Historical context of the Crown Jewel The historical context of Paul Scott's novel - The Crown Jewel - serves to explain and interpret a tragic love story between two characters; Daphne Manners and Hari Kumar. The love story serves to clarify and interpret the social, racial and historical meaning of the period in which it is set - 1942. Their love - product and at the same time victim of time and events - is an allegory of the relationship between England and India: the white man and the black man. The Crown Jewel demonstrates that the elements of life and love are colorless and timeless, and that arrogance and hatred are universal. Through a historically accurate setting using fictional characters we are shown the fictionalized city of Mayapore, India during the British Raj and told the story "of a rape, the events that preceded and followed it, and where it occurred." (Scott 3). The story is brought to us, for the most part, through an unnamed narrator who began his search for answers, regarding the Daphne Manners case, in 1964. He compiles testimonies and documents that reveal the events to us from a variety of realistic perspectives. The information is not given chronologically but as a person who has reminiscences would convey a story. The author effectively uses characters, time period, and historical events to support the underlying theme of injustice, tragedy, and the indomitable human spirit. Daphne and Hari would never have met and fallen in love anywhere else and in any other time period. 1942, in India, their... half of the document... theirs indicate that she was aware of the potential consequences of her love for Hari, her rejection of Ronald Merrick, and even her death as a result of giving birth to the child . The story ends tragically for Daphne and Hari just as the story ends tragically for old England and old India - but from their union a new story begins. Even if the children of the meeting will not quickly unlearn the evils taught by all those previous generations, there is hope now, "the promise of a story that continues rather than ends... established for the sake of the future rather than the past ". " (Scott 461). The Crown Jewel is part historical fiction, part mystery, part romance, part allegory (drjohnholleman 6/9/01) - and in all its parts, it will continue to reveal the 'darkness, in each of us, which has no connection to the color of our skin.