Heat and Dust

Summaries

Exposition (page 7-8)
The whole story is based on the letters between the sisters Olivia and Marcia in the 1920s. Olivia leaves England to live with her husband Douglas in India. But there she elopes with the Nawab who is an Indian prince. Douglas gets married to Tessie and they become the grandparents of the first-person narrator in the story. Olivia always is a forbidden topic for Tessie and her sister Beth but after Douglas’ death an old friend from India named Harry appears and leaves them the letters written by Olivia to her sister Marcia. The narrator wants to tell Olivias story and so she leaves for India. The book is divided in the parts of the narrator’s journal and Olivias life in 1923.
Journal 2 February (page 8-11)
The narrator just arrives in Bombay which is completely different to her expectations. She got a picture from India by the letters and now everything changed. Her first night she spends in a room in the women’s dormitory of the Society of Missionaries hostel with six other women. A woman who is also awake shares her experiences with the narrator because she already spent 30 years in India. Among typical tips like “use boiled water only” she speaks about the bad changes of the last 30 years and directs the narrator to the dormitory’s window to strenghten her observations of Indias downfall. The narrator looks down at a bright street in which some people are sleeping, buying or looking for food. She also catches sight of some crippled children. By changing the window she gets sight of A’s hotel which mainly is visited by bedraggled Europeans. The woman announces that she may say that she has seen everything you can see on the earth like a young European being deloused by his monkey. She gives the narrator the advice to trust on Christ Jesus because otherwise there would be no survival because nothing human means anything in India. By the look at the poor figures outside the narrator also thinks like that.