THE DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD OF WORDS: LANGUAGE AS OPPRESSION AND RESISTANCE IN R. F. KUANG’S “BABEL”

Abstract

This article examines R. F. Kuang’s “Babel: An Arcane History” through the lens of the “dark academia” genre, arguing that the novel reconfigures its traditional fascination with elite knowledge into a sharp anti-colonial critique. Set in an alternative nineteenth-century Oxford, “Babel” presents language as both a mechanism of imperial domination and a potential instrument of resistance. The British Empire’s magical technology of “silver-working”, powered by the untranslatable gaps between languages, exposes how linguistic knowledge is weaponized for exploitation. At the same time, acts of speech and translation (embodied in the rebellion of Robin Swift and the Hermes Society) transform language into a site of political subversion. The analysis highlights how Kuang’s novel reveals translation not as a neutral academic pursuit but as a deeply ideological practice, where words themselves become tools for either sustaining or dismantling empire.