Henry Rider Haggard\u2019s Unstable Construction of Imperial Masculinity in King Solomon\u2019s Mines (1885)

Haggard\u2019s best-selling King Solomon\u2019s Mines traces the adventures of three English explorers, Allan Quatermain, Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good in search of King Solomon\u2019s treasure. Haggard\u2019s Quatermain depicts his companions, and, by extension, all Westerners, as the epitome of civilization; yet, King Solomon\u2019s Mines also hints at Victorian misgivings about British superiority and at the fear of regression to the Africans\u2019 level. Haggard\u2019s narration conveys that anxiety through unsettling likenesses between Europeans and Africans, both physically and behaviorally; the imperialists\u2019 conduct becomes increasingly inseparable from African savagery. In Haggard\u2019s romance the comforting belief in British supremacy seems vulnerable, so that the dividing line between civilization and primitivism is not only permeable but at times indiscernible