Drawing upon the personal accounts of British women who lived through the Mutiny (1857–58), this article argues that these accounts, being characterised by diversity, both supported and contradicted the official discourse of the British Raj. While the domestic spaces in the household were shaken by the storm of the Mutiny, interpersonal relations sometimes transcended the animosity which the Mutiny had garnered. By bringing the contemporary British fiction into the spectrum of analysis, this article argues that the Mutiny fiction and personal accounts have a common chord in their portrayal of the loyalty of the native servants in the hour of crises for their employers. These relationships, however, also implied the status of white superiority over coloured subordination as also the memsahib’s special preserve of idleness.

文章借鉴了活在叛变时期（1857–58）的英国妇女的个人叙述，认为这些叙述具有多样性的特征，既支持也有悖于英国王朝的官方话语。叛变的风暴动摇了家庭中的住所，而人际关系有时却超越了叛变所引起的敌意。通过将当代英国小说纳入分析范围，本文认为the变小说和个人账目在危机时刻对雇主的忠诚度刻画中表现出共同的共鸣。但是，这些关系也暗示着白人优于有色从属的地位，同时也隐含着梅萨希布的无所事事的特殊地位。