Theme Of Veiling In H. Rider Haggard's She

To be veiled is to be hidden, and within the genre of Victorian Adventure, to be veiled is also to hold an epistemological power. Two such figures, Ayesha, the central character in H. Rider Haggard’s wildly popular She and, the metaphorically veiled figure of Kim, from the novel by Kipling of the same name. Visibility acts as a driving force behind the narratives, enabling the character’s within both novels to be hindered or aided based on their ability to assume an invisible status. Due to this, perceivable characteristics, including physical attributes, take on a heightened importance, so that those capable of changing their form via veiling techniques hold distinctive power within the novels. For Ayesha, her veiling is a status of her power

Continuing to present her depiction as a ruler, Haggard portrays Ayesha has being an imperialist, for she herself asks of Holly: “how thinkest thou that I rule this people…It is by terror” (Haggard 161). Critic Julia Reid in her essay on “‘She-who-must-be-obeyed’: Anthropology and Matriarchy in H. Rider Haggard’s She,” affirms that the “narrative’s depiction of the ‘imperial She’ undoes conventional assumptions’ about gender and power, subverting nineteenth-century understandings of women as the passive objects of colonization” (367). Reid hits upon the duality of Ayesha by speaking of the ‘imperial She’ whose veiled form runs her empire through terror and witchcraft. Within her is the power of the pillar of fire; the veiling is a metaphor for controlling her powers, and yet the threat always remains that the veil might be lifted, as Holly notes, to see the terror of her

Foremost, by presenting herself as an otherworldly, clothed apparition, Ayesha is able to instill a mortal fear of her power into the Amahagger people whom she rules; thus, the lack of visibility of her form serves to mythologize herself as an otherworldly deity ruling over the land of Kôr as She. The use of the veil fractures her identity into two separate beings: Ayeshas as individual and “She” the ruler. When she is functioning as “She,” Ayesha veils herself in the gauzy wrappings, and she cuts an intimidating figure seated on the throne as such. Holly witnesses this moment when she doles out punishment in her role as a ruler, punishing the natives who had sought to kill Holly and his group. Above the entire multitude of natives “was the veiled white woman, whose loveliness and awesome power seemed to visibly shine about her like a halo” (Haggard 159). This is “She,” the Queen of the Amahagger people, which is a vastly different persona than Ayesha when she is unveiled. When her wrappings fall about her, Ayesha is “no longer icily terrible” but becomes “Life—radiant, ecstatic, wonderful” (172). Even Holly is aware that this shifting of personality is tied to her ability to veil herself as he notes she “cast...off” her previous cold judgement “and put them behind her, like the white shroud she wore” (172). Assuming the mantle of power requires Ayesha to be veiled, because it