The comment on Romani Gipsy people as being dark skinned really gets to me- it's such a racist trope.
I don't believe the character of Ezra Jennings is Romani. I thought at first that he might be Jewish because of his coloring and his profile and that line about "the ancient people of the East," but he says later that he "was born, and partly brought up, in one of our colonies. My father was an Englishman; but my mother—" which I took to mean we should read him as Anglo-Indian.
I understand that doesn't change the association of the comparison. It's the nineteenth century. It's common in the text. Jennings uses it himself, describing how others see him.
no subject
I don't believe the character of Ezra Jennings is Romani. I thought at first that he might be Jewish because of his coloring and his profile and that line about "the ancient people of the East," but he says later that he "was born, and partly brought up, in one of our colonies. My father was an Englishman; but my mother—" which I took to mean we should read him as Anglo-Indian.
I understand that doesn't change the association of the comparison. It's the nineteenth century. It's common in the text. Jennings uses it himself, describing how others see him.