“The 19th century witnessed the expansion of the British Empire, but this process did not go unquestioned. Doubts about Empire seem to have intensified in the last quarter of a century. Several texts of the 1890s offered warnings about the consequences of Britain’s actions overseas. A passage in H G Wells’s The War of the Worlds (1898) compares the Martians’ attack on the human race with the supposed hunting to extinction of Tasmanian Aborigines by European colonists. Dracula’s invasion of England in Bram Stoker’s novel has been labelled by critic Stephen D Arata an instance of ‘reverse colonisation’.[1] Dracula studied England’s language, society and culture to aid his incursion. Published in 1897, the same year as Draculaand Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, Richard Marsh’s The Beetle told of attacks in London by a shape-shifting Egyptian worshipper of Isis seeking revenge on politician and future statesman Paul Lessingham.”
Although the 19th century text contains racial stereotypes, Tim Youngs has suggested that the plot allows the reader to question the expansion of Empire.
-The British Library
Many analyses of the Beetle point to fear and uneasiness of British expansion into Africa by members of society. Many feared this simply because the people appeared different and were not believed to be as proper and high-class as many members of British society. The story of the Beetle includes many racial undertones, such as the depiction of “the Arab”, and many believe that this was in response to the fears of the time held by many. They feared that this expansion would change things and threaten their high-society ways of living. As always, these monster novels always stem from a common fear of the time.
