dust

  __**Purpose of the Motif of Dust**__ In Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's //Heat and Dust//, dust acts as a motif in order to symbolize the debilitating and irritating effect India exerts on both locals and foreigners through its environment. It also demonstrates the British people's cultural displacement and discomfort in India, as they desperately attempt to keep dust, a symbol of Indian and Indian culture, away from themselves. Debilitating and irritating effect of India's environment on people
 * Thesis Statement**
 * Examples**
 * "If the buses are always the same, so is the landscape through which they travel. Once a town is left behind, there is nothing till the next one except flat land, broiling sky, distances and dust" (9).
 * "Especially dust: the sides of the bus are open with only bars across them so that the hot winds blow in freely, bearing desert sands to choke up ears and nostrils and set one's teeth on edge with grit" (9-10).
 * "Dust storms have started blowing all day, all night. Hot winds whistle columns of dust out of the desert into the town; the air is choked with dust and so are all one's senses. Leaves that were once green are now ashen, and they toss around as in a dervish dance. Everyone is restless, irritable, on the edge of something. It is impossible to sit, stand, lie, every position is uncomfortable; and one's mind too is in turmoil" (69)
 * "'Who would not laugh', he said. Pointing out of the window, where one of the town beggar happens to be passing, a teenage boy who can not stand upright but drags the crippled underpart of his body behind him on the dust; 'Who would not laugh', ask Inder Lal, to see a sight like that"(83).

Cultural displacement and discomfort of the British in India, the overall "bad" or "negative" perceptions of India
 * "The watchman explained her [in the Nawab's palace] the ladies of the household used to sit concealed behind curtains to peer down at the social entertainment below. One curtain was still left hanging there - a rich brocade, stiff with dust and age. I touched it to admire the material, but it was like touching something dead and mouldering" (11).
 * "There had been a particularly severe dust storm earlier in the day, as sometimes happens, it had cleared the air, so that now, for the remaining hour of daylight, everything was luminous" when Anne was trying to help Leelavati (99).
 * "Not in the direction in which Douglas had left, but the other way; towards Khatm, towards the Palace. It did not make any difference as everything was under the same pall of dust" (102).
 * "The landscape which, a few weeks earlier, had been blotted out by dust was now hazy with moisture" as Olivia was telling Harry about abortion. (139).
 * "The rest of the time Olivia was alone in her big house with all the doors and windows shut to keep out the heat and dust" (12).
 * Comments**
 * Dust has an annoying characteristic.
 * Associated with death, destruction, emptiness.
 * In the presence of dust, everything is uncomfortable.
 * Dust is seen as a polluting element.
 * When Leelavati dies, the exterior "polluted" dirty appearance, represented through dust, leaves to give way to her inner beauty
 * British people like Olivia stay inside all day and attempt to keep dust out. Symbolizes their attempt to be in India, but not interact or be absorbed by India