POST-COLONIAL LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN
EDU32PLC
Lecture 4
From the Colonial
to the Post-colonial:
Rudyard Kipling and Kim
© La Trobe University, David Beagley 2006
Some references
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/childlit/Authors/Kipling.htm
http://www.britishempire.co.uk/
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/kipling/kiplingov.html
Hollingsworth, J. (2001) The Cult of Empire: children’s
literature revisited. Agora. 36(4): 27-33
Sutcliff, Rosemary. (1982) Kim. Children’s Literature in
Education. 14(4) 164-170
Williams, P. (1989) Kim and Orientalism. in Kipling
Reconsidered. ed. Phillip Mallett. London: Macmillan. 33-51
(all on e-reserve)
Binaries
The colonial context • Explorer/Discovery
• Civilized/Primitive
• Ruler/Ruled
• Parent/Child
All based in the essence of:
• Superior/Inferior
Breaking away from these mutual dependencies is
the beginning of post-colonialism
Rudyard Kipling
• b. 1865 Bombay, India, d. 1936 London UK
• Father a teacher in the Indian Service – curator of the
Lahore Museum, with treasures of Indian art.
• Kipling brought up by an ayah - Hindustani as 1st language
• 1871 family returned to Britain
• 1878 entered United Services College
• 1882 returned to India as newspaper
reporter
• 1888 began publishing stories, poetry
and novels
• 1901 published Kim
• 1907 won the Nobel Prize for
Literature
• Buried in Poets Corner,
Westminster Abbey
Rudyard Kipling – influences?
• Early childhood culturally Indian, but family Imperial English
• 1871 left for 5 years in a cruel foster home in England
• Poor eyesight and mediocre results prevented a military
career
• 1886 becomes a Freemason in an Indian lodge with mixture
of cultures
• 1892 married American Caroline Starr Balestier and moved
to the USA
• 1896 returned to England after death of his daughter,
arguments with in-laws, and ongoing marriage difficulties
• 1916 son John killed in WW1
Kipling’s works
Many and varied works and styles, such as:
• Poetry - Barrack Room Ballads (1891) – praising
common soldiers on Indian service, incl. Gunga Din,
The White Man’s Burden (1912), and many during
early WW1
• “Imperial” stories – The Man who would be King,
Soldiers Three, Stalky and Co.
• Children’s stories – The Jungle books (1890s),
Just So Stories (1902), Puck of Pook’s Hill (1906) –
“dry, droll” voice
India – the Jewel in the Crown
• The major single part of the British Empire
• Included modern India, Pakistan, Bangla Desh, Sri
Lanka, and extended into Burma and Afghanistan
• British provided the civil service, social infrastructure,
military structure and command, and commercial
system (and reaped huge profits).
• Frequent battles against borders – North West
Frontier, Khyber Pass, the Russian threat
– the Great Game
• Hugely multi-cultural with more cultural influence on
Britain than it realised
• Social attitudes (esp. caste system) enabled Britain’s
imperial structure to maintain control
Kim - the novel
• Generally considered Kipling’s best novel, and a key
part of him winning the Nobel Prize
• No. 78 on NY Times’ “Best 100 novels of the 20th
century” (2000)
• Filmed several times - 1950 with Errol Flynn, 1987
with Peter O’Toole & Bryan Brown
• A literary product of its times: vocabulary and
grammar, extended structure, background detail,
reflecting the nature of reading at that time
Kim – some themes
• Picaresque novel – the rogue/adventurer on his
journey
• Search for identity
– Kim’s or Kipling’s?
– Indian or English?
– Controlled or independent?
– Destiny or Choice?
• Search for Peace
– Lama vs Creighton
– Great game vs Mystic river
Kim – the friend of all the world
• Many cultures, multi-cultures, of India, and Kim moves
through them all - “little friend of all the world”
• Castes and social groups - “High-born”, Low-born”: Sahibs,
scholars, traders, priests, soldiers, brothels, spies
• Does he use, or is he used by (or does he just encounter):
 The lama
 Colonel Creighton
 The regiment and its priests
 Mahbub Ali
 Hurree Babu
 The widow of Kulu
Kim, the literary device: an observer of the variety of India,
rather than a controller of action.
Spying - Searching - Finding
The Great Game - the defence of Empire
• Kim’s game - hiding, observing
• Never ending, no final winners
The Mystic river
• Real or metaphorical?
• River of humanity on the road?
• Never ending, step in - step out
I am Kim. And what is Kim?
Identity is a key theme
1. Kim as a person - who and where is his family?
2. Kim as a citizen - British or Indian, to whom does
he owe civic duty?
3. India as a place/nation/culture
•
Must it be ruled by Britain to survive?
•
Does it have its own integrity apart from
Britain?
•
Can the British Empire survive without it?