Quote:
Originally Posted by astrangerhere
I wasn't going to bring this up, but making Aouda seem "European" just normalizes her so that it is not viewed as more of a mixed-race relationship when Fogg marries her. I don't think it was a short cut to ignoring the culture shock. But that is just my opinion, and I am not positing that it was definitely Verne's intent.
As to your second comment - there is nothing "wrong" with Aouda's position in the story, I was just explaining that it took away from my enjoyment. It bothered me enough to distract me, so it felt worthy of comment in the disicussion.
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This time around Aouda really stood out to me as underdeveloped; I had barely remembered that the character existed, and can now see why. The "European" thing I figured was mostly cop-out/shortcut rather than racist in itself, a way to make it so there were no language or cultural issues to deal with and Verne could get on with the story he wanted to tell. But it was a cop-out that was suggestive of the implicit prejudices of the times, that she had to be apparently European, and a princess, to be an acceptable love-interest for Fogg.