Babel, or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of The Oxford Translators' Revolution

Griffin is a foil for Robin. Like Robin, he is the son of Richard Lovell and a woman from Macau, a territory controlled by China. Both sons bear a physical similarity to their father. Their lives contrast because of Griffin’s early history: Lovell took Robin from Canton when he was old enough to retain Chinese, but Griffin arrived in Great Britain so early in life that he lacks native fluency and thus lacks the power to consistently use silver bars.

Another key difference between Griffin and Robin is that Griffin lacks the social support Robin has with his more diverse cohort. Alone at Oxford and unable to make silver work, Griffin fully embraces violence after he accidentally kills Eveline Brooke. The footnotes and main text aren’t completely clear on this point, but Griffin likely had romantic feelings for Evie, resulting in a rivalry with Sterling Jones that culminates in both their deaths. Griffin’s life shows what Robin’s life would be like without Victoire, Ramy, and Letty.

Griffin is also the figure who most embraces violent resistance as an ethical response to colonialism. He is convinced of the necessity of violence for liberation long before any of the other characters, and his belief puts him into conflict with the other members of the Hermes Society. He serves as a mentor figure for Robin in this regard, a relationship Kuang symbolizes when Griffin gives Robin a gun and shows him how to use it.

The son of a family who lost status during the British occupation of India, Ramy is arguably Robin’s best friend from his early days at Oxford until his death during the Oxford Translators’ Revolution. Kuang primarily characterizes Ramy through his interactions with other characters, actions, and words. Ramy is a foil to Robin in many ways. He is flamboyant and consciously manipulates stereotypes to survive and thrive at Oxford. He also directly confronts Letty over her support of British imperialism in India. His bold approach to self-representation and dealing with othering emboldens Robin, such as when Robin relies on racial stereotypes to protect Letty and Victoire when they are assaulted at the ball.

Ramy’s appearance, history, and faith are key elements of his identity. Ramy’s skin color (“brown” according to every visual and racial descriptor) marks him as an other at Oxford. He faces hostility and violence because of his appearance and what it signifies to white students: that he is a foreigner and an outsider. Kuang also uses an interlude to give insight into what motivates Ramy to present himself as nonthreatening to white strangers. He learned this skill by watching his father do the same. After several years at Oxford, Ramy begins to suspect that the mask is his real identity: “this scared him sometimes, how easily he danced around Oxford […] Inside, he felt like a fraud, a traitor” (273-74). Joining Hermes creates a double life for him, one that allows him to use his place at Oxford to destroy the British Empire. Ramy is also motivated by his faith. For example, he rationalizes helping Robin cover up Richard Lovell’s death by referencing the Qur'an.

A thinly developed aspect of Ramy’s character is his sexuality. In Chapter 14, Ramy and Robin have a charged encounter as Ramy attempts to explain why he has no feelings for Letty. This is not mentioned again in the novel, which indicates that Ramy also masks his sexuality.

Leticia Price is white, English, and the privileged daughter of a British admiral. Like the others in her cohort, she lives a divided life. On the one hand, she has enough status that she can extricate herself from legal troubles after Robin murders his father. On the other hand, she is a woman at Oxford during a time when women can be denied entrance to the libraries and housing on campus. Letty bonds with the other members of her cohort because being a woman makes her an outsider as well. Her identification with them is based on only this aspect of her identity, however. Her interactions with the members of her cohort show that this identification only goes so far. Letty consistently ignores the impacts of racism and xenophobia on the other three even when confronted with direct evidence and their testimony about their ill-treatment.

Letty’s decision to betray her cohort is a character-defining action. Killing Ramy—accidental or not—shows that she chooses to support the political ideology of British imperialists. Robin believes that her actions come out of a sense of humiliation because Ramy rebuffed her romantic overtures. In appearance, Letty is “an English rose”(503), which means she likely has light hair and light skin and embodies white British womanhood. Letty’s choice to betray her cohort shows that she is ambitious and pragmatic. Kuang uses the end of her character arc to question the possibility of real friendship across racial and cultural lines.

Victoire Desgraves is the child of a Haitian domestic worker who worked for the family of Henri Christophe, the self-styled king of Haiti. Victoire’s early life was precarious because of her legal status. Kuang uses Victoire’s interlude to describe her life as an enslaved Black person in France, where slavery was already abolished. After the deaths of her mother and her owner, Victoire faced still more constraint when the family locked her in and forced her to do all the household’s domestic work.

Victoire is resourceful, hard-working, and gifted intellectually. She relied on these character traits to run away from Christophe’s family and gain admission to Oxford. At Oxford, Victoire deals with discrimination and so much pressure to succeed that she, like the other members of her cohort, has multiple mental health crises. Joining Hermes after Anthony Ribben recruits her is a turning point that sustains her during this time. It also inspires her work with Robin later to start the Oxford Translators’ Revolution.

Victoire is another foil to Robin. She thinks strategically and encourages moderation when Robin is in favor of violence, although she doesn’t uniformly reject violence as an appropriate response to oppression. Aptly named “Victoire,” which means “victory” in French, Victoire represents what revolution can look like when its participants live on. Closing the novel with Victoire heading off to continue the fight allows Kuang to end the novel on a hopeful note.

Richard Lovell is more than a professor at Babel. He is an architect of the British Empire, a man who uses violence, exploitation, and deception to ensure the Empire’s dominance. Kuang uses his appearance, words, and actions to characterize him. As a boy encountering him for the first time, Robin imagines Lovell as a “raptor. Something vicious and strong” (5) based on his appearance. Lovell is vicious in his actions. Kuang makes this point early on when she describes Lovell's beatings of Robin. The papers Robin discovers on Lovell’s desk after his death show that he was involved in the slave trade, suppressing uprisings, and acts of violence for the sake of Great Britain’s power.

His ruthlessness in these political endeavors carries over into his relationships as well. He treats Robin as a thing instead of a person. He does not intervene to save Robin’s mother because he sees her in much the same way. The racist slurs he uses to describe Robin, Griffin, and Chinese people in general are indicative of his contempt for racial and ethnic others. Lovell’s character arc begins and ends with him wholeheartedly representing the interests of the British Empire, making him a relatively static character.

Anthony Ribben is another character with a dual identity. He began life as an enslaved man whose owner attempted to take him back to Barbados after England abolished slavery. Anthony gained his freedom because of Babel’s intervention, which values him purely because of his gift for languages. As a Black man and upperclassman, he serves as a mentor to the members of Robin’s cohort because he is one of the few people of color in their college and because he seems to have figured out how to navigate and thrive in this system. Babel's faculty fails to note and mourn his apparent death while on a mission, forcing Robin and the others to realize how little Babel values them as individuals.

Anthony reappears in the novel when Robin and his cohort are unmasked as members of Hermes. He becomes a savior and mentor who leads them to safety. He assures them that he and older students can manage Hermes without endangering the younger students. Anthony embraces nonviolence, but he dies by violence and martyrdom. His death shows how high the stakes are for people who seek change by nonviolent means.

Jerome Playfair is the head of Babel. As a professor, he articulates important concepts about translation, namely that it is magic, betrayal, and a means by which translators can serve the interests of the British Empire. His name—“Playfair”—gets at his duality as a character. Although he pretends to be a genial academic committed to translation as a way to unite all people, he is as ruthless as Lovell in his way. He creates increasingly dangerous wards to catch thieves and tries to entrap Robin once he realizes he is a Hermes collaborator. He represents the complicity of centers of knowledge creation in perpetuating oppression.

Professor Chakravarti is one of the few people who is both from a colonized culture and has some authority at the college. His tutorials with Robin help him realize that studying at Babel means helping Babel learn about the languages it needs to continue its work. While Robin initially sees his relationship with Chakravarti as collegial, he eventually realizes that Chakravarti is complicit in exploiting languages for the British Empire’s benefit.

Chakravarti is one of just two professors who side with the revolutionaries when they occupy Babel. His actions are rooted in nonviolence, however. When Robin insists that the group should allow Westminster Bridge to fall even if people will die, Chakravarti breaks with the revolutionaries. While he believes that there are cases in which violence is a necessary and ethical choice, he sees violence as a last resort. His character arc ends with his arrest. His principled stance against violence represents one of several stances on how best to end colonialism.

Margaret Craft is the only woman professor at Oxford. Early on, she is a dry lecturer who rebuffs Letty’s attempts to bond with her over their second-class status. When the revolution comes to Babel Tower, she is the only white professor to stand with the revolutionaries. Although she has little dialogue, her actions speak volumes—she helps Robin spoil the silver using the “translation” match-pair, an action that leads to her death. She is a foil to Letty; she chooses a commitment to revolution over self-interest.

“Sterling” is both a form of silver that is almost free of other metals and also an alternate name for the British currency. Sterling Jones’s name reflects his complete commitment to British imperialism and translation for the sake of British material prosperity. Like Richard Lovell, he is a gifted translator and silversmith who is engaged in the dirty work of protecting the empire’s interests. His violence is most apparent when he tortures Robin, during which he uses racial slurs to describe Robin and people of color. Details about Sterling’s background are scant but suggestive. He was in the same cohort as Griffin, Eveline, and Anthony. He also has a longstanding rivalry with Griffin, likely because they both loved Eveline. He and Griffin kill each other. His life ends because of a violent cycle he helped perpetuate. His death serves as a cautionary tale that shows that using violence to gain and maintain power can often prove self-destructive.

Abel Goodfellow’s name reflects his role in the novel. He is a strong, working-class man who resents the damage silver does to other working-class people and fights against injustice. He knows how to use nonviolence and connection with others to build coalitions. He is a foil to the revolutionaries because he knows how to sway others and engage in protest on the street level. While he embraces dramatic confrontations with the powers that be to support his political causes, he has such a shrewd understanding of how far nonviolent confrontation can go that he knows when it is time to end Babel’s occupation. He is a practical, knowledgeable man whose understanding of politics and protest balances out Robin’s idealism.