Scrutinising Space and Structure in Silk and Steel by Stephen Alter

Abstract

Stephen Alter’s Silk and Steel captures historical ruptures and entanglements of colonial India in a compellingly accurate, but heart-wrenching narrative. However, the geographical spaces within the novel—ranging from colonial residencies to Mughal ruins—serve the purposes of narrative more than ambiance; they are codes for ideological expression. This paper analyses these spaces within the novel in terms of their structure using two spatial disciplines—Michel Foucault’s spatial scholarship and Edward Soja’s third space—as theoretical lenses. These spaces are enclosures of identity, trauma, and resistance. The protagonist Augustine’s mixed-race identity is pivotal in this exploration; as he journeys through fractured spaces, his movements map his enclosure within an in-between space. Physical settings of architectural forms, military quarters, and fractured cityscapes are codes for imperial anxieties about ambiguous bodies and spatial disorder. In terms of structure, Alter’s narrative is non-linear, mirroring spatial instability in the story world. Through textual analysis, theoretical framing, and interpretation, this paper contributes to the under-explored world of Stephen Alter’s fiction, where I posit spatial structure as an enclosure and exploration of identity, colonial surveillance, and narrative resistance. This paper responds to the lacuna in existing literature, which has tended to prioritize thematic and character analysis over a rigorous theoretical engagement with spatial configuration. I conclude by framing Alter’s narrative architecture in terms of political cartographies of empire, where spaces themselves become enclosures of power, transition, and conflict.