Mistaken Identity and Disguise

The strict dividing lines between classes and race in the British colonial world in Sea of Poppies lend themselves to manipulation of identities and disguise. Ghosh depicts several characters who disguise themselves or pass between race and class lines because others mistake their identity.

Disguise starts in the novel with Zachary Reid, a half black sailor from Baltimore. The lascars aboard the Ibis dress him up as a gentleman. Reid can pass as white. Later, at a dinner party, Reid embodies this new identity so well that Raja Neel Halder believes he must be humbly hiding his royal origins. Reid's closeness with the lascars is reminiscent of another white man of humble origins who disguised himself as a gentleman, but was really a pirate working with lascars.

To escape a dreadful marriage with an older judge in Calcutta, Paulette disguises herself as a...