ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Wilhelm Raabe's novel offers a nuanced and highly critical view of the politics and possibilities of speech within the colonial context and, by extension, of colonialism itself. The focus on the linguistic relationships between colonizers responds to calls for postcolonial studies to move beyond analyses of European discourse on colonial territories and peoples. Heinrich Schaumann uses the language of domination unabashedly as, in a day-long, droning monologue, he describes his infiltration and eventual 'vollige Eroberung' of the property. Schaumann also claims to have given Valentine language, or at least the 'cultured' language of the Burgertum. The novel demonstrates that Schaumann's 'domestication' of Valentine and his colonization of her land reproduce the physical and material domination of overseas colonialism. Schaumann's critical references to colonists' violence against Africans condemn the colonists' activities, and Eduard Vogel 's statements reveal that he shares many of the racist assumptions supporting such actions.
