finally coming back to haunt him). At the end of the Glass Palace, Rajkumar has only his granddaughter left. He takes delight in raising her and tries to keep alive her Burmese heritage. That he makes frequent trips to the local Burmese temple in India and ingratiates himself into the community is a dénouement cloaked in pathos. Finally, in his old age, Rajkumar is an accepted member of the Burmese community, though he has had to travel back to India and lose everything he worked for in order to achieve this. As such, Jaya is his final achievement, the true legacy which he leaves to the world: a lasting joinder between Burma and India.

Uma Dey

If any character in The Glass Palace is an ideological mouthpiece, it is Uma Dey. Through her status as a writer, an activist, and a campaigner for Indian independence, she becomes the main source for critiques of colonialism as they are woven into the text. However, in order to achieve this status, Ghosh makes sure to provide an ideology-free starting point for the character. At the beginning of the novel, Uma is a minor cog in the machine of the Empire. She is the wife of a regional bureaucrat and seemingly devoid of political opinions beyond feelings and intuitions. She lacks the ideological framework, the discourse, the distance, and the experience required to form a critique of the British Empire, though it develops naturally through the text.

Uma is introduced to the narrative as an agent of change, but in a very subtle manner. The first description of Uma suggests that she is “a tall, vigorous-looking woman with thick, curly hair” (88) and her most interesting trait is that she ties her sari in a non-conventional new style, one unfamiliar to the characters. Soon, every character begins to copy Uma’s style and, by the end of the novel, this style has become the default way in which to wear a sari. Though Uma did not invent the style, she is credited with helping to popularize it. This will be similar to the way in which she rarely develops her own political opinions but helps spread the message of others (the Indian Independence League and Gandhi, for instance).

During this part of the story, Uma is very much content with her role in the Empire. She prides herself on keeping a respectable home and carries out the duties expected of her by her husband. She seems to exist in relation to the collector, an appendage of his political machinations, rather than an entity in her own right. It is only through her emerging friendship with Dolly that she begins to develop as a character in her own right.

This friendship with Dolly includes one of the first instances of Uma’s self-reflection on the morals of Empire. When they are discussing the various crimes of the Burmese royal family, Dolly counters by highlighting a picture of Queen Victoria placed inside Uma’s home and asks about violence committed in the name of the British royal family. At the time, Uma says nothing, but in the coming days, she removes the picture and sends it to her husband’s office. This quiet rejection of colonialism can be credited as the awakening of Uma’s political activism, which grows into a fully-developed critique of colonialism.

The death of the collector has a profound effect on Uma’s life. For the first time, she recognizes that she has been molded into a “reflection of what he himself aspired to be” (162) and begins to ask whether “one day all of India would become a shadow of what [the collector] had been?” (162). This analysis of his role in the imperial machine (as well as her role) prompts her to leave the country. For the first time, she has the time and the means to learn for herself. She decides to travel Europe and America, meeting not just fellow Indian critics of the Empire, but critics from Ireland, too. By travelling across the world in the wake of her husband’s death, Uma equips herself with the language, the experience, and the knowledge needed to become the novel’s main ideological mouthpiece.

Many times, Uma explicitly states political opinions in the text. She describes anti-colonial political movements and relates them to the narrative at hand. In doing so, Uma provides both the reader and the other characters with a new lens through which to view events. Some characters, like Rajkumar and Mathew, reject her ideas while others, such as Dinu, incorporate them into their own political opinions. As such, Uma becomes the conduit through which Ghosh is able to insert post-colonial critiques into the novel, providing his characters (and his readers) with a useful way in which to think about the narrative.

By the end of The Glass Palace, Uma has retired to a life of quiet celebrity. She has seen a great deal of success, achieving Indian independence and even serving time in prison in order to achieve this. She has welcomed Dolly, Rajkumar, and Jaya into her home and, as suggested by the final few paragraphs, has found happiness with Rajkumar, despite their political differences. By this time, Jaya is able to see Uma as both a political figure and a kindly elderly benefactor. After a lifetime of fierce political activism, Uma is allowed one final moment of humanity. The humorous anecdote in which she and Rajkumar mix up their dentures is devoid of ideology in a way Uma has not been portrayed since the very beginning of the book. As such, Ghosh’s novel comes full circle: after achieving her goals, Uma is allowed to retire and find personal happiness, even if it is removed from the political acts that have defined her life.

Dolly Sein

Dolly Sein is one of the most complicated characters in The Glass Palace. Her story is relatively simple: she was bought by the Burmese royal family, stayed with them during their exile, married a rich businessman, had children, and then retired to a nunnery. But during the course of her story, Dolly exhibits many human traits that are simply not portrayed as being present in other characters. For instance, she appears to suffer from depression at certain points in the novel and her mental health issues are rarely considered by any of the other characters. They feel as though she is just quiet or reticent. Likewise, she suffers from a miscarriage and the anxiety she displays over her son’s illness is unlike anything seen from Rajkumar or the other characters. Though she rarely expresses emotions, the emotional turmoil that Dolly suffers through seems far greater in comparison to the other characters.

A good example of this is Dolly’s past, before she was part of the royal household. During her introduction, only two sentences are given to Dolly’s past. Compared to the past of Rajkumar, whose family history is detailed across many pages, it is a scant retelling. Furthermore, the majority of these two sentences focus on her aesthetic qualities–she seems valued for her appearance, rather than any particular qualities she might possess. Thankfully, the narrative seems to suggest, Dolly has “no memory of her parents or family” (17).

This focus on Dolly’s aesthetics is continued throughout her relationship with Rajkumar. The narrative rarely skips an opportunity to mention Dolly’s beauty and it seems to be the main way she is understood by many of the characters. But it is when she and Rajkumar meet for the first time that this is most explicit. It seems like a classic trope–the star-crossed lovers, their eyes meeting across a busy room–but the context is important. Dolly is at the heart of a royal house in the process of collapsing, Rajkumar is one of the looters rioting through the palace. Dolly is essentially a slave, while Rajkumar is an orphaned boy with no prospects. Nevertheless, when Rajkumar spots her in the palace, he believes her to be “by far the most beautiful creature he had ever beheld” (30). The choice of words here is important, with Rajkumar’s perspective treating Dolly as an animal, a creature of pure aesthetics he decides he must have. The thought of her does not leave his mind for decades. Dolly is treated like a piece of art, something which is coveted, rather than a person in her own right.

Yet Dolly remains strong. In her own quiet way, she is one of the fiercest characters in the text. When the other servants prepare to leave the royal family on the eve of their exile, she feels duty bound to the princesses. When more and more servants flee Ratnagiri, she remains at Outram House and her status in the household rises. She is loyal, good at her job, and she becomes an important companion to the princesses, Uma, and–though it would never be admitted–the queen. It is why her marriage to Rajkumar is taken so personally by the queen; Dolly’s departure feels like a betrayal to her, the last of her handmaids leaving and the severance of ties with Burma almost complete.

Dolly’s time married to Rajkumar is marked by tragedy on many levels. The miscarriage she suffers leaves her isolated: her husband is wrapped up in his business and Uma is travelling Europe. Without anyone to talk to, Dolly withdraws into herself and feels unable to write to Uma. By the time she gives birth to Neel and then Dinu, the event has had a profound (though rarely mentioned) effect on her, so much so that when Dinu contracts polio, she spends every waking minute with him in the hospital and sleeps next to him at night. When he recovers and must learn to walk again, she dotes on her son at the expense of her social life. The thought of losing another child haunts her, though she has no one to whom she can talk about such matters.

This lack of a real emotional outlet is one of the defining traits of Dolly as a character. She rarely expresses herself, rarely discusses her true feelings and this can lead her into surprising choices. Her first refusal of Rajkumar is an example of this. When quizzed by Uma on why she has asked him to leave, she struggles to explain why she rejected the man who loves her, even when talking with her best friend. A similar situation occurs when she informs Rajkumar of her decision to one day retire to a nunnery. She rarely provides reasons–perhaps because she is unsure of how to articulate them–but she nevertheless makes decisions with conviction.

When Dolly does eventually retire to the nunnery, she makes sure to visit Dinu first. The reconciliation between mother and son is not witnessed by the narrative first hand, but it is Jaya’s recollection of Dinu’s recollection. Even at a moment of great emotional honesty, the text maintains a distance from Dolly. Throughout The Glass Palace, she remains something of an ethereal, elusive figure. Of all the main characters, Dolly is the hardest to unpack and the most apolitical. Her life–as extraordinary as it is–ends on a quiet note. She dies away from the narrative gaze, her death related through a friend. Even in her final moments, Dolly is shielded from the view of the audience and remains something of a secret, hidden behind closed doors.