Transcript POST-COLONIAL LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN EDU32PLC

POST-COLONIAL LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN
EDU32PLC
Lecture 4
From the Colonial
to the Post-colonial:
Rudyard Kipling and Kim
© La Trobe University, David Beagley 2005
Some references
• http://www.latrobe.edu.au/childlit/Authors/Kipling.htm
• http://www.britishempire.co.uk/
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
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,
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, multicultures, of India, and Kim moves
through them all
• 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.
2.
3.
•
•
•
Kim as a person - who and where is his family?
Kim as a citizen - British or Indian, to whom does
he owe civic duty?
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?