In Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s book This Earth of Mankind, the depiction of the Natives in this novel permits the author to expose the effects of colonization by the Europeans in Indonesia. Throughout this novel, the Natives are consistently portrayed as the social group, who is deemed inferior in comparison to the Europeans, which contributes to their oppression. The two characters that represent this attribute are Nyai Ontosoroh and Minke. Despite her backstory and status as a concubine for Herman Mellema, Nyai Ontosoroh is one of the central characters in this novel. She is described as a formidable Native woman, “...this Nyai Ontosoroh who was talked about by so many people...”(29). While she does stand out from the ordinary Natives as a Nyai, she’s also considered different due to how she carries herself as an authentic European woman. However, even with her behaviour, she is considered to be inferior to the Europeans because of her looks and her affair with Herman. “...I saw the backwardness of the Natives around me. I didn’t mix very much with Europeans...” (91). Consequently, she is differentiated from both Europeans and Natives, which proves that despite the fact she is, “...far more capable than the average European woman” (92), she is oppressed, because of her social class. Hence, her strained relationships with European …show more content…
Both Nyai and Minke are affected by the final verdict, which takes Annelies away from them. They realize that the European system was not designed to work in their favor, but rather against them. Unlike Minke, Nyai is already familiar with this concept as she mentions to Minke that, “... Natives must always be in the wrong, Europeans must be innocent, so therefore Natives must be wrong to start with. To be born a Native is to be in the wrong”