Characters in The Empress - Edexcel

• The Empress has four main characters: Rani, Hari, Abdul and Queen Victoria.

• There are four secondary characters in the play – Rani’s employer Lord Oakham, Indian politician Dadabhai Naoroji, Queen Victoria’s servant Lady Sarah and Lascar Sally.

• There are many minor characters in the play: Rani’s friend Firoza, Gandhi the Serang, Susan Matthews, Georgina, Charlotte, Mary and William.

• Some of the characters in the play are based on real historical figures, such as Queen Victoria. Gupta uses her imagination backed up with lots of research to bring these characters to life.

Remember

In your exam you will be asked to write about a character or a theme. If writing about a character you should include:

• Key moments for the character
• If and how the character changes throughout the play
• Gupta’s intentions and message relating to the character
• How an audience might respond to the character

• Naïve
• Caring
• Resilient

Rani – whose name means ‘Queen’ in Bengali - is 16 years old when she arrives in London. She is naïve and was expecting to continue working as an ayah for the Matthews family but is immediately dismissed, replaced with an English nanny and left alone on Tilbury docks.

Her next employer is Lord Oakham, whom Rani trusts to look after her. Lord Oakham coerces Rani into a sexual relationship by promising to send money back to her family in India. However, he rejects and abandons her when she becomes pregnant with his child.

Rani is a strong, resilient character who fights against adversity to raise her daughter, Asha, and to work as Dadabhai’s assistant. She is self-motivated and educates herself. She falls in love with Hari on the boat when she is 16 and is reunited with him 14 years later.

• Immature
• Outspoken
• Determined

Hari is a lascar who is treated badly by the Serang (his superior). He is friends with Rani, but they fall out when he gets drunk and makes unwanted advances towards her at Lascar Sally’s boarding house. He writes a letter of apology to Rani when he goes back to work on the ship.

Later in the play, Hari fights for equal rights for the lascars which leads to him being beaten and losing his job. Even though he is teased by Lascar Sally about his girlfriends, he cares deeply about Rani and writes to her often when they are apart.

At the end of the play, he admits to Rani that "Every night I thought of your happy, smiling face". He only returns to her once he feels he is good enough for her and has a job.

In the play, the character of Queen Victoria is presented as being:

• Open-minded
• Stubborn
• Pampered

Queen Victoria is presented as an open-minded character. Unlike the rest of the royal household, she is notprejudiced against Abdul, but she remains prejudiced to other people in India, and throughout the British Empire. Instead, she stubbornly forms a strong friendship with him and promotes him from her servant to her Munshi.

In the play, Queen Victoria is pampered and unaware of the suffering faced by people living in countries that were colonised by the British. She constantly refers to herself as "we" and admits that she has never visited India, even though she is their Empress.

We see how Queen Victoria enjoys the riches of the Empire as she shows off the gifts she has received for her Diamond jubilee. Abdul challenges Queen Victoria on the expansion of the British Empire and the pain and suffering this causes to those who are colonised.

• Intelligent
• Ambitious
• Loyal

Abdul Karim is given as a gift to Queen Victoria for her Golden Jubilee at the start of the play.

Abdul is an educated and loyal man who is promoted the role of Munshi. He tries to educate Queen Victoria and fights against the prejudice of her other servants who do not want to see him as part of the court.

He clashes with Victoria’s lady-in-waiting, Lady Sarah, who takes issue with Abdul Karim's promotion in the royal court, perhaps because he is an Indian man.

Abdul is a loyal friend to the Queen and is not afraid to speak his mind. He reminds her that she is privileged and needs to ensure that she does not abuse her power. She admired him so much that she wanted to make him a knight but was refused.

In the play and in history, Abdul remained close friends with Queen Victoria until her death, when he was forced to return to India.

Words to describe Lord Oakham:

• Racist
• Manipulative
• Coercive

Words to describe Lady Sarah:

• Racist
• Stubborn
• Patriotic

Both Lady Sarah and Lord Oakham represent the rich British upper class who are racially prejudiced in the play.

Lord Oakham employs Rani as an ayah and servant after she is fired by Susan Matthews. He treats Rani badly and coerces her into a sexual relationship before throwing her out when she becomes pregnant.

Lady Sarah is Victoria’s lady-in-waiting. She disapproves of Victoria’s close relationship with Abdul.

Remember

The Empress is set in the Victorian era when society was patriarchal and rigid class structures were upheld.

As a working-class Indian woman, Rani has very little power and has no choice but to enter into a relationship with Lord Oakham.

• Caring
• Wise
• Persistent

Dadabhai is an activist who tries to highlight the impact that imperialism has had on India. He becomes a Member of Parliament (MP) and accuses the "British of inflicting upon Indians all the scourges of the world: war, pestilence and famine".

Dadabhai hires Rani to help him in his campaign to become an MP and becomes a close friend and mentor to her.

• Supportive
• Kind
• Outspoken

Lascar Sally is a confident and outspoken woman who is able to speak Hindi to her lascar customers. She is a successful business owner who runs a boarding house in London where lascars can stay while on land.

She is portrayed as constantly shouting at the lascars in her boarding house, and as a caring woman who helps Rani when she first arrives. Along with Firoza, they look out for Rani and help her reunite with Hari at the end of the play.

Test your knowledge of the characters in The Empress by taking this multiple-choice quiz.