Ghent University
Faculty of Arts and Philosophy
The Depiction of Men and Women in selected short
Stories by Rudyard Kipling
Supervisor:
Prof. Dr. Kate Macdonald
May 2012
Thesis submitted in partial
fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of “Master in de
Taal- en Letterkunde: EngelsDuits” by Sam Claeys
Acknowledgements
I would like thank to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Kate Macdonald for her constant help and
interesting insights on Kipling’s writing, since it was because of her that my interest in
Kipling already started during her Ba2 class. This interest has grown over these three years
going from a class presentation to a BA paper and eventually to the subject of an MA thesis.
Thank you for always making time in your schedule when I had questions, uncertainties or
doubts.
I would also like to thank my parents, whose kind words and moral support were invaluable
during this four year journey. Thank you both for constantly being there for me.
2
Table of Contents
0. Introduction
4
1. Background to research
6
2. Literature Review
8
3. Methodology
13
4. Investigation
13
4.1.
The Indian background: the hills, the plains and their interaction
13
4.1.1.
The hills: a place of comfort and enjoyment in life and literature
14
4.1.2.
The plains: heat, disease and stress
18
4.1.3.
The locations of the stories
21
Kipling’s depiction of women
22
Mrs Hauksbee: femme fatale, caring mother figure or something else?
23
4.2.
4.2.1.
4.2.1.1. A femme fatale?
23
4.2.1.2. A caring mother figure?
28
4.2.1.3. Two dimensions of one character
35
4.2.2.
Other women in Kipling’s short stories
36
4.2.3.
Kipling’s women: more ambiguous than was thought
44
Kipling’s depiction of men
45
4.3.1.
Strickland: the ideal civil servant?
47
4.3.2.
Other men in Kipling’s short stories
53
4.3.3.
Kipling’s men: not ideal, but flawed
66
4.3.
5. Results
67
6. Implications
71
7. Conclusion
73
8. Works cited
74
3
0. Introduction
Rudyard Kipling is one of the most influential writers on colonial times in India during the
Victorian era. Born in Bombay in 1865, he spent a large amount of his journalistic career in
India, writing his first short stories, dealing with the Indian scene and the Anglo-Indians
inhabiting it. Because “[t]he literature of the sub-continent of India had been curiously sparse
before Kipling’s advent” (Birkenhead 1978: 96), these short stories were popular by the
standards of that time and still are for contemporary critics. The recurrent theme throughout
these stories is the focus on colonial rule in India and how the British lived in the hill stations
and plains stations. He knew which themes were interesting for his fellow Anglo-Indians.
Kipling has covered all aspects of this society, as well as all population groups: how soldiers
lived in their closed encampments in Soldiers Three (1888), how the British made their own
small society within this country in Plain Tales from the Hills (1888) or how certain aspects
of Indian life can be terrifying to Anglo-Indians in the ghost stories of The Phantom Rickshaw
(1888). Kipling describes the British colonials without any glorification in these volumes and
others written in that period. The people in these stories are not the idealized prototypes of
British imperialism, but ordinary people with their virtues and vices trying to be part of
Anglo-Indian society and working hard to solidify the success of the British Empire in India.
Most of these early short stories were written between 1886 and 1889 and were
published as periodicals in the Indian newspapers he wrote for, such as The Civil and Military
Gazette in Lahore and The Pioneer in Allahabad. Since the reading public of those
newspapers were Anglo-Indian colonials, Kipling had to write about subjects close to daily
lives whether they lived in larger hill stations such as Simla, Lahore and Allahabad or those in
the small plains stations all over lower India. Although Kipling continuously wrote these short
stories for the newspapers and these were well received by his reading public, he never
planned on publishing his stories as a volume of short stories. He said in a letter to his aunt
4
Edith Macdonald: “I am running a series of Anglo-Indian social stories: - ‘Plain Tales from
the Hills.’ I enclose some samples. They ain’t [sic] worth publishing in book form but lots of
people have written for them to be so treated. However I don’t” (4 December 1886; Kipling
1991: 141; emphasis in original). However, his first volume of short stories Plain Tales from
the Hills (1888) would play a large role in his writing career since after its publication in
1888, it brought him not only critical approval, but also started his career as a published
writer, as he noted in a later letter to Margaret Mackail: “the royalty of my Plain Tales is
bringing me in £300 a year” (11 February 1889; Kipling 1991: 286). This financial
independence and positive approval enabled him to pursue an independent writing career.
Although these short stories were important for his early career and show an affinity to native
and colonial life that has laid the foundation for his later successes, both as a thematic
foundation and in narrative style, still these short stories have not been studied so extensively
as his popular poetry and novels.
A main theme in Kipling’s early short stories is the way in which he depicts the male
and female parts of colonial society, often depicting them with certain flaws that create the
action. This adds a dimension of reality. The main focus of this MA thesis will be to describe
how Kipling depicts the British colonisers in everyday life, and more importantly, how
Kipling positions his male and female characters in this society i.e. how are they portrayed,
where is their place in society and more importantly, does Kipling’s India correlate with
colonial British India of this time? The main question is if Kipling has helped create the male
and female stereotypes such as the hill station flirt or the idealised civil servant, that are now
being used to read his stories. These stereotypes have given him the “reputation of being a
misogynist” (Sen 2000: 17) for example, because of his depiction of women such as Mrs
Hauksbee and Mrs Reiver. In the same way his character Strickland has also given him the
5
reputation of idealising the British civil servant, correlating with the views of the British to
what a good civil servant should be.
1. Background to research
One of the main reasons for this analysis of the depiction of men and women in Kipling’s
short stories is, that not much research has been done on this topic. Kipling’s early short
stories, especially the collection Plain Tales from the Hills (1888) were the stories that
brought him critical acclaim and showed his skill as a writer. As is said in different reviews
by his contemporaries as can be read in the reviews in Kipling: The Critical Heritage where
Andrew Lang positively reviews Plain Tales from the Hills: “Mr. Kipling’s tales really are of
an extraordinary charm and fascination, not to all readers no doubt, but certainly to many
men” (Lang (1889) 1971: 47). Yet little research has been done on this theme in these stories.
Some analyses brings some short stories together, but usually this was done in the context of
the colonial and post-colonial analysis. It would appear that his early short stories have never
been analysed for how Kipling wrote about men and women in these short stories. Within
Kipling’s male characters, his soldiers have been studied extensively, however, not much
analysis was done on the ordinary civil servant or even the common civilian in his short
stories. Therefore, my analysis on Kipling’s male characters will focus on Kipling’s civil
servant and will forego his soldiers.
Secondly, it seems that when male and female characters in these stories have been
discussed, that they have been considered within the stereotypical categories common for that
time: the colonial women were either docile wives or femmes fatales while their husbands
worked hard in the plains stations. The men were depicted as hard-working servants of the
British Empire who taught the British values in India, not only to their government but to the
native Indians themselves. Since people analysed Kipling’s work according to these male and
female stereotypes and as he was one of the first to write about colonial India, these
6
stereotypes were frequently used in literature on colonial India and therefore could be also
easily applied to all literature dealing with this topic. As much as “[the] British authors of
[Kipling’s] period were deeply concerned with the position of the Englishwoman in India”
(Greenberger 1969: 28), it seems that this theme of the depiction of the Englishwoman in
India has not been adequately analysed by contemporary critics of Kipling’s work, since they
tend to hold on to these stereotypes of the docile wife or the femme fatale. I disagree with this
assumption of stereotypes. To me it seems that Kipling was able to write about colonial India
by creating characters of a more ambiguous nature, since the characters of Mrs Hauksbee and
Strickland, are more than just a femme fatale and a civil servant showing the British values.
This ambiguity has not been addressed fully to my opinion.
The third aspect of my thesis is how Kipling has depicted power in these stories. Most
critical analyses on Kipling’s use of power have mainly focused on the power relations
between the British coloniser and the colonised native Indians in the framework of colonial
and post-colonial studies. However, little research has been done about the power relations
between the colonisers themselves, and more specifically between them male and female
colonisers. The British were actually a small community compared to the rest of colonial
India. Therefore the social interactions within this small community would have resulted in
friction caused by the power relations. Kipling’s early short stories give us insight in this
community and its expression of power. A fourth strand to my examination is the question of
the location in which these struggles take place: power relations are depicted differently in the
plains than they are in the hills of Simla, as are the methods used to gain that power.
To sum up, the main reasons for this investigation are connected to the social context
of these short stories and the society they depict. My research suggests that underlying ideas
connected the stories in terms of social life depicted in the plains and hill stations. Therefore
differences may also be seen between men and women and the place they take in this society.
7
2. Literature Review
The Letters of Rudyard Kipling, edited by Thomas Pinney, shows the correspondence Kipling
had with several people in England while he was in India. These are an appropriate source for
this analysis, since they can suggest Kipling’s own points of view on the stories and on
British society in India. Volume 1 contains the letters written from 1872 to 1889, which are
those written when he wrote Plain Tales from The Hills. Kipling did not say much to his
correspondents about Plain Tales from the Hills, while other stories such as The Story of the
Gadsbys were mentioned. It appears that he did not believe that Plain Tales from the Hills
would be a literary success in the beginning since when he wrote to his aunt Edith Macdonald
he remarked: “I am running a series of Anglo-Indian social stories: - ‘Plain Tales from the
Hills.’ I enclose some samples. They ain’t [sic] worth publishing in book form but lots of
people have written for them to be so treated. However I don’t” (4 December 1886; Kipling
1991: 141; emphasis in original). Kipling’s letters give a vast amount information about his
views on India, its culture and its inhabitants which allows us to deduce Kipling’s own
opinions, even if not expressed openly in these letters.
The introduction to the Oxford World Classic’s edition of Plain Tales from the Hills
(2009) by Andrew Rutherford discusses the different plains stations and placing them in
contrast with the hill stations, more specifically Simla. Stations in these days were not to be
seen as a railway station, but were also the locations in this country where most of the British
community was present. This was the place where people governed the surrounding areas.
This contrast between plains and hill stations is made on several levels, such as the climate,
demography, and the atmosphere these stations had, going from the stressful atmosphere of
the plain stations to the entertaining and soothing atmosphere of Simla, giving a context to the
stories.
8
Jan Montefiore’s Rudyard Kipling (2007) in the series “Writers and their work”
divides Kipling’s work into several themes and then applies these themes to several of his
works. It is an interesting way to show the evolution of a writer, since Montefiore also shows
the evolution in Kipling’s writing. In the chapter “Being a Man” Montefiore discusses the
theme of manhood in Kipling’s work which is not as straightforward as other critics have
thought: “The definition of Kipling’s ideal of ‘being a man’ is a complex matter. Virginia
Woolf’s statement that Kipling has ‘not a spark of the woman in him’ is uncharacteristically
crude and misleading” (Montefiore 2007: 66). She notes that although Kipling’s writing
shows some anti-feminism at certain points, he was aware that “the all-male worlds evoked
seem to need a female presence mainly to define themselves against, and/or to escape from”
(Montefiore 2007: 67). Montefiore also sees the female characters as being either femme
fatales or caring mother figures for the men. There is no view that a woman in Kipling’s
fiction might be an equally complex or even more complex than a man.
The book The British Image of India (1969) by Allen J. Greenberger focuses on the
literature of imperialism in the period 1880 to 1960. He divides this substantial timeframe into
three periods in which the first, from 1880 to 1910, will be most useful for this analysis. His
analysis of the British colonial mentality in India is based on the literature written in this
period as well as historical sources. This first chapter “The Era of Confidence” shows the
main feeling of the British self-image. He describes this era in three section: “the British SelfImage”, “The Indian Scene” and eventually concluding in “Anglo-Indian relations”. He draws
heavily from Kipling’s short stories to discuss his theses on how the men and women in the
Anglo-Indian society are perceived and how they perceive themselves. However, some
characteristics that he attributes to Anglo-Indian men and women do not correlate with
Kipling’s main recurring characters: Strickland and Mrs Hauksbee. Greenberger maintains
that the Anglo-Indians rejected the Indian ways and were not interested in them, which
9
contrasts strongly with Strickland. He also maintains that Kipling’s women are only described
negatively, which is not the case for Mrs Hauksbee, whom Kipling admires. In the same way
Greenberger does not consider the different power relations between men and women, or ask
whether this was connected with their locations e.g. the hills or the plains.
In the article ‘Three Ways of Going Wrong: Kipling, Conrad, Coetzee’ (2000),
Douglas Kerr analyses colonial literature and tries to find the moment in which certain
characters actually go wrong. He suggests that things go wrong for the colonizer when he or
she (but mostly a he), “wilfully [steps] beyond the safe limits of decent everyday society”
(Kerr 2000: 18). These characters are punished in those stories as a warning for the readers to
not engage in native culture too deeply. This article also shows us how the English colonizers
should behave by showing how they transgress these boundaries. The “outlaw” (Kerr 2000:
19) is necessary since he gives the law-abiding colonizers knowledge of the natives without
having to transgress those boundaries themselves. On the other hand the outlaw needs the
law-abiding colonizers as well since they reconnect him with the British culture that he has
lost in the process of being immersed in native culture. This article helps understand the
interactions that civil servants have with natives. The theoretical framework that this article
creates from the examples of Kipling’s ‘Beyond the Pale’ (1888) and ‘To be Filed for
Reference’ (1888), Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899) and Coetzee’s Waiting for the
Barbarians (1980) can be used to interpret the careful line that some male characters are
walking between getting information by transgressing the cultural boundaries but not
succumbing to this culture and falling from social grace.
The article ‘Gendering (Anglo) India: Rudyard Kipling and the Construction of
Women’ (2000) by Indrani Sen analyses how Kipling portrays women. She discusses
historical elements that may have influenced Kipling’s depiction e.g. the Women’s
Movement. The main question she poses is whether Kipling sustains the literary prototypes of
10
women common at that time or if he deviates from these. She also places this in a historical
perspective by looking at the social condition of Anglo-Indian women, linking this to the hill
stations where they lived most of the time they were in India, while their husbands went to the
plains stations to work for the British Administration. She concludes that Kipling does place
women into a certain category in his short stories, but also deviates from these prototypes,
giving some female characters such qualities that they are unable to be placed in only one
category. The most obvious example of this is Mrs Hauksbee. However, a point that seems
problematic to me is that Sen only sees Kipling’s female characters as a counterpoint to
“Kipling’s valorisation of the male coloniser” (Sen 2000: 14; emphasis in original). I cannot
agree with this, since this would mean that Kipling would only show his female characters
negatively. Granted, most of them are flirtatious, but if one seeks the motivation for their
flirtations, different outcomes may appear. I intend to argue that this difference in motivation
adds to the ambiguity that defines Kipling’s women.
In Rudyard Kipling: A New Appreciation (1945) Hilton Brown draws on the
knowledge of Kipling’s sister Alice. His chapter on Kipling’s time in India is helpful for
corroborating material in Kipling’s letters, and with the view of India that Kipling uses as a
backdrop to his short stories. Brown also discusses masculinity in Kipling’s writing, but not
Kipling’s depiction of womanhood.
Angus Wilson’s biography The Strange Ride of Rudyard Kipling (1977) takes a more
objective look at his life and works. Wilson has an interest in Kipling’s depiction of the
women in his short stories, and gives most of his attention to Mrs Hauksbee. Wilson also does
not follow other writers in assuming that Kipling’s female characters are only a
“counterpoint” (cf. Sen 2000: 14) or an opposite (cf. Montefiore 2007: 67) to his male
characters.
11
Roger Lancelyn Green’s Kipling: The Critical Heritage is a collection of reviews and
essays written about Kipling’s work by his contemporaries. Here most writers give their
opinion of Kipling’s depiction of women, specifically Mrs. Hauksbee, showing that she struck
a chord with Kipling’s readers and that it was very common to have an opinion on her and on
the way she behaved.
‘British Society in India under the East India Company’ (1997) by P.J. Marshall gives
useful contextual background on British society as a whole in India; the men; and the
expectations of how men and women were expected to behave in India at this time, and how
this small British community presented and maintained itself in this vast colony. The time of
the East India Company might have been long gone when Kipling arrived, but it seems that
the way society maintained itself had not changed. The figures Marshall gives range from the
18th century but do go up to the 1860’s, which were only 20 years away from the time that
Kipling started writing. In addition, Kipling was born in 1865, so his parents might still have
been influenced by this society. Marshall even states that, “[t]he British community in India
had certain very obvious peculiarities that remained constant throughout its history” (Marshall
1997: 90). This leads to believe that the main elements that defined the British society in India
were present up to the moment of Indian independence.
‘In Search of the British Indian in British India: White Orphans, Kipling’s Kim, and
Class in Colonial India’ (2004) by Teresa Hubel mostly analyses the concept of class and race
in India with Kipling’s Kim (1901) as an example. However, she does provide a theoretical
and historical framework on the idea of class and race, making the point that there must be a
purity in the British bloodlines. Any tainted English blood will make them lose authority. This
also concerns Kipling’s early short stories since this concept of class and race purity is a
recurring theme.
12
‘Kipling’s Women’ (1919) by Jessie B. Sherwood is an example of how Kipling’s
contemporaries saw his depiction of women. As most of Kipling’s critics, Sherwood also
defines Kipling’s female characters either as being a docile wife or a femme fatale. Thus
coming to the conclusion that Kipling’s women are describe mostly in a negative light. I
cannot agree with this assumption, since I believe that Kipling’s depiction is not that rigid as
Sherwood makes readers believe. To my opinion there an ambiguity in Kipling’s female
characters that they are not able to be categorised that easily or that negatively.
3. Methodology
The methods that I will be using for his analysis are various but come together in a main focus
on the text and on the historical background on this text. I will be taking a literature historical
approach to this work, placing certain textual elements in their historical context in order to
how these historical elements are present in his early short stories and whether Kipling
followed the mentality of his contemporaries on how men and women were to behave in this
colonial society. In addition, the postcolonial literature that is written on Kipling’s depiction
of men and women has to be taken into account, since these often postulate stereotypical
views of him and his literature that should be modified. This analysis will use Kipling’s texts
as a basis and will use close reading and textual analysis.
4. Investigation
4.1.The Indian background: the hills, the plains and their interaction
Kipling’s Plain Tales From the Hills (1888), and most of his other collections of early short
stories, have the backdrop of colonial India during the reign of Queen Victoria. In these
stories a distinctive feature of the characters’ reactions and state of mind is that they are
influenced by the area in which they are placed. In Plain Tales from the Hills, two distinctive
13
areas both have a different impact on the characters: the hills and the plains. Even the title
reveals this: “there is also a suppressed pun in the title on the opposition between Plains and
Hills. This opposition, geographical, social, and psychological, was a major factor in the life
of British India in Kipling’s day” (Rutherford 2009a: xii). It seems that Kipling tried to
reflect the idea of the plains as being a place where people had to deal with the negative sides
of the country, such as heat, disease, riots and mental strain and stress. The hills tended to be
seen as a place for positive sides of life: life is enjoyed here in contrast with the harshness of
the plains. This division that he creates between the plains and the hills appears in his letters
from this period, as well as in his fiction. This chapter will identify how Kipling portrayed
these two areas. This will contribute to the analysis of the men and women in the successive
chapters since it seems that the power structure, the ways of gaining power and the ways of
social interaction for Kipling’s characters tend to be influenced by the geographical context in
which they are presented.
4.1.1. The hills: a place of comfort and enjoyment in life and literature
In Plain Tales from the Hills (1888) the hill stations play an important role. Most hill stations
“were originally intended as sanatoria, only gradually acquiring, as news of their advantages
reached the scorched plains, status as pleasure resorts too” (Morris 1972: 53). They are
depicted as the places where the British social elite concentrated in, mostly to take a rest from
the difficulties they face governing an empire. Although many of these hill stations were
present at the time, Kipling focused his hill station stories to one specific hill station: Simla,
which was “[a] resort town in the Punjab, 7000 feet up in the lower Himalayas and the seat of
government in India for the summer” (Kipling 1991: 40). The weather was the most
influential factor in forming the contrast between the hill stations and the plains stations, as
14
the hills tended to be cooler in the summer months, in which temperatures could rise to
extremes. Andrew Rutherford adds to this, saying that there were several advantages to Simla:
The only relief from the heat, discomfort and diseases of the Plains, was a
leave spent in the Hills – that is to say, at one of the Hill Stations built at a
sufficient altitude to provide cool, pleasant conditions comparable with those at
Home. […] As this implies, it was not uncommon for married men to send
their womenfolk to the Hills for more extended periods, for the sake of their
health, though the men themselves could join them only for limited periods,
unless they secured Government posts which guaranteed a more extended stay.
(Rutherford 2009a: xii-xiii)
This extract tends to give important information not only on the hill stations, the reasons why
people would go to those hill stations. It is remarkable that these reasons are also used as the
themes that would be the centre Kipling’s short stories placed in those hill stations and more
specifically, Simla: “[Kipling] devoted every spare moment in Simla to the study of his
fellow-men as the raw material for his books” (Birkenhead 1978: 76). It already shows that
the short stories in Plain Tales from the Hills dealing with life in the hills were often
concerned with the subject of health or illness, as well as the social life of the Anglo-Indian
colonisers or citizens:
The whole ambiance of the place [Simla] might have been created to slake the
appetite of a young writer hungry for material – the grass widows, the faded
garrison hacks staking all on a last fling for a husband, the ambitious young
officers and officials eager for advancement, ingratiating themselves with their
superiors, the furtive adulteries, the pathetic suicides, the provincial femmes
fatales – it was a rich seam to work. (Birkenhead 1978: 82; emphasis in
original)
15
These elements are documented Kipling’s letters as well from when he lived and
worked for the Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore and The Pioneer Allahabad and went to
the hills during his leave, to Simla. When he mentions Simla in his letters, this is usually done
in the context of himself or a colleague being ill or that the conditions in the hills would
strengthen physical and mental health as is mentioned in a letter to Cormell Price: “My
[Kipling’s] chief has broken down with fever and goes away to Simla for a month” (1 June
1883; Kipling 1991: 35-36). This is also referred to in several of the short stories since after
Aurelian McGogging has had a bad case of aphasia, the doctor advises him to “[g]o up into
the Hills for three months, and don’t think about it” (‘The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin’
Kipling 2009: 85). In the same way Mrs Landys-Haggert “had come up to Simla early in the
season for the good of her health” (‘On the Strength of a Likeness’ Kipling 2009: 219).
The other use of Simla in his letters is mostly concerned with the social gatherings that
he attended and what he thought of the Anglo-Indian society there. In a letter to his aunt Edith
Macdonald: “The month was a round of picnics, dances, theatricals and so on – and I flirted
with the bottled up energy of a year on my lips” (14 August 1883; Kipling 1991: 39). Kipling
had even become part of this small social circle in Simla, indulging in gossip about certain
events that went on during those celebrations and the people concerning them. This element
of gossip is central to the activities of Mrs Hauksbee and how she, and other colonial women
in Kipling’s short stories, also immerse themselves in this world of gossip and backtalk and
use it to their advantage. Still, gossip is considered quite dangerous in this small society since
it can damage one’s reputation, even if the gossip is a lie. The narrator of the short story ‘A
Friend’s Friend’ (1887) came to realise this: “I wonder […] whether I shall live down the
infamous stories Jevon set afloat about my manners and customs between the first and ninth
waltz of the Afghan Ball. They stick closer than cream” (Kipling 2009: 200).
16
These social gatherings are the core around which the Simla short stories are created.
However, these social events can be quite ambiguous, since on the surface they seem to be
simply social and entertainment to the Anglo-Indian inhabitants. But if one looks closer at the
interactions at these gatherings, they are a social ordeal: follow the rules and you would be
fine, but do one thing wrong and gossip would destroy your carefully built reputation. They
show that Indrani Sen’s assessment of social India is incomplete when she claims Kipling
used these stories with the point of “effectively mythologising Simla and hill-station culture
as the site of gaiety and frothy amusement” (Sen 2000: 16). Social gatherings in the hill
stations might be as hazardous to one’s reputation as the plains stations might be to one’s
health. This adds to the ambiguity between surface appearance and reality that is found in the
hill station stories. Kipling’s stories “seem […] to catch the cheap surface excitement of the
hill stations, and the power that lay below” (Morris 1972: 56). Still, Simla had the attraction
of being an invigorating place, as is clear from one of Kipling’s letters to his aunt, Edith
Macdonald: “The dullness [of a plain station] is something hideous after all the bustle of
Simla, but I have come back with a healthy appetite for work which prevents me feeling it as
much as might be” (14 August 1883; Kipling 1991: 39).
An important element in the Simla stories is that they always have a woman at the
centre of the story, either as an important factor bringing about the action in the story or as the
protagonist of those stories. How these women are perceived in these stories will be further
analysed in the next chapter of this thesis. After this information on the hill stations, the
conclusion might be made that the depiction of the women in these short stories, as either a
docile wife or a hill station flirt, may depend on the location that they predominantly inhabit.
The hill stations already show that the location also influences how women are perceived by
their fellow Englishmen and –women, since they have to act accordingly during certain social
gatherings to be defined as good or bad i.e. a femme fatale. The actions that these women
17
undertake in these hill stations and these social gatherings may define them further either
making society accept them or ostracise them. The actions undertaken by this small British
society against a person, either accepting them or shunning them, must therefore be
interpreted as trying to protect this small British society, therefore also using more subtle
means to get this than the plains stations.
4.1.2. The plains: heat, disease and stress
In the same way that the hill stations are places of rest and entertainment, the government
stations in the plains are the opposite end of the spectrum, where rest is hard to find and the
hardship civil servants endure is a predominant factor. The short stories located in the plains
show the reader how terrible the conditions were, but also how the government had a difficult
time governing a large colonial empire with relatively few men on the ground. Since it seems
that there might have been a vast amount of Indians in these plains, while there were only
very little Englishmen in comparison:
The Plains were where teeming millions of Indians lived out their lives; where
troops were stationed in cantonments not for active service,[…] but as
garrisons to maintain internal security; and where British administrators toiled
year-in, year-out, in an almost obsessive adherence to the gospel of work and
their own Platonic ideals of good government. In the Punjab and North India
generally the climate was agreeable enough from October to March, but from
April to September the excessive heat made life almost unendurable.
(Rutherford 2009a: xii)
Kipling must have experienced this, since he worked for the Civil and Military Gazette which
was based in Lahore, which is “the capital of the Punjab” (Rutherford 2009a: xv). His letters
on the situation in the plains stations tend to centre around three main elements. First of all,
18
the difficulty of governing an empire in the plains is clear, since there were different types of
Indians that often did not agree with one another or even resisted English rule. On more than
one occasion Kipling wrote about the tensions between the different natives. Maybe the best
example is a letter he wrote to Margaret Burne-Jones:
Let me turn to the second part of your letter with its enquiries about “natives.”
When you write “native” who do you mean? The Mahommedan who hates the
Hindu; the Hindu who hates the Mohammedan; the Sikh who loathes both; or
the semi-anglicized product of our Indian colleges who is hated and despised
by Sikh, Hindu, and Mohammedan. Do you mean the Punjabi who will have
nothing to do with the Bengali; the Mahrattha to whom the Punjabi’s tongue is
as incomprehensible as Russian to me; the Parsee who controls the whole trade
of Bombay and ranges himself on all questions as an Englishman […] Which
one of all the thousand conflicting tongues, races, nationalities and people
between the Khaibar Pass and Ceylon do you mean? (28 November 1885;
Kipling 1991: 97-98)
This emphasises the difficulty of governing a country that did not even have a unified
population. The struggle to contain these tensions between various races and people to govern
an empire must have been highly stressful for the English civil servants on its own, to keep
everything going on an everyday basis since they were only, as F.A. Steel reveals, “the mere
fraction of white faces responsible for the safety of those millions of dark ones” (quoted in
Greenberger 1969: 22). Added to this comes additional mental strain if tension got too high
and a revolt or a riot created even more problems for these civil servants. There is a feeling of
tension, either between the British and the Indian populations and between the different
factions of the Indian natives themselves. This can be seen in Kipling’s story ‘His Chance in
19
Life’ (1887) in which Michele D’Cruze has to put down a riot after race feelings between
Moslems and Hindus (cf. Kipling 2009: 59-64).
Secondly, there was the constant fear of disease, caused by the tropical conditions (e.g.
malaria or dysentery), but also the mental breakdown of the men that had to work in those
plains stations and might work too hard, since a large amount of Kipling’s characters in the
hill stations tend to have one of the two. This may be linked to the climate of India: “[w]here
the climate does not provide a harsh enough background for the labours of the British,
diseases like typhoid fever and cholera are called in to make things more difficult”
(Greenberger 1969: 40). An example of this in Kipling’s stories might be ‘A Bank Fraud’
(1887) where Reginald “Reggie” Burke’s assistant Riley becomes gravely ill from the effects
that the climate has on his lungs and eventually dies (cf. Kipling 2009: 137-143) or in ‘By
Word of Mouth’ (1887) where Doctor Dumoise’s wife first dies of typhoid, since “[n]early
every household in India knows that Doctors are very helpless in typhoid. The battle must be
fought out between Death and the Nurses minute by minute and degree by degree” (Kipling
2009: 230). At the end of the story Doctor Dumoise is called to a cholera stricken region,
knowing that he might die because he wishes to join his wife and “[e]leven days later he had
joined his Memsahib [his wife]” (Kipling 2009: 233; emphasis in original).
The third element is the excruciating heat of the plains, which is an omnipresent factor
both in the stories and in reality, as Kipling himself says in a letter to Cormell Price: “I
wonder if you could realize the utter desolation of a ‘plains Station’ in the months of August
and September […] it is 107° in the shade and 78° on the grass at nights” (29 August 1883;
Kipling 1991: 41). Although these temperatures might have been exaggerated, these extreme
conditions do tend to give a rather bleak outlook on life in the plains for the British civil
servant: “Though several early writers felt obliged to explain that not all of India is hot and
steamy […] the basic image of the climate of the country was one of fantastic heat. A climate
20
in which it would be difficult for any Briton to work up to his capacity – this was India”
(Greenberger 1969: 40). In most of Kipling’s stories the heat of the plains station is always
mentioned, either as being the cause of some horrible event, such as a mental breakdown, or
as an explanatory reason to avoid working too hard: “At any rate, he [Aurelian McGoggin]
worked too much, […] till the Doctor had to warn him that he was overdoing it. No man can
toil eighteen annas in the rupee in June without suffering” (‘The Conversion of Aurelian
McGoggin’; Kipling 2009: 83). However, this idea of working oneself to exhaustion is
admired in those times, since “[i]t is far more admirable to sacrifice oneself in the doing of
one’s chosen task” (Greenberger 1969: 21), than to decrease productivity to look after your
own physical and/or mental health.
These elements make a contrast with the hill stations, which do not have these
elements, and are more inviting than the hostile plains stations. Another contrast between
Kipling’s hill and plains stories is that the plains stories have a male protagonist or character
that tends to be the main focus of the story. Kipling used this character to show his idea of the
qualities that civil servants in the plains stations should have, and what vices they should not
have. This analysis of the plains will prove helpful, since it tend to be the dangers discussed in
this chapter, that tend to make or break a person both physically and mentally.
4.1.3. The locations of the stories
On the whole, it seems that Kipling used the same technique for his depiction of the hill and
plains stations as he did with his depiction of women and men in his short stories. On the
surface the locations contrast with each other: Simla being a place of enjoyment while the
plains are only characterised by difficulties for those who serve there, causing a strain on
these people, either mentally or physically. However, when one analyses these locations more
deeply, the contrast lines tend to blur and the whole becomes more and more ambiguous,
21
since it seems that Simla and other hill stations also come with their own set of dangers, the
social dangers of gossip and ostracising. In addition to this, work is not the focus in these hill
stations, whereas pleasure is, which creates a more ambiguous situation for the people living
in the plain stations: it is seen as a place of enjoyment, but they had to watch what they said or
did. In the plains stations on the other hand, their negative focus, is diminished by strongly
positive ideas and ideals held by the characters, since here we find the hard-working British
civil servants who works so hard that they risk their own physical and/or mental health. The
hill station stories mostly tend to see women as the core of the story, either as protagonist or
goal, while the plains station stories mostly encompass a male oriented area, focusing on the
difficulties of governing the native Indians, where male protagonists are at the heart of the
narrative.
4.2.Kipling’s depiction of women
Many critics of Rudyard Kipling’s work see his depiction of women to be quite negative on
the whole since he tends to depict them either as being very docile and caring for their
husband or on the other hand being seen as flirts that tend to deserve the term of femme fatale
(cf. Sherwood 1919). Therefore, Kipling has often been said to have been anti-women: “[i]t
has, of course, long been a critical commonplace that Kipling’s writings are anti-woman and
are especially scathing about the memsahib. Certainly, there is an indictment in his earlier
writings of all women, Anglo-Indian as well as metropolitan English” (Sen 2000: 13;
emphasis in original). Indrani Sen goes even further and says in her essay on Kipling’s
depiction of women in India, that he has a “reputation of being a misogynist” (Sen 2000: 17).
I cannot agree with this assertion, since many of Kipling’s stories show an entirely different
image. In opposition to Sen, I wish to state that it is not true that, “serving as a counterpoint
to the negative stereotypes about women is Kipling’s valorisation of the male coloniser” (Sen
22
2000: 14; emphasis in original), since this would mean that Kipling’s women are only used to
show how much better the men were. To my opinion, Sen forgets what Allen J. Greenberger
did not forget: “Kipling actually had fair first-hand knowledge of what he was writing about”
(Greenberger 1969: 28). Montefiore strengthens this claim: “The young Kipling writes,
notoriously, as a knowing insider of colonial India” (Montefiore 2007: 17). Since he lived
both in the hill stations and the plain stations, he knew every aspect of the British society in
colonial India: the negative sides, but also the positive. In addition, his depiction of women
does not conform with the conventions on how a woman should behave in this British Indian
society. Kipling’s female characters are not all docile women who keep to their own
households and support absent husbands. In this chapter, my goal is to show that not all of
Kipling’s female characters and/or protagonists can be categorized as being either a docile
wife or a hill station flirt, because Kipling has made his depiction of women more
complicated and ambiguous. The main example for this study will be the character of Mrs
Hauksbee, since she is the only recurring female protagonist in Kipling’s short stories, and
because she is influential in the depiction of other women in the stories. I suggest that Kipling
saw her as important because through these different stories, Kipling was able to give
additional depth and complexity to her character. And maybe he used her complex attitude to
interpersonal relations between men and women as a counterpoint, not to his “valorisation of
the male coloniser” (Sen 200: 14; emphasis in original), but to the simplification of women
either being a docile and supporting wife or a hill station flirt.
4.2.1. Mrs Hauksbee: femme fatale, caring mother figure or something else?
4.2.1.1.A femme fatale?
Mrs Hauksbee is an important character in Kipling’s Indian short stories, since she is one of
only five characters in Kipling’s early Indian short stories from 1886 to 1888 who appears, or
23
is referenced to, in both Plain Tales from the Hills (1888) and Under the Deodars (1888). The
other recurring characters for this period are the policeman and secret agent Strickland and the
three soldiers Mulvaney, Otheris and Learoyd. Mrs Hauksbee is first presented to the reader
in a short story which Kipling wrote for the Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore called
‘Three and – an Extra’, which was published on 17 November 1886. In this story she is
depicted as being a femme fatale who openly flirts with the husband of a wife that has just lost
her child to disease, seemingly destroying his reputation, as a femme fatale might do. Mr
Cussack-Bremmil also mourned this loss, but because he felt unable to comfort his wife, there
was a distance between them: “Perhaps Bremmil ought to have comforted her. He tried to do
so, but the more he comforted the more Mrs. Bremmil grieved, and, consequently, the more
uncomfortable grew Bremmil” (Kipling 2009: 12). The harsh Indian environment, which I
have addressed in the previous chapter, does connect health and death closer to each other
than in Britain. Because of this, the Anglo-Indians were constantly faced with the possibility
of sudden loss, which might result in a stronger enjoyment of life, revealed in the various
balls and celebrations. However, in the first description of Mrs Hauksbee, there is some
ambiguity, since she is described quite neutrally, and with some reverence:
Mrs. Hauksbee appeared on the horizon; and where she existed was a fair chance
of trouble. At Simla her by-name was the ‘Stormy Petrel.’ She had won that title
five times to my own certain knowledge. She was a little, brown, thin, almost
skinny, woman with big, rolling, violet-blue eyes, and the sweetest manners in the
world. You had only to mention her name at afternoon teas for every woman in
the room to rise up and call her not blessed. She was clever, witty, brilliant, and
sparkling beyond most of her kind; but possessed many devils of malice and
mischievousness. (Kipling 2009: 12)
24
The ambiguity toward her contained in the poor opinion of her from the women in this AngloIndian society is contrasted to her appearance, and her character, which are strikingly positive.
However, her reputation does seem to be against her since during afternoon teas all women
seem to gossip about her and one can deduce that what is said, will not be that positive. These
opinions are only voiced by Kipling and never by any of his other characters, therefore he
might not have planned her to be such an important character from the beginning, and added
certain aspects of a femme fatale to begin with, only constructing ambiguity about this in
other stories as she became more interesting.
On the basis of only this short story, the reader’s opinion on Mrs. Hauksbee would be
negative, since she is flirting with Mr Cussack-Bremmil, a man who just lost his baby, for all
to see. This can be seen as damaging for all their reputations: Mrs Hauksbee will continue to
have her reputation of femme fatale, Mr Cussack-Bremmil will be seen as unfaithful to his
wife and Mrs Cussack-Bremmil would be a wife that could not keep her husband. Mrs
Hauksbee does not seem to care about the public opinion since her conduct is open to
everyone: “[s]he took no pleasure in hiding her captives. She annexed him publicly, and saw
that the public saw it” (Kipling 2009: 12). This supports Kipling’s earlier assertion that people
criticised Mrs Hauksbee socially, and would appear evidence that Kipling’s female characters
were “the literary stereotype of the station (often the hill-station) flirt, who signifies female
moral ‘disorderliness’” (Sen 2000: 15). Such a disruptive and divisive presence in the British
colonies would have threatened the stability of a minority, since “[the] community [of a hill
station] was very small. It would be hard to live in it and prosper if you did not fit in” (Wilson
1977: 98). The station communities were a closed circle of people, and all factors threatening
this security would be ostracised:
This idea of ‘the shared intimacy within a closed circle’ is one of the keys not
only to an understanding of Kipling, but to this whole period. It is in keeping with
25
the feeling that the whole of the British community in India – at least those who
were the ‘right kind of people’ – were like the members of the same public school
class or private club. This gave them a feeling of security which could be found
only within the group. It also meant that anyone who did not completely follow
the dictates of the group had to be driven out for the safety of the group.
(Greenberger 1969: 28)
Mrs Hauksbee is judged by gossip, but she will never be openly driven out of Simla, since the
British must set an example of unity and unquestioned behaviour to their Indian subjects. To
avoid an appearance of a loss of control, the Simla residents attempt to figuratively drive Mrs
Hauksbee out of their community by gossiping about her. However, Mrs Hauksbee resists this
treatment since she has the same reputation during all the short stories in which she appears,
yet she does not leave this Anglo-Indian society. Her ostracism from this group actually gives
her power, since she can use this fixed impression about her as a hill station flirt and a femme
fatale to manipulate the social rules that govern this small society. By being at the periphery
of female hill station society, since only the women gossip, she gains power, knowledge and
independence. In ‘The Rescue of Pluffles’, first published in the Lahore Civil and Military
Gazette 19 November 1886: “she played her game alone, knowing what people would say of
her” (Kipling 2009: 45). However, she does usually use this gained power for good, helping
men advance in society or to keep them away from the real femmes fatales such as Mrs
Reiver, about whom I will talk later.
Mrs Hauksbee uses her power in ‘Three and – an Extra’ (1886) to distract Mr
Cussack-Bremmil, to give him something else to think about, as part to resuscitate both his
and his wife’s life and to show his wife, who is trapped in her mourning, that her husband has
already taken up his life again. Mrs Cussack-Bremmil could be seen “as a ‘tragic exile’, as a
kind of victim of the colonial enterprise subjected to enforced idleness, the harsh climate,
26
disease and the familiar sorrows of colonial motherhood, such as the scattered family and the
frequent loss of children” (Sen 2000: 13; emphasis in original). The hill station gossip
operates positively in this short story as an awakening for Mrs Cussack-Bremmil to encourage
her to set aside her grief and to get on with her life as well: “some eight dear affectionate
lady-friends explained the situation at length to her in case she should miss the cream of it”
(Kipling 2009: 13). This shows how the women in the hill stations had a “shared intimacy
within a closed circle” (Greenberger 1969: 28), affection for one another up to a certain level,
as well as solidarity. It also shows that the women in this society need not only be femmes
fatales like Mrs Hauksbee, nor are they just docile wives since they do indulge in gossip:
ambiguity is present so that the women cannot be easily categorised.
This news from the council of friends does shake Mrs Cussack-Bremmil out of her
traumatic state and recreates her as a self-assured woman who wants to keep her husband. She
uses Mrs Hauksbee’s own weapons against her, but her position is morally correct. Mrs
Cussack-Bremmil is not a real femme fatale, but more an attractive woman among familiar
friends, since the way Kipling tends to describe her does tend to create this image. He does
contrast her with Mrs Hauksbee when he reveals that Mrs Cussack-Bremmil “had not much
heart for what she was going to do; but as she glanced at the long mirror she had the
satisfaction of knowing that she had never looked so well in her life” (Kipling 2009: 14). This
shows that she still feels sad and is not in the mood for the fun and frivolity of a ball, but she
has to do it now to retrieve her husband before he goes too far away and wishes to show her
husband what he already has at home. We have a different kind of female protagonist in Mrs
Cussack-Bremmil, since she abandons the role of the docile and devoted wife but also rejects
the role of femme fatale to become a woman to be proud of and to admire.
The location of the encounter between Mrs Hauksbee and Mrs Cussack-Bremmil is at
a ball, an appropriate site for social combat since all of Simla’s society is present. Just like
27
Mrs Hauksbee, Mrs Cussack-Bremmil now gains the attention of a satisfyingly large group of
people, both male and female. This number of attentive men is accounted for by “a numerical
sex imbalance among the white population in India so that even at its highest point men
outnumbered women 3 to 1” (Sen 2000: 13) and later still “[t]he 1901 census calculated that
the proportion of females to males was 384 to 1000” (Marshall 1997: 90). Even Kipling
remarked this imbalance in one of his letters to his aunt Edith Macdonald that “[there] are 9
men and 2 ladies in the station” (14 August 1883; Kipling 1991: 39). This adds another aspect
to Mrs Cussack-Bremmil’s return to society: it is her social duty to be present at these balls
since there are simply so few white women there. Mrs Hauksbee’s last words in this story
show that she understands very well what has happened, and her own position in the balance
of power: “Take my word for it, the silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it needs a
very clever woman to manage a fool” (Kipling 2009: 15). This can be interpreted in two
ways: either Mrs Cussack-Bremmil is the clever woman, since she regains her husband, or the
clever woman is Mrs Hauksbee who has managed this entire affair to get Mrs CussackBremmil out of her traumatic state and her marriage back in order. The latter seems most
likely since Mrs Hauksbee’s ‘tactics’ here are similar to those in the other short stories in
which she appears. However, if this is the case, then her first appearance is far more than
being a hill station flirt, since her motives are revealed to have an additional dimension.
4.2.1.2. A caring mother figure?
In most of the other short stories in which Mrs Hauksbee is the protagonist, she does not act
as the hill station flirt. In these stories she appears more as a caring mother figure for men
temporarily in Simla on leave from the plains stations. She acts as a teacher or mentor
showing these men the routines of hill station life, but also warns them from the dangers of
this hill station life, such as the hill station flirts. She may appear to enact the role of a hill
28
station flirt on occasion, but the reader soon realises that her behaviour is different and it is
just part of her maternal role to protect her protégés and their careers from other hill station
flirts.
In ‘The Rescue of Pluffles’ (1886) a subaltern who is to be married, is on leave in
Simla and has been captured by the hill station flirt Mrs Reiver. Mrs Hauksbee rescues him,
since Mrs Reiver is no good for any young man: “[t]here was no honesty about Mrs. Reiver;
nothing but selfishness. And at the beginning of the season poor little Pluffles fell a prey to
her” (Kipling 2009: 44). Mrs Reiver is an example of “the destructive female sexuality” (Sen
2000: 15) that Sen sees as one of the main powers of the hill station flirt. She is a real femme
fatale since she is a woman who hunts to capture and to dispose of prey as she wants, which is
already defined in her name which seems to come from the verb ‘to reave’: “rob (a person or
place) of something by force” (OED). Here it is Pluffles sense of self-esteem which has been
destroyed by Mrs Reiver’s demands. Pluffles, an officer of the Queen, “learned to fetch and
carry like a dog, and to wait like one, too, for a word from Mrs. Reiver” (Kipling 2009: 44),
which shows that he is incapable of seeing what his enslavement to Mrs Reiver is doing to
him, since he has forgotten his duty to his fiancée who is on her way to India for the wedding.
Pluffles’ behaviour endangers his status in this local white society, which he had already
endangered by his marriage: at the time “marriage for subalterns was frowned on, partly
because of their low pay, but more because they were expected to devote themselves
wholeheartedly to regimental life” (Rutherford 2009b: 258). In addition, Pluffles’ developing
reputation as a captive of Mrs Reiver would do him no good: in “keeping with the masculine
bias of this period, any man who chases women is no good. It is expected that a ‘hero’ [i.e. an
Englishman] will treat women respectfully, but he is not supposed to be particularly interested
in or to know a great deal about them” (Greenberger 1969: 13).
29
Mrs Hauksbee realises that this relationship will only end badly for Pluffles since Mrs
Reiver will not suffer from the affair. Therefore, she captures Pluffles with Mrs Reiver’s own
methods. Mrs Hauksbee acts as a hill station flirt for good reasons, but still suffers from it:
“People said shameful things about Mrs. Hauksbee. They did not know what she was playing
for” (Kipling 2009: 45). She gains Pluffles by using Mrs Reiver’s own ‘weapons’ against her:
where Mrs Reiver had undermined his feelings of self-respect, Mrs Hauksbee gave him
respect; and where Mrs Reiver ignored him, Mrs Hauksbee paid him attention, since “[t]he
boy must be caught; and the only way of catching him is by treating him well” (Kipling 2009:
46). Mrs Hauksbee acts as “a glamourous mother-figure who kindly but firmly puts her
protégés in their place […] to prise young innocents out of the hands of deathly, predatory
women” (Wilson 1977: 88). Kipling undermines the developing ambiguity of Mrs Hauksbee’s
motivation by having his narrator say, at the end of this story, “if anyone says anything more
than usually nasty about Mrs. Hauksbee, tell him the story of the Rescue of Pluffles” (Kipling
2009: 47).
This same caring nature is shown in ‘Kidnapped’ (1887), where Mrs Hauksbee saves
Peythroppe’s reputation by preventing him from marrying the undesirable Miss Castries, by
an arranged kidnapping. Miss Castries is of a mixed race, and thus unacceptable as part of this
small white British society, since it seems that “Simla was more caste-ridden than anywhere
else even in Anglo-India” (Mason 1972: 47). Kipling gives the reasons for her unacceptability
in terms that may suggest his disagreement with convention, since “[i]t was obviously absurd
that Peythroppe should marry her. The little opal-tinted onyx at the base of her finger-nails
said this plain as print” (Kipling 2009: 98). A very small sign “betray[s] her mixed blood”
(Sen 2000: 22). Mrs Hauksbee acts as she does because this marriage would destroy
Peythroppe’s reputation and career, and, we are intended to understand, would not do Miss
Castries or her family any good either. It does seem from the tone of the story that Kipling
30
intended to criticise putting the well-being of the group ahead of personal happiness. To the
white upper classes intermarriage causes “the fears of race and class pollution” (Sen 2000: 22)
which might destroy this close knit society:
The keystone to maintaining their position of leadership is not to be found in the
treatment of the Indians. It is, after all, in the English blood and the important
thing is to keep the blood ‘pure’. For this reason intermarriage is dangerous. […]
There is something of a contradiction in this feeling that, despite the emphasis on
pure blood, it is equally important to keep ‘culturally pure’. […] The strength of
the British lay in being British through and through. (Greenberger 1969: 15-16;
emphasis in original)
Mrs Hauksbee demonstrates considerable power in this intervention, since she was to arrange
a month’s leave for Peythroppe, and also the direction of the men who took him on a
supposed hunting trip to keep him from the marriage. Mrs Hauksbee has some power over
several government officials, still she does not abuse this power, but uses it when it is needed
for others, showing that she does not want to use the system to her own advantage, but only
uses it to sustain the social order that this society is built upon (cf. Hubel 2004: 229-233). She
also has the power to do this: “I believe firmly that, if Mrs. Hauksbee gave the order, the
whole Great Indian Administration would stand on its head” (Kipling 2009: 100).
There is a connection between having this power and being a caring mother figure
since they help those she deems suitable achieve good positions. The story ‘Consequences’
(1886) proves a point Kipling made in a letter to Margaret Burne-Jones, that “[i]n this country
every thing [sic] is done by personal influence” (28 November 1885; Kipling 1991: 100). In
this short story Mrs Hauksbee helps young Tarrion who “belonged to a regiment; but what he
really wanted was to escape from his regiment and live in Simla for ever and ever. […] So he
went up to Simla, and, because he was clever and amusing, he gravitated naturally to Mrs.
31
Hauksbee, who could forgive everything but stupidity” (Kipling 2009: 75). This idea of the
clever and amusing people, naturally gravitating to Mrs Hauksbee reinforces the effectiveness
of her influence. She helps Tarrion get the position he wants by the clever use of wrongly
delivered government papers that can into her hands accidentally. She does this to repay
Tarrion for arranging her invitation to a particular dance. While this is an acknowledgment for
what he has done for her, it is also a clever way of allowing her protégés to participate in the
bargain, in their own advancement, thus saving their pride. Tarrion’s cleverness allows him to
realise her effectiveness: “if Mrs. Hauksbee were twenty years younger and I her husband, I
should be Viceroy of India in fifteen years” (Kipling 2009: 79).
These separate elements of Mrs Hauksbee using her feminine skills and her mastery
of socio-political power come together in Under the Deodars (1888), more specifically in
‘The Education of Otis Yeere’ (1888). Here she wants to be useful and help Otis Yeere
become more successful by teaching him the necessary skills to rise up through the ranks of
the British Administration: “I [Mrs Hauksbee] will put him upon the straight road to
Knighthood, and everything else that a man values. The rest depends upon himself” (Kipling
1909: 14). She wishes to act as a “guide, philosopher, and friend” (Kipling 1909: 15) for Otis
Yeere and wishes to give him new confidence in his own abilities so he is able to gain an
good government position on his own. She does this by first attending to the outer appearance
and then the inner qualities. This goes well, but in the end he falls in love with her. Mrs
Hauksbee refuses these advances since this was not her goal.
Otis Yeere is a dim-witted character of no importance to the administration, only
serving in unimportant districts (cf. Kipling 1909: 20). He is “one of the rank and file who are
ground up in the wheels of the Administration; losing heart and soul, and mind and strength,
in the process” (Kipling 1909: 19). He is in the situation that Pluffles, Peythroppe and Tarrion
escaped from, and Mrs Hauksbee has set herself the Herculean task of getting him a good
32
administrative position. However, the way Sherwood interprets the ending, that “he is
completely crushed” (Sherwood 1919: 46), is a misinterpretation to my opinion, which I will
later expand on.
The way Mrs Hauksbee helps Otis Yeere is a development of the methods she used in
earlier stories. She addresses both Otis’ outward appearance and his inner mental state: “First,
my dear, I shall dress him properly. […] Secondly, after I have made him presentable, I shall
form his manners – his morals are above reproach” (Kipling 1909: 18). Mrs Hauksbee’s
priorities will improve the way people see Otis Yeere, thus generating more confidence in
him. Simla is a social world where outward appearance must conform to society’s
expectations of people who will be worth knowing or promoting. The new clothes give him “a
new stock of self-confidence” (Kipling 1909: 22). Still work has to be done since when one of
Otis Yeere’s superiors tells Otis that he will still avail to nothing, he apologises, which Mrs
Hauksbee sees as inappropriate for a man to do (cf. Kipling 1909: 23). She tells Otis Yeere
that those in the Administration did not get their jobs because of their qualities, but because
they had the courage to ask for a better position, thus making the individual more important
than the greater good of the empire and “it begins to look as if he [Kipling] approves of
empire-building not for the sake of empire so much as for the qualities which it develops in
the empire-builders” (Rutherford 1964: 185). Mrs Hauksbee is more concerned about
developing Otis Yeere’s qualities of confidence and self-respect, than choosing the best man
for the position. Thus maybe revealing a flaw in the British Administration.
Mrs Hauksbee does not flirt with Otis Yeere, it seems that, just like Tarrion, he
gravitated naturally towards her. Mrs Hauksbee even insists to her friend Mrs Mallowe that
the interaction will be absolutely platonic (cf. Kipling 1909: 14). Therefore the failure at the
end is not her fault, since Yeere misinterpreted her gesture of laying her hand on his shoulder
and telling him that she trusts him, but she realises that “it was not strictly Platonic, but it was
33
Policy” (Kipling 1909: 26). When he wishes to take her back to his plain station, Mrs
Hauksbee realises the misinterpretation, cuts the connection and thinks her education has
failed. He sends one last poem to her, which her friend Mrs Mallowe interprets correctly,
unlike Mrs Hauksbee: “He clears you [Mrs Hauksbee] completely and – ahem – I should
think by this, that he has cleared completely too” (Kipling 1909: 33; emphasis in original). If
he has learned this much of correct social behaviour from Mrs Hauksbee’s education, then he
has have also retained other instructions, suggesting that he will be a better man, his education
has succeeded and he will advance in life with the knowledge he now has. Sherwood’s
description that “he is completely crushed” (Sherwood 1919: 46), is only partially true: Otis
Yeere might have suffered a blow, but the way he deals with this shows that he draws from
the knowledge that he has learned from Mrs Hauksbee. This shows that even though Mrs
Hauksbee does not realise it, Otis Yeere’s education has succeeded and with this she still
might have helped him to advance in the British Administration, with the knowledge she has
taught him. This shows that Mrs. Hauksbee is a political operator for its own sake, and not
just a femme fatale or a caring mother figure, thus adding another dimension to her identity as
a woman.
Even in Under the Deodars (1888) Kipling shows Mrs Hauksbee in a variety of roles.
She still has small defects of character visible from Plain Tales from the Hills (1888) such as
passing hasty judgement on people. However, Mrs Hauksbee only does this with her best
friend Mrs Mallowe and what is said, stays between them. This discretion is repeated in ‘A
Second-Rate Woman’ (1888) where she and Mrs Mallowe judge Mrs Delville, about whom
they now nothing, only on her outward appearance: “she [Mrs Delville] dances as untidily as
she dresses” (Kipling 1909: 75). This judgment goes as far as even refusing say her name, as
Mrs Hauksbee only calls Mrs Delville derogatory names such as “the Dowd” (Kipling 1909:
77) and “the Creature” (Kipling 1909: 78), as if she is not even willing to recognize her as an
34
equal by using her real name. Mrs Hauksbee has to adjust her opinions, when Mrs Delville
save a child from diphtheria, and reveals that her baby had died of it. This knowledge of Mrs
Delville’s past dramatically changes Mrs Hauksbee’s views on her: “‘I always said she was
more than a woman,’ sobbed Mrs. Hauksbee hysterically, ‘and that proves it!’” (Kipling
1909: 98; emphasis in original) This she actually never said, since she kept herself to hasty
judgments. This shows how she is attempting to recover lost ground, because she is ashamed
of her casual dismissal of Mrs Delville by appearance only. But this change of heart is not
permanent, only six weeks later Mrs Hauksbee already calls her the Dowd again (cf. Kipling
1909: 99) to carp at her reluctant admiration of Mrs Delville: “They ought to build her a statue
– only no sculptor dare copy those skirts” (Kipling 1909: 99), since outward appearances are
still of great importance to her.
4.2.1.3.Two dimensions of one character
Mrs Hauksbee is important for the study of how Kipling depicted women in his fiction. First
of all she is his only female protagonist to be developed in successive stories. Secondly, she is
his only female protagonist to be re-used, by which her character is more complex than the
stereotypes of women in those times. She is a caring mother figure, as in ‘The Rescue of
Pluffles’ (1886), and other stories. She also acts as a femme fatale in ‘Three and – an Extra’
(1886). She is also a political operator, exercising power for its own sake, as in
‘Consequences’ (1886), and in ‘The Education of Otis Yeere’ (1888). This shows that Kipling
has created a female character in which different categories of women come together and
become dimensions of the same person, in whom the situation gives preference to a certain
dimension being more predominant than another.
She also still connects to the more negative sides of the hill station society in that she
continues to gossip, passing quick (and sometimes false) judgments on them, just like the
35
Simla society does on her when she behaves as a femme fatale in ‘Three and –an Extra’
(1886). She does not abuse her leverage over men and male-dominated society, like a femme
fatale might do, but uses it, to help others advance in life. This refutes Sen’s assessment of
Kipling’s women characters in hill station society as only a “destructive female sexuality”
(Sen 2000: 15), but some women use their power in constructive ways. Mrs Hauksbee also
contradicts that Kipling’s women are a counterpoint to “Kipling’s valorisation of the male
coloniser” (Sen 2000: 14; emphasis in original), since they are actually helping these men to
achieve their aspirations, such as Tarrion in ‘Consequences’ or Otis Yeere in ‘The Education
of Otis Yeere’.
4.2.2. Other women in Kipling’s short stories
Mrs Hauksbee is not the only female character in Kipling’s stories with ambiguity in her
actions. In this part some other female characters will be analysed to reveal whether this
ambiguity also exists with them. The question raised by this analysis is whether it is necessary
for a woman to be an active presence in the story to be a disturbing factor in this society, since
in some of Kipling’s stories, such as ‘His Wedded Wife’ (1887) or ‘In Error’ (1887), the
symbol or image of a woman is enough to disrupt the social order of white society. The same
question may be asked of the women represented as docile: are they wholly loving and
supporting, or do they flirt and thus offer danger?
Mrs Reiver is the principal femme fatale in Kipling’s early short stories. She appears
in only two short stories, ‘The Rescue of Pluffles’ (1886) and ‘In Error’ (1887), but is
referenced in others, such as ‘Venus Annodomini’ (1886) and ‘The Broken-Link Handicap’
(1887). If the chronology of Kipling’s short stories collected in Plain Tales from the Hills
(1888) is taken into account (cf. Rutherford 2009a: xvii-xviii), ‘The Rescue of Pluffles’
(1886) was written only two days after ‘Three and – an Extra’ (1886). It is possible that in this
36
creative moment Kipling was contrasting Mrs Hauksbee, the ambiguous female character in
both these stories, with another woman with a deserved bad reputation. Mrs Reiver’s name
resonates with the verb ‘to reave’, defined as to “rob (a person or place) of something by
force” (OED). This reading presents her as a real femme fatale who preys on men destroying
their plans and dreams and, when she is done with them, discards them for a new source of
conquest. Kipling describes her very negatively in ‘The Rescue of Pluffles’ (1886): “There
was nothing good about Mrs. Reiver, unless it was her dress. She was bad from her hair –
which started life on a Brittany girl’s head – to her boot-heels, which were two and threeeighth inches high. She was not honestly mischievous like Mrs. Hauksbee; she was wicked in
a businesslike way” (Kipling 2009: 43). Mrs Reiver’s qualities relate to her outer appearance,
which is counterfeit, whereas Mrs Hauksbee’s character is described in ‘Three and – an Extra’
(1886) as “clever, witty, brilliant and sparkling beyond most of her kind; but possessed of
many devils of malice and mischievousness” (Kipling 2009: 12). The ways in which they deal
with men also contrast: Mrs Hauksbee still uses mischief, a term mostly coined with having
innocent fun at someone else’s expense, while Mrs Reiver is wicked “in a businesslike way”
(Kipling 2009: 43), which suggests deliberation and planning. The power to hurt people is
Mrs Reiver’s only interest, which leads to power among men: she wants to be admired and
worshiped by men, having the power to grant someone access to come close to her, but
destroying those that come close.
As well as this contrast in their characters, there is a feud between Mrs Reiver and Mrs
Hauksbee that has grown over a long period. Both use gossip to defend their position and
attack the other, but here Mrs Hauksbee is shown as a person having some innocent fun, while
Mrs Reiver is preying on Pluffles:
Mrs. Hauksbee and she [Mrs Reiver] hated each other fervently. They hated far
too much to clash; but the things they said of each other were startling – not to say
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original. Mrs. Hauksbee was honest – honest as her own front-teeth – and, but for
the love of mischief would have been a woman’s woman. There was no honesty
about Mrs. Reiver; nothing but selfishness. And at the beginning of the season
poor little Pluffles fell a prey to her. (Kipling 2009: 44)
Mrs Reiver is constructed to be as opposite as possible to Mrs Hauksbee. Kipling does not
criticise all women in India, since most criticism against the Englishwoman in India “is a
criticism of only that part of female Anglo-Indian society which is overly sophisticated,
overly feminine and unproductive” (Greenberger 1969: 29). This is a perfect description of
Mrs Reiver since she is quite sophisticated and feminine. However, the main element that
makes these two women fall into different categories is that of being unproductive: Mrs
Hauksbee is very productive, helping her protégés and educating them in matters of state and
protecting social order in the hill stations. Mrs Reiver is destructive rather than unproductive
and is a menace in hill station society. She is only referred to as a woman who seduces men.
In ‘Venus Annodomini’ (1886) Mrs Reiver is compared to another reigning queen of society:
The Venus Annodomini with whom ‘Very Young’ Gayerson is enamoured with:
[He was] a slave of the Venus Annodomini. Every one, too, admitted, that it was
not her fault; for the Venus Annodomini differed from Mrs. Hauksbee and Mrs.
Reiver in this particular – she never moved a finger to attract any one; but like
Ninon de L’Enclos, all men were attracted to her. One could admire and respect
Mrs. Hauksbee, despise and avoid Mrs. Reiver, but one was forced to adore the
Venus Annodomini. (Kipling 2009: 187)
Kipling constantly depicts Mrs Reiver negatively while his position towards Mrs Hauksbee
differs between positive and negative. This reveals Mrs Reiver as a bad woman. In ‘The
Broken-Link Handicap’, first published in the Civil and Military Gazette in 1887, we have a
story of the horse racing culture of the British in India. In this story a horseman owned “a very
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rairish country-bred, a long, racking high mare with the temper of a fiend, and the paces of an
airy wandering seraph – a drifty glidy stretch. The mare was, as a delicate tribute to Mrs.
Reiver, called ‘The Lady Regula Baddun’ – or for short, ‘Regula Baddun’” (Kipling 2009:
124). The description of the mare seems to have much in common with Mrs Reiver since she
combines the movement of a seraph or angel, with the temper of a fiend. This suggests that
the rider had a bad experience of Mrs Reiver. Thus again revealing her image as a femme
fatale. However, Kipling does seems to weaken this image since at times Mrs Reiver is seen
in a more ambiguous light.
There is one short story that might shed a more positive light on Mrs Reiver. In ‘In
Error’ (1887), collected in Plain Tales from the Hills (1888), Moriarty, a civil engineer with a
drinking problem wishes to break his addiction to alcohol to become worthy of Mrs. Reiver.
As long as Mrs Reiver remains only his goal, then she can be seen as positive, since this helps
Moriarty, since it brings out the best in him. She does not engage with Moriarty directly so
her negative side remains obscure to him. In addition he did not obsessively love her like
Pluffles for example in ‘The Rescue of Pluffles’ (1886), but “[h]is admiration was strictly
platonic; even other women saw and admitted this” (Kipling 2009: 134). Because Moriarty
wanted to make himself worthy, only his opinions of Mrs Reiver mattered: “What Moriarty
believed in, as he had good reason to, was Mrs. Reiver’s influence over him, and, in that
belief, he set himself seriously to try to do away with the vice that only he knew of” (Kipling
2009: 135). Although Mrs Reiver did not know of his degrading alcoholism and would have
most likely gossiped it around Simla for the entertainment of bringing down his reputation,
the fact that Moriarty used her as an ideal to be worthy of is important. It shows that the
symbol of a woman is still something worth achieving things for: “How he kept his oath, and
what it cost him in the beginning nobody knows. He certainly managed to compass the
hardest thing that a man who has drunk heavily can do. He took his peg [“a drink with soda
39
added” (Rutherford 2009b: 266)] and wine at dinner, but he never drank alone, and never let
what he drank have the least hold on him” (Kipling 2009: 136). He achieved a control over
his habit by making himself worthy of her. “Moriarty thought her something she never was,
and in that belief saved himself; which was just as good as though she had been everything
that he had imagined” (Kipling 2009: 136). Despite this secondary positive effect, Kipling’s
narrator questions Mrs Reiver’s claim to virtue: “But the question is, what claim will Mrs.
Reiver have to the credit of Moriarty’s salvation, when her day of reckoning comes?”
(Kipling 2009: 136) This one aspect will help, to my opinion, since it shows that not all men
thought of her as wicked, even if they were misinformed. In a wider message, it shows that
even something useless and destructive can cause good without knowing it. It is because of
her, or because of the idea of being with her, that a civil servant was saved from vice and may
become a better civil servant because of it.
In other stories the image of a woman can cause social disruption. In ‘His Wedded
Wife’ (1887), a soldier nicknamed ‘the Worm’, suggesting his role as a victim, makes a bet
with the Senior Subaltern, who continuously bullies him, that ‘the Worm’ can trick him in
such a way that he will never forget it. At an evening party, the Senior Subaltern is confronted
very unexpectedly by a woman claiming that he is her husband and has abandoned her, when
everyone present knows him to be engaged to a girl in England. After a highly melodramatic
scene, the woman is revealed as ‘the Worm’ in woman’s clothes, who has indeed tricked the
Senior Subaltern in a way he will never forget. ‘The Worm’s’ appearance as a wronged
woman is shown to have great potential for social disruption: “[t]he Captains’ wives stood
back; but their eyes were alight, and you could see that they had already convicted and
sentenced the Senior Subaltern” (Kipling 2009: 119) without even wanting to know the detail
or even if this was actually true. Even after it was revealed, this disruptive force is revealed,
since ‘The Worm’s’ joke “leaned as near to a nasty tragedy as anything this side of a joke
40
can” (Kipling 2009: 120). This story shows that female image in a male oriented society, i.e. a
military encampment can already be seen as “a serious threat to the solidarity of the great
brotherhood of colonisers” (Sen 2000: 15) without being a real woman. Therefore, it is more a
female element that is dangerous instead of a woman.
‘Wressley of the Foreign Office’ (1887) also depicts the ambiguity of women as
muses. In this story Wressley, a civil servant working in the Foreign Office, falls in love with
Tillie Venner, a shallow girl, and wishes to make himself worthy of her by writing a scholarly
work in her honour: “He was toiling for Tillie Venner, not for himself. Men often do their best
work blind, for some one [sic] else’s sake” (Kipling 2009: 227). Wressley seems to be an
intelligent man, of whom all of Simla could see was capable of doing this, since it was
common “in those days to say – ‘Wressley knows more about the Central Indian States than
any living man.’ If you did not say this you were considered one of mean understanding”
(Kipling 2009: 225). However, when coming to Miss Venner and asking her opinion,
Wressley was rebutted because of her disinterest in his life’s work, and said with a lisp: “Oh,
your book? It’s all about those howwid Wajahs [ i.e. horrid Rajahs]. I didn’t understand it”
(Kipling 2009: 228). This lisp might show her immaturity, being unable to understand the
work. As a projection of a man’s obsessive love or the image of a woman as a muse, can
enable a man to perform great feats. The problematic element in ‘Wressley of the Foreign
Office’ (1887) is that Tillie Venner was never asked if she wanted Wressley’s adoration. She
seems to be an innocent and naïve girl, unlike the smart and calculating Mrs Reiver. When he
thought she was also interested in him, Wressley was just projecting his own view of affection
onto her. Therefore, I see it as wrong to depict her as “heartless and ruthless” (Sherwood
1919: 46) or as a “spoilt empty-headed girl” (Birkenhead 1978: 76). Tillie’s disruptive effect
is not willingly disruptive, but more affected through her age and character: because of her
young girlish naïveté, she is not yet capable of grasping this very academic work he has
41
written and can therefore not grasp the importance of such a work, e.g. for the economics of
the empire or its political policy. This is caused by Wressley’s misunderstanding of her
character because he simply doesn’t bother to find out what she is really like. She likes the
horse races and is not interested in Wressley’s academic work. “He did his best to interest the
girl in himself – that is to say his work – and she, after the manner of women, did her best to
appear interested in what, behind his back, she called ‘Mr. W’essley’s Wajahs’; for she lisped
very prettily” (Kipling 2009: 226). It seems that Kipling wishes to prove a point that not all
inspired men, will continue in this fashion, after a rebuttal:
“Also, though this has nothing to do with the story, in India, where every one [sic]
knows every one [sic] else, you can watch men being driven, by the women who
govern them, out of the rank and file and sent to take up points alone. A good
man, once started, goes forward; but an average man, so soon as the woman loses
interest in his success as a tribute to her power, comes back to the battalion and is
no more heard of.” (Kipling 2009: 227-228)
Wressley is one of those average men, who, in comparison to Moriarty (‘In Error’ (1887)), is
just one of the ordinary rank and file, since he returns to his job without any improvement of
status or reputation and later cannot even remember having written his great work. This shows
that Miss Venner was not as influential as a muse as Mrs Reiver was for Moriarty, since she
could not inspire a positive effect. These stories show that the men are implicated in what we
are shown to be the women’s flaws, since the men deceive themselves, seeing signs of
affection where there are none. The men in these stories can only be deceived if they are naïve
enough to be deceived.
A last story that depicts both womanly ambitions of love and marriage for status is
‘Cupids Arrows’ (1888) which first appeared in Plain Tales from the Hills (1888). In this
story Commissioner Barr-Saggott wishes to win Miss Beighton, an excellent archer, by letting
42
her win an archery contest, thus being able to put a bracelet on her wrist and “the acceptance
carrying with it the hand and the heart of Commissioner Barr-Saggott” (Kipling 2009: 50).
Miss Beighton does not love him, but the young soldier Cubbon and therefore she misses the
target on purpose, thus losing and escaping the predatory gift of the bracelet. When BarrSaggott “turned his attention to Miss Beighton, I believe that Mrs. Beighton wept with delight
at the reward Providence had sent her in her old age” (Kipling 2009: 48). This shows that
“time and again, colonial mothers are shown driven by mercenary social aspirations, into
coercing their daughters into rejecting the penniless youths whom they really love and
accepting marriage with middle-aged men, high up in the Indian bureaucracy” (Sen 2000: 14).
However, one can question if this is really bad since a mother will always want the best for
her child. Still, Kipling resists this idea by letting Miss. Beighton run away with Cubbon.
“Miss Beighton’s silent defiance of her mother” (Havholm 2008: 106) shows a strong
independent woman, breaking with the social order and even matriarchal power: “Mrs.
Beighton did her best to bear it up; but she wept in the presence of people. […] Every one
[sic] tried to depart in a body and leave Kitty to the mercy of her Mamma. But Cubbon took
her away instead, and – the rest isn’t worth printing” (Kipling 2009: 52). In this way Kipling
criticises the notion of society determining who girls may marry, similar to the criticism at the
end of ‘Kidnapped’ (1887) when Mrs Hauksbee has to prevent Peythroppe’s marriage, since
society would disapprove. In ‘Cupid’s Arrows’ (1888) the opposite is presented: the concept
of love is being placed above society.
It seems that the other women in Kipling’s short stories also seem to be ambiguous in
their depiction, since on the surface they seem to be easily categorised into either ‘good’ or
‘bad’ women. However, after a closer reading of the different stories that I have used as
examples, it seems that the women are not superficial or stereotypical. Even the symbol of a
woman can be seen as either disruptive, but equally they can be seen as muses to inspire men
43
to great feats: even Mrs Reiver seems to get a level of value since she helped Moriarty
overcome alcoholism, and maybe improve his career because of it. In addition, if Kipling uses
stereotypes, e.g. the mercenary mother in ‘Cupids Arrows’ (1888), he always places another
woman by her side that tends to soften the opinion of the reader. At the same time, the men
influenced by these women have helped to cause the problem e.g. Wressley in ‘Wressley of
the Foreign Office’ (1887) Still, the image of a woman can be seen as being disruptive in
certain contexts, such as in ‘His Wedded Wife’ (1887), but in this case the image of a woman
is only dangerous because of the context in which she appears: a ‘wife’ coming in at the
moment that a man has engaged himself with another woman. But overall, it shows that a
woman or even the image of a woman in a male dominated area, such as a military
encampment, is problematic. Therefore, just like Mrs Hauksbee, the other women in Kipling’s
early short stories show that in most cases, they cannot be simply categorised as ‘good’ or
‘bad’, but must be placed in their context.
4.2.3. Kipling’s women: more ambiguous than was thought
Kipling’s women characters are not as stereotypical as some of his critics have said. They
cannot be simply divided into the categories of the docile memsahib or the hill station flirt.
These categories should be perceived as aspects of one person, and, in different situations
different categories dominate in building the character of women. Mrs Hauksbee seems to
prove this point since she shows different characteristics at the same time. It is because of her
behaviour that one realises that the motivations of the women in these stories are much more
complex than has previously considered. Critics that stereotyped Kipling’s female characters
were false: they do not just have a “destructive female sexuality” (Sen 2000: 15), but are
constructive in their own right. In the same way the criticism that “Kipling’s women are –just
women” (Frankau (1928) 1971: 365) is false, since they are more ambiguous than first
44
thought. The critics only saw what was right in front of them and did not attempt to go further
and question if their conclusions might be wrong. If one only seeks to find the negative
aspects of characterisation, that will be the only thing that will be found. True, Kipling’s
female characters have their flaws, that is a fact that cannot be denied, but so do all his
characters and it is this that makes them more then stereotypes, it makes them human.
4.3.Kipling’s depiction of men
The hard-working civil servant is an important character in Rudyard Kipling’s early short
stories. These stories have been described as “[t]he touching tales of the lives of his
countrymen are of those who have labored and toiled away the best part of their prime under
the scorching skies of the great Indian Empire” (Sarath-Roy 1914: 272). Still questions can be
raised of how ideally he has depicted his civil servants, since they do seem to go away from
this stereotype.
In the age of British imperialism that Kipling was writing in, literature showed that
“the ideal British hero of this ‘era of confidence’ is brave forceful, daring, active and
masculine. […] In the Indian context the ideal English hero ‘works like an ox’ and is
‘indomitable, unfailing, always fulfilling his duties with machine-like regularity, stern,
impenetrable, hard as granite’” (Greenberger 1969: 11-12) and “[t]his imperial masculinity
(or ‘manliness’) was defined as strength, authority and above all control” (Montefiore 2007:
65). This stereotypical view of men and masculinity does have its resonance in most of
Kipling’s male characters since they have to uphold law and order in plains stations where
they are greatly outnumbered as mentioned before. A civil servant “had to prevent riots
between Hindu, Sikh and Muslim, perhaps between Sunni and Shia, to keep bribery and
extortion within reasonable limits, to see that the police were neither tyrannous nor idle”
(Mason 1972: 49). However, I cannot agree with the argument that these male characters on
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their turn have adhered to the stereotype of the ideal British civil servant, since in several
stories, certain characteristics are given a different approach by Kipling than the expected one.
An important element is that these men are hard-working, but in certain texts, readers
may question whether the male civil servant characters are really working that hard, since a
division must be made between the mental and physical type of work. The same question can
be asked for the idea that leadership is “in the English blood and the important thing is to keep
the blood ‘pure’” (Greenberger 1969: 15; emphasis in original) is at odds with civil servants
of mixed race, such as Michele D’Cruze in ‘His Chance in Life’ (1887), who is an example of
a good civil servant. These positive portraits of mixed race characters give an entirely
different view of a writer who would later receive criticism for racist attitudes, largely due to
his poem ‘The White Man’s Burden’ (1899) (cf. Sarath-Roy 1914: 279). In the same fashion,
this idea of cultural purity requires that the white men should separate themselves from the
native culture since “[t]o attempt to understand India and the Indians was to recognize that
there was something worth understanding there. It would also have involved the necessity of
the British, to some degree, immersing themselves in Indian culture with the concomitant
danger of losing something of their personal heritage” (Greenberger 1969: 75). This produces
a paradox, since to rule India means understanding the country and the people they are
governing, yet those white characters who become specialists tend to be shunned by other
white society members, as we see in characters like Strickland, McIntosh in ‘To be Filed for
Reference’ (1888) and Trejago in ‘Beyond the Pale’ (1888). Kipling appears to be less
interested in stories that feature the hard working civil servant and is more interested in
moments when the civil servant makes a mistake, acts inappropriately or crosses social or
cultural boundaries that were not meant to be crossed.
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4.3.1. Strickland: the ideal civil servant?
Strickland is the only recurring civil servant in Kipling’s fiction, featuring in six short stories
and in Kipling’s novel Kim (1901). Several critics have seen him as Kipling’s stereotype of
the hard-working British civil servant in India. I feel that Strickland is more ambiguous than
this stereotype, since he has certain aspects of a good civil servant, as said in Greenberger, but
also some questionable characteristics, such as his constant crossing of cultural boundaries, he
was a man “who can cross the frontier into the native world which no one else understands”
(Mason 1972: 48). He is a policeman and seems to be important in presenting the civil servant
to the readers of his time, noted as such by Kipling’s contemporary Edmund Gosse:
Against the régime of the prig Mr. Kipling sets the régime of Strickland. Over and
over again he introduces this mysterious figure, always with a phrase of extreme
approval. Strickland is in the police, and his power consists in his determination to
know the East as the natives know it. […] Mr. Kipling’s conviction is that this is
the sort of man to pervade India for us, and that one Strickland is worth a
thousand self-conceited civilians. (Gosse (1891) 1971: 115)
Strickland first appears in ‘Miss Youghal’s Sais’ (1887) where he is in love with a Miss
Youghal, but is not allowed to marry her because of her family’s aspirations. Therefore he
disguises himself as and is employed by her family as a sais i.e. “a groom” (Rutherford
2009b: 255) to be with her, but is discovered by her suitor. Strickland is presented in this
story, as frequently moving between two worlds: the English scene and the Indian, since to do
his job he often disguises himself as a native in to get information. This makes him an
outsider to both people since “[h]e held the extraordinary theory that a Policeman in India
should try to know as much about the natives as the natives themselves” (Kipling 2009: 24).
He shows a dangerous interest in the natives, in that it might endanger his own Englishness.
This cause Strickland to be unappreciated for what he is doing by his own people: “But
47
people said, justly enough, ‘Why on earth can’t Strickland sit in his office and write up his
diary, and recruit, and keep quiet, instead of showing up the incapacity of his seniors?’”
(Kipling 2009: 25) Strickland is also feared by the Indian population: “Natives hated
Strickland; but they were afraid of him. He knew too much” (Kipling 2009: 25). His
profession, and working practices, thus may cause him to be ostracised by both communities,
since he breaks the boundaries of appropriate behaviour, just as Mrs Hauksbee did. However,
the reason he remains within white society, and is treated with respect, is his effect on the
natives. Their fear of him and what he can find out helps him support the British government
of India by keeping them under control. Although the Anglo-Indians might fear a rebellion, if
they can instil more fear in the natives, they will remain safe. Strickland’s work is passive
listening to the natives to get information, as well as taking action when needed.
Strickland disguises himself as a sais and lives as a servant, he misses cigars, which he
begs from his friend, the narrator, while in disguise: “[t]he poor fellow was suffering for a
English smoke, and knew that, whatever happened, I should hold my tongue till the business
was over” (Kipling 2009: 26). Strickland only gains the consent of her parents to marry Miss
Youghall “on the strict understanding that Strickland should drop his old ways and stick to
Departmental routine, which pays best and leads to Simla” (Kipling 2009: 29). Strickland
must act more appropriately and take a more responsible position in Anglo-Indian society,
since this will improve his chances of receiving a promotion, thus improving his standing and
status in this society. He becomes a proper civil servant, that demands respect from people,
and not fear, since now it is not only his reputation that he has to protect, but also his wife’s
and her family’s.
In ‘The Bronckhorst Divorce-Case’ (1888), Strickland reappears to aid his friend Biel
by using disguise to collect evidence of injustice, but does not wish his wife to know. This
reveals that the loyalty between men seems to be larger than the loyalty he has towards his
48
wife. Thus by breaking one set of boundaries i.e. the promise he had made towards his wife,
he reinforces another set of rules, showing loyalty to a friend. Also asking Biel “give me your
Words of Honour that you won’t tell my wife” (Kipling 2009: 181). It seems that now
Strickland has a respectable reputation by marrying Miss Youghall and is behaving
appropriately to advance his position in society, he does not wish to jeopardise this by letting
his wife know of this. He still wishes her to see him as a changed man. After he has collected
his evidence, the two native witnesses admit the truth out of fear of Strickland, showing that
he was still, “a power among natives” (Kipling 2009: 182). Later Biel thrashes Mr
Bronckhorst, who had has accused him, where no one could see, which was seen as a matter
of honour where no man would intervene to cease it. Thus showing that although cruel and
violent, these men still held to the loyalty between men nonetheless, by solving this affair
quietly and without any commotion, thus protecting both Biel’s reputation, that had just been
saved, but also Bronckhorst’s, that had been damaged enough by the failed court case. The
loyalty between men in this society reveals that it might lead to good, by helping a friend, but
may also be punished if this loyalty is not kept, and at that moment, “[t]here is no mercy in
the early Kipling” (Brown 1945: 85).
In two other Strickland stories collected in Life’s Handicap (1891), Kipling shows him
as a person with flaws who at times has to use uncivilised ways to return order to society. In
‘The Mark of the Beast’ (1890) Strickland and the narrator escort their drunk friend Fleete
home. However, during the walk home, Fleete desecrates the image of the native god
Hanuman in a temple and gets bitten on the chest by “the Silver Man” (Kipling 1987: 180), a
leper whose face has been disfigured by leprosy. The priests say to Strickland: “Take your
friend away. He has done with Hanuman, but Hanuman has not done with him” (Kipling
1987: 180). From this moment in the story works on a more abstract dimension as well as the
unfolding of the story, as Kipling depicts how the rational English civil servants deal with
49
supernatural effects of native curses. Kipling continuously stresses how Strickland’s work as a
civil servant, depends on understanding the natives: “Strickland hates being mystified by
natives, because his business in life is to overmatch them with their own weapons. He has not
yet succeeded in doing this, but in fifteen or twenty years he will have made some small
progress” (Kipling 1987: 181). This again shows Strickland’s need for knowledge and
information, since this gains him power over the natives. Not understanding certain types of
behaviour meant the natives had a certain amount of power over the colonisers, since if the
colonisers could not understand it, they could not anticipate what might happen, leading to a
loss of control and power. The morning after the event, the curse’s effects are visible on
Fleete: he has spots on his body, eats undercooked meat, and the horses are frightened of him.
However, Strickland and the narrator still wish to be rational and see the spots as mosquito
bites, his hunger as the after-effects of his drunkenness, but for the horses no response is
given. Strickland continuously shows himself as a rational thinker and continues to seek a
logical and coherent explanation for what is happening. After their evening meal, they do
return to find Fleete acting as an animal. The doctor present diagnoses Fleete’s symptoms as
rabies, which is understandable since the leper has bitten him and rabies is most commonly
transferred through saliva (cf. McGivering 2006: online). This is the most rational conclusion
since the doctor does not know Fleete was bitten, and still comes to this conclusion. The
doctor is the only person who is still objective and looks at the facts, uninfluenced by the
story of how Fleete got these symptoms. Strickland, being more subjective because of these
past events, has given up his rationality and cultural superiority and with the narrator seeks
the leper to force him to reverse this curse, torturing the leper with heated iron gun barrels:
“though the Silver Man had no face, you could see horrible feelings passing through the slab
that took its place, exactly as waves of heat play across red-hot iron – gun barrels for instance.
Strickland shaded his eyes with his hands for a moment and we got to work. This part is not to
50
be printed” (Kipling 1987: 188-189). This eventually works and the curse is lifted, but at a
terrible cost, since to heal Fleete, they have become animals using these heated gun-barrels,
discarding everything that made them cultured and civilised:
[This] means that the weapon which is supposed to keep the user distant from its
victim here brings the two into disgraceful intimacy. […] That the ‘waves of
horrible feelings’ passing through the leper’s slab of face should be replicated in
the Englishmen’s own weapon of mastery puts them on the same level with their
victim and abolishes their technological superiority: the gun-barrels are simply
red-hot iron, not a means of mastering a distant enemy. (Montefiore 2007: 27-28)
The destruction of cultural superiority is realised by both Strickland and the narrator: “[We]
had disgraced ourselves as Englishmen for ever [sic]” (Kipling 1987: 190). Kipling’s
recurrent theme of male violence has reached its pinnacle here. In addition, the reference that
the narrator does not wish to describe it, this reveals the intensity of the cruelty, since readers
have to interpret it for themselves and there is no real boundary shown by the narrator to this
imagination. The narrator and Strickland lose all cultural superiority, but it seems as if “[t]he
reversal of the colonialist-turned-beast can only occur in the gaps of a horror story” (Hai
1997: 611; emphasis added). This violence might have been necessary to get their friend’s
Englishness back, but on the same time “[o]ne’s own truths and moral definitions blur and
diffuse themselves into meaninglessness” (Sandison 1964: 155). By engaging too deeply in
native culture, the idealised stereotype of the civil servant is corrupted back to his base desires
and shows the risk of engaging too deeply into this native culture, since it might means
abandoning elements and qualities that made you civilised and superior. revealing a certain
bleakness and futility in actions that had to be taken by civil servants to gain this information.
‘The Return of Imray’ (1891) depicts Strickland’s search for Imray, a civil servant
who had gone missing, which caused problems for the administration. Strickland starts living
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in Imray’s house, where he is joined by the narrator. In this house they hear the walking of
feet in the middle of the night. By accident they discover Imray’s body, since there are two
snakes on the ceiling and they wish to repel them. when looking on the roof for the snakes,
they find Imray’s body, with “his throat cut from ear to ear” (Kipling 1987: 199). Later
Strickland discovers it was Imray’s servant who killed him for the reason of a banal
superstition: “He [Imray] cast his eyes upon my child, who was four years old. Him he
bewitched, and in ten days he died of fever – my child” (Kipling 1987: 201). Several elements
are interesting in this story, which describe Strickland as a civil servant. First of all he is not
as hard working as the stereotypical image of the civil servant presents: throughout the
narrative, he does not actively search for Imray, i.e. by means of interrogation or other
techniques, which makes the finding of the body appear to be entirely incidental, even
accidental. The only depiction of Strickland as a real policeman appears when questioning
Imray’s servant. Secondly, the element of violence continues to be present, making it “another
essay in the macabre” (Birkenhead 1978: 100), not only in the terrible way that Imray was
murdered, but also how Strickland questions the servant: even before questioning him, he
already has a rifle pointed at him, threatening to hang him (cf. Kipling 1987:201). In the end
the servant also commits suicide by deliberately stepping on a snake. Thus revealing that the
later stories on Strickland strengthen the idea that Kipling was attempting to move away from
those stereotypes and show flawed characters in a less than ideal setting, making them feel
more real and more believable. A last element is that the cultural superiority is reinstated in
this story, while absent in ‘The Mark of the Beast’ (1890). Both Strickland and the narrator
agree that this superstition of the servant is ridiculous. They have regained their superior
position, being the more rational and logical characters, while the natives believe what they
see, connecting it to their cultural traditions. This element shocks Strickland the most, since
for these men, something like this is unthinkable in their own culture at that point: “This […]
52
is called the nineteenth century. Did you hear what that man said?” (Kipling 1987: 203)
However, it also reveals that Imray did not have enough information about the natives to act
appropriately: “Simply and solely through not knowing the nature of the Oriental, and the
coincidence of a little seasonal fever” (Kipling 1987: 203) Imray had created a dangerous
situation for himself. Thus showing the need for information for ruling the natives in a proper
manner.
On the whole it seems that, if the Strickland stories are read superficially, he is a
stereotypical British civil servant. However, if the stories are placed under closer scrutiny, this
can be questioned, since he does not have certain key elements: he cannot be seen has hardworking since what he mostly does, is passively listening. He does not reveal actual activity,
but is rather passive in his work until the situation asks for activity, therefore it is
understandable that some critics have called him “Kipling’s unconvincing Sherlock Holmes
of all disguises” (Wilson 1977: 65). He does engage in native life, which was taboo and
mostly receives authority by evoking fear among the natives. Therefore his honour is also
seen as weakened since he often resorts to a very cruel form of violence, or lets this violence
happen without intervening. He cannot be categorised as the ideal civil servant, but is
depicted more ambiguously.
4.3.2. Other men in Kipling’s short stories
Other male protagonists in Kipling’s short stories represent the same elements set forth in the
Strickland stories. This shows that these themes were not just a single element in Kipling’s
writing and his depiction of men in India, but remained important throughout his stories. A
form of irony might be depicted, since these men all work hard for the empire, but are
punished for what they do, since crossing cultural boundaries was often necessary for them.
Kipling does seem to break with certain elements of the image of the hard-working white civil
53
servant that was often created, or showing a hard-working civil servant with a bleak future,
who was “to play the man while the odds are eternally and crushingly against you” (Dobrée
(1927) 1971: 345).
‘In the Pride of His Youth’ (1887) shows the ideal of a hard-working civil servant
sacrificing everything. Dicky Hatt works hard to earn enough money to bring his wife over to
India, therefore he only works and saves money. The immense amount of money, and the
pressure to gain it, only augments when hearing of the birth of his child. He forgets that in
India, the civil servants are paid based on age not the amount of work they perform, since
“[p]ay in India is a matter of age, not merit, you see, and, if their particular boy wished to
work like two boys, Business forbid that they should stop him. But Business forbid that they
should give him an increase of pay at his present ridiculously immature age” (Kipling 2009:
158). Throughout the story this hard-working young man, who sacrifices everything for his
wife and child, is only rewarded by harsh letters from his wife and later by the news that his
baby son had died, for which she blames Dicky. She leaves him, making him have a strange
form of freedom, but at the same time he feels empty and hollow: everything he has worked
so hard for is gone, meaning that this hard work had now become meaningless and futile. In
this way Kipling does show the image of a hard working civil servant on the surface, but
when motivations are added, a feeling of bleakness and futility prevails. This diminishes the
glorification of the hard-working civil servant to a plea for sympathy, wanting people to
realise the hardships these men go through. At the end, an element of cruel irony is added: on
the moment that he has lost everything, his superior gives him a promotion to a job of 650
rupees a month, which was almost enough to pay the 700 rupee passage of his wife and child,
which drives him mad, “[t]hus the Administrator, as Kipling sees him, has at his core a
terrible irony: he who would ‘administer’ and rule this vast mass is himself the victim”
(Sandison 1964: 161).
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In ‘His Chance in Life’ (1887) a different type of civil servant is depicted. Michele
D’Cruze is a mixed blood Englishman. If we follow the opinion on mixed blood expressed in
‘Kidnapped’ (1887), he will not be accepted. However, he is the core of the story, and
becomes an example of a decent and hard-working civil servant. Michele loves Miss Vezzis,
who is “as black as a boot” (Kipling 2009: 59), who he can only marry if he earns a wage of
fifty rupees a month. He gains this wage by suppressing a native revolt in his plains station of
Tibasu. This goes against this idea of blood purity is necessary to lead men (cf. Greenberger
1969: 15): it is not the purity of one’s blood that seems necessary to lead men, since the
presence of a bit of British blood seems enough to receive the status of the ruling class:
[T]he Police Inspector, afraid, but obeying the old race-instinct which recognises
a drop of white blood as far as it can be diluted, said, ‘What orders does the Sahib
give?’ The ‘Sahib’ decided Michele. Though horribly frightened, he felt that, for
the hour, he, the man with the Cochin Jew and the menial uncle in his pedigree,
was the only representative of English authority in the place. (Kipling 2009: 62;
emphasis added)
This shows that Greenberger’s idea that leadership is “in the British blood and the important
thing is to keep the blood ‘pure’” (Greenberger 1969: 15) should be modified: it is not the
purity of British blood that counts in Kipling’s stories, but the presence of British blood.
Although it seems that Greenberger does realise that at certain occasions “[e]ven a drop of
English blood is, in the absence of a full-blooded Briton, sufficient to bring out the leadership
qualities in an individual” (Greenberger 1969: 14). Kipling already knew this before he wrote
this story, since in a letter to Margaret Burne-Jones: “But […] never lose sight of the fact that
so long as you are in this country you will be looked to by the natives round in [sic] you as
their guide and leader if anything happens. Therefore comport yourself as such. This is a
solemn fact. If anything goes wrong from a quarrel to an accident the natives instantly fly to a
55
European for ‘orders’” (28 November 1885; Kipling 1991: 101; emphasis in original). In
addition, it is remarkable that Kipling uses the term ‘European’, and not ‘white man’ or
‘Englishman’ revealing that “‘a white man’ did not only mean a man with an unpigmented
skin; it had a secondary symbolic meaning: a man with the moral standards of the civilised
world” (Shepperson 1964: 127). Michele D’Cruze shows his resolve by hiding his own fear to
lead his men, since “Michele was sweating with fear; but he kept his weakness under and
went down into the town” (Kipling 2009: 62). He opposes the mob with his native policemen,
although severely outnumbered in these plains stations. Michele’s resolve only breaks when
the riot has been put down by the arrival of British troops, since Michele realises that he killed
a man and has an emotional outburst: “It was the White drop in Michele’s veins dying out,
though he did not know it” (Kipling 2009: 63). Michele converts back to his old ways, which
makes this “a story in which the author indulges in his favourite theme of the relapse of the
converted native” (Birkenhead 1978: 100).
This story also reveals the element that all Kipling’s stories on this topic tend to have:
the fear of violence. Several of Kipling’s short stories have some violence in them that gives
them a darker undertone than the stories with female protagonists. Michele does not to
negotiate with the natives, but deals with the mob in an aggressive manner:
As the shouting crew came round a corner of the road, he dropped and fired; the
men behind him loosing of instinctively at the same time. The whole crowd – curs
to the back-bone – yelled and ran, leaving one man dead and another dying in the
road. (Kipling 2009: 62)
These aggressive measures can be defended in regard to two aspects. First of all, Michele had
to show strength of character to control his policemen, because they ran to him for orders as
they do with Europeans, as Kipling reveals in his aforementioned letter. If orders are not
given, confidence in the leader would falter. Secondly, the use of force must be seen its
56
imperialist context. The British saw themselves as parents that had to discipline their native
children when they went wrong (cf. Varley 1953: 124-125) and these disciplinary actions had
to be acted out swiftly and without mercy to show British superiority: “For Kipling supreme
power involved inhumanity – or at least complete detachment from humanity in the making of
decisions” (Rutherford 1964: 191). However, this does not mean that violence is exacted in
every dangerous situation: “None of this means that the British believed that force was the
only answer to the question of how best to rule India, but there does appear to have been
widespread agreement that if ever the British reached the point of being afraid to use this
force, they would have doomed themselves” (Greenberger 1969: 60). In ‘His Chance in Life’
(1887) Kipling shows a civil servant that does not conform with the normal ‘purity’-standard
that is set forth by Greenberger, since Michele has British blood that is strongly diluted, but
he does depict the characteristics of a good civil servant. This story shows that Kipling saw
masculinity more through good qualities shown under stress, than outward appearances,
although at certain times less civilised means must be used to resolve a situation: “Mr.
Kipling’s love of the Empire and his admiration for those virtues it brings out in men, make
him apt to find qualities in Englishmen only, which really exist in all races” (Dobrée (1927)
1971: 349). Here, Kipling does show that these ‘English’ virtues are able to be found in every
person, independent of race.
Therefore, men are not always an example of the gentlemen that British society wishes
to create, as in ‘A Friend’s Friend’ (1887) where the narrator is asked by a friend if he can
entertain his friend Jevon for the time that he is in Simla. Being a gentleman, the narrator
agrees, however during a ball, a drunk Jevon acts appallingly. Because the narrator introduced
them, he appears to be equally guilty to Jevon’s behaviour. Jevon dances wildly and
inappropriately with Mrs Deemes, therefore she “drew her pencil through all the dances that
[the narrator] had booked with her” (Kipling 2009: 196), punishing him instead of Jevon.
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However, Jevon does not cease, but continues to act terribly, “besides speaking of [the
narrator] in the most scandalous fashion[, all] the women wanted him turned out and all the
men wanted him kicked. The worst of it was that every one [sic] said it was [the narrator’s]
fault” (Kipling 2009: 198). Jevon does not correspond with the male prototype, but what is
worse, he becomes a destructive power for the narrator as well: due to Jevon’s actions, the
narrator’s own reputation is ruined, showing that not only women could be destructive forces
in society, contrasting with Sen’s opinions (cf. Sen 2000: 15).
The Anglo-Indian society does realise that Jevon is the disruptive factor and ostracises
him. The form of punishment “is based upon one of the writer’s favorite brutalities, the gangup. The situation, […] is one in which the members of an exclusive group combine to inflict
excruciating mental and physical torture on an individual whose chief crime […] is being an
outsider” (Gilbert 1964: 207). Here it is not just because Jevon is an outsider, but more
because he is “an insider gone wrong” (Gilbert 1964: 207; emphasis added). This is shown in
the way they exact their vengeance upon him, showing Kipling’s disinterest in mercy, as they
‘decorate’ a sleeping Jevon with jelly, ham frills and other food items, fill his hear with
meringue cream, and roll him up in carpet to put him on a cart on its way out of town (cf.
Kipling 2009: 199-200). This type of violence differs from the violence that Michele D’Cruze
controlled the natives with in ‘His Chance in Life’ (1887), but still has the same goal: to oust
a disruptive factor and restore social order in the station. Kipling’s extensive and detailed two
page description of Jevon’s punishment, shows that this is not just a “farce of a high order”
(Anon (1888) 1971: 37) anymore, but emphasises the cruelty of this society: one mistake can
destroy a person’s reputation. In the context of these stations the narrator’s cruelty towards
Jevon in the end can be understood since Jevon might get the food items off of him, but the
narrator will still have a bad reputation for a long time:
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I wonder still whether Mrs. Deemes will ever take any notice of me again, and
whether I shall live down the infamous stories that Jevon set afloat about my
manners and customs between the first and ninth waltz of the Afghan Ball. They
stick closer than cream. (Kipling 2009: 200; emphasis added)
The image of the men in society is interesting, since, although they are not civil servants, they
do show certain unexpected aspects of men. The element of violence and cruelty continues to
be used to restore social order, although they are adapted to the location of a hill station i.e. no
physical blows are dealt. Kipling also depicts how men were not supposed to behave: men are
also gossiping, showing it is not only a female element.
The problem of not having knowledge on the natives is also seen as a way to ridicule
the politicians who rule India. This is made clear in ‘Tod’s Amendment’ (1887) which
describes how Tod, a small boy and the son of a politician, engages into native life while
playing about town: “[H]e spoke Urdu, but he also mastered many queer side-speeches like
the chotee bolee of the women, and held great converse with shop keepers and Hill-coolies
alike. He was precocious for his age and his mixing with the natives, had taught him some of
the more bitter truths of life: the meanness and the sordidness of it” (Kipling 2009: 145;
emphasis in original). At this time there were several politicians in his house for dinner party,
discussing a new land survey to divide the agricultural land of the natives. These men thought
that the division would be a good thing, however, because they had no real knowledge of the
natives and their opinions, there are flaws in the plan, especially the short tenure of the land
contracts that would be offered. At this moment Tod enters the room, and overhearing what
they are discussing, informs them on the native point of view, which he has heard through
conversations with native farmers. What follows is an impressive scene where the Legal
Members are hanging on Tod’s every word while he explains the problem. At this moment
the Legal Members realise that “the short tenure is the weak point” (Kipling 2009: 148) and
59
reward Tod by naming the amendment, ‘Tod’s Amendment’. Still there is some criticism to
be found in this story, since “[b]esides showing a criticism of action by men who are not
personally ‘on the spot’ this story shows a strong feeling that the British or Indian
Governments were making things harder for the very people that they were trying to help”
(Greenberger 1969: 78). It is ironic that a child is educating the Legal Members on how India
works. Gaining this native knowledge does not appear to be difficult, since even a child is
able to gain it, again ridiculing the legislators. ‘Tod’s Amendment’ (1887) appears to evoke
the feeling that crossing the cultural and social boundaries of that time is necessary to gain
sufficient information to constitute laws for an adequate government of these natives.
This crossing of cultural boundaries is a favoured and recurrent theme in Kipling’s
stories and a “considerable amount of the dramatic tension in Kipling’s Indian stories arises
from just this collision of the two cultures” (Sandison 1964: 157). In ‘Beyond the Pale’
(1888), Trejago, a European, falls in love with an Indian girl, Bisesa, who he meets seeing her
behind a window. However, later they are discovered and in Kipling’s own form of
punishment, cruel and violent justice is exacted. Trejago has crossed fixed boundaries of
society, race and class. Those that transgress these boundaries are mostly the protagonists of
his stories, but the reader must soon realise that “transgressors always have to pay, at least in
Kipling, and in the colonial imagination a surrender to oriental temptations is often the path to
insanity or inanition” (Kerr 2000: 18). Trejago does take a deeper interest in native life than
he should as a European by knowing aspects of native life that he actually should not know,
and this knowledge is just the point of Kipling’s disapproval: “A man should, whatever
happens, keep to his own caste, race and breed. Let the White go to the White and the Black
to the Black. Then, whatever trouble falls is in the ordinary course of things – neither sudden,
alien, nor unexpected” (Kipling 2009: 127). This might seem as condemning races and
holding fixed to the idea of a pure blood, contradicted in ‘His Chance in Life’ (1887), but in
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this case it is best to do this, not to keep blood ‘pure’, but for the social consequences that this
intertwining of races might have for the colonial atmosphere: there would be no obvious
visual division possible between the ruling Europeans and the subservient natives. This
division was vital for the British to be able to show themselves as ruling class, since the entire
power hierarchy in this colonial society was built upon it. If the division would be
undermined, then the entire power hierarchy would be destroyed and with it the imperialistic
justification for the colonisation: “In India during the centuries of the British Empire the drive
to determine a person’s race was an elemental one, for the simple reason that it was linked to
the conservation and management of the imperialist enterprise as well as of the economic,
communal, and linguistic hierarchies in the multifarious society” (Hubel 2004: 231). Kipling
seems to use these stories of avoided intermarriage as a type of warning for those that might
have thought of this or those with Indian mistresses. This reveals that Kipling was still part of
this imperialist world and its mentality, but did sympathize with the people that did this, since
he wishes to save both their reputations, since if he did not then both of them would be
ostracised from their family and class, and punished severely for transgressing, as is done in
‘Beyond the Pale’ (1888) with brutal violence.
Trejago crosses these boundaries willingly out of an emotive feeling for Bisesa,
showing that he already had a too profound knowledge of native culture to begin with, by his
ability to decipher the object message from Bisesa: “Trejago knew far too much about these
things, as I have said. No Englishman should be able to translate object-letters” (Kipling
2009: 128). This leads him into uncharted terrain since he develops a love relationship with
Bisesa, that although appears to be strictly platonic, is still against social order. However, the
moment he meets an Englishwoman for whom he develops feelings, it becomes interesting
since then Bisesa appears to be a platonic mistress. As Kipling’s stories usually go, this
crossing of boundaries is punished by extreme violence in the end. After three weeks, he
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returns to Bisesa again, but when he arrives, the reader easily understands that Bisesa’s family
has taken notice and punishment is exacted by them when Trejago appears at the window
where both lovers usually meet:
From the black dark Bisesa held out her arms into the moonlight. Both hands had
been cut off at the wrists, and the stumps were nearly healed. Then, as Bisesa
bowed her head between her arms and sobbed, some one [sic] in the room grunted
like a wild beast, and something sharp – knife, sword or spear, - thrust at Trejago
in his boorka. The stroke missed his body, but cut into one of the muscles of his
groin, and he limped slightly from the wound for the rest of his days. (Kipling
2009: 131-132; emphasis in original)
Thus again showing the recurrent theme of violence in Kipling’s male-centred stories that
seems to be predominantly present in these stories to keep society in order and to keep people
from crossing the boundaries that were set for them not to be crossed. Although Trejago’s
punishment seems minimal to Bisesa’s. Still his punishment seems to be a more mental one
that will stay with him: it is because of him that Bisesa got punished in that cruel way. This
continuing pain in his groin (an ironic place to be wounded in this case) is a constant pain for
the rest of his days: he will always be reminded of the moment that he transgressed the set
boundaries and will not do so again. This reminder makes sure that from that time onwards
“Trejago pays his calls regularly, and is reckoned a very decent sort of man” (Kipling 2009:
132), but at the same time he will never forget the event that was necessary to keep it that
way.
In all of his early short stories, Kipling does show men that willingly cross these
cultural boundaries either for love, as Trejago did, or to gain native knowledge for the British
Administration, as Strickland often does. But ‘To be Filed for Reference’ (1888), first
published in Plain Tales from the Hills (1888), shows a different perspective. Here the image
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of a man is shown who took too deep an interest in native culture and has assimilated into it,
leaving his Englishness behind. This has stigmatised him in his own British community as a
persona non grata. McIntosh has lost all connection with his Englishness in several ways,
first of all, he has converted to Islam, changing his name into McIntosh Jellaludin and even
taking a native wife. He has transgressed the boundaries even further than Trejago in ‘Beyond
the Pale’ (1888) and Peythroppe in ‘Kidnapped’ (1887) who both set a foot over the
boundary, but quickly returned to their own culture. McIntosh proves that “[w]hen a man
begins to sink in India and is not sent Home by his friends as soon as may be, he falls very
low from a respectable point of view. By the time that he changes his creed, as did McIntosh,
he is past redemption” (Kipling 2009: 235). His fall is quite astonishing since McIntosh was a
learned Oxford man, quoting Ovid, Dante and Rosetti (cf. Kerr 2000: 19). This learned man
has taken the greatest fall of character, in an imperialist view, that a man could make, going
from a learned scholar to a loafer and a drunk, therefore he is punished and ostracised by his
fellow Anglo-Indians. Still there is one English element that he cannot let go, showing even a
slight reference to Strickland in ‘Miss Youghal’s Sais’ (1887) since McIntosh as well can
survive without any British elements in his life apart from one thing that the narrator puts
emphasis on: “I was admitted to the McIntosh household – I and my good tobacco” (Kipling
2009: 236; emphasis added). It seems that no man can do without this, almost defining
smoking good tobacco as something that was at the core of being English.
As horrid as McIntosh’s fall seems, he has done something amazing, “[f]or at the cost
of his respectability, his comfort, his health, his name (in both senses) and shortly of his life,
McIntosh has acquired a knowledge of the native world unrivalled among his kind. He really
does, as the narrator acknowledges, have ‘his hand on the pulse of native life’” (Kerr 2000:
19-20). This knowledge might be of great help for the empire, so one can say that he served
the empire to the end of his life, even sacrificing his own Englishness for knowledge, but the
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empire repays him by ostracising him. Thus revealing a paradox about the necessity of native
information, but the disapproval of those that work to attain it. This disapproval is even shown
by the narrator who receives this work after McIntosh has died, since he does edit the work,
but afterwards in his opinions on it, he reveals feelings of resentment to publish it, doing
everything to avoid being connected with it: “If the thing is ever published, some one [sic]
may perhaps remember this story, now printed as a safeguard to prove that McIntosh
Jellaludin and not I myself wrote the Book of Mother Manturin” (Kipling 2009: 241). The
narrator cannot even name it, but refers to it as a thing. The word ‘ever’ reveals a reluctance
in publishing it, since it might cause harm to his reputation. He even uses this story to prove
he did not write it. Thus showing a very ambiguous view that he is only concerned with his
own reputation and not McIntosh’s last wish or even with the well-being of the empire itself.
This reveals two stereotypes about this British empire, since it needs those that break the
legal, social or cultural laws to deepen their knowledge of the natives, but it also needs those
that obey the law to show the others how they should live, also judging them. This is what
Douglas Kerr calls “a myth of colonial discourse” (Kerr 2000: 21) upon which the colonial
empire is built and that is necessary to its survival, as is revealed in all of the stories dealing
with this transgression, which Kerr understands as a relationship between ‘outlaw’ and
‘lawman’:
[T]hey go together; they need each other. Without the lawman, the outlaw may be
simply engulfed, disappearing into the overwhelming tide of otherness that always
threatens the colonial project: the lawman invokes a kinship to remind him who
he ‘really’ is. But without the outlaw, the lawman may remain fruitlessly aloof,
unable to engage with the native in any profitable way. The relationship is one of
the allegories of empire. The imperial project can come to nothing unless contact
is made with the native, but contact is felt to risk disaster, loss of identity, even
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forfeit of the soul. And so they go on together, the lawman and the outlaw. (Kerr
2000: 21)
This interaction seems obvious in this story, but if the other stories are recalled in which men
transgress these cultural boundaries for knowledge e.g. Strickland or Trejago, this is seen to
be equally true. The only difference appears to be that these two characters were still too
closely connected to their own Englishness, and can therefore only comprehend native culture
on a basic and superficial level, while McIntosh has sacrificed his Englishness, by almost
completely severing all ties to the Anglo-Indian society to truly understand the native culture
in such a way that it might be helpful to the British Administration in its politics. What is
striking is that this is one of the biggest transgressions into native culture from all the stories
described, but in this story, the transgression is not punished by any form of violence or
cruelty in comparison to Trejago who gets wounded in the groin, Mr Bronckhorst who gets
thrashed by Biel, Jevon whose drunkenness is punished by extreme vandalism, or Michele
who kills a native to quell a riot. Kipling shows more respect to McIntosh than to the others
who defy colonial law, since it seems that only he does, not to his personal advantage as other
people do, but because he sees it as his duty to the empire to gather sufficient information to
understand natives and therefore to rule them in an appropriate fashion. The only cruelty that
may be found in this story seems to be the injustice that McIntosh has suffered from his
fellow Anglo-Indians who ostracise him. However, if his attitude is observed and the way he
lives, McIntosh does not seem to be touched by this, but remains himself. Thus showing his
superior strength in comparison to other civil servants who always return to their own culture
because they are afraid of going too far.
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4.3.3. Kipling’s men: not ideal, but flawed
Certain aspects of Kipling’s depiction of men are influential in understanding his early short
stories, but also change the way certain of his later works may be read. Kipling’s male
protagonists do not correspond with the stereotypes of the British civil servant of those days,
since he always depicts his civil servants with certain flaws: Strickland, Trejago and McIntosh
engage too deeply into native culture, which was forbidden according to several sources, since
this meant crossing certain social and cultural boundaries that were not meant to be crossed.
The depiction of his civil servants show an ambiguity towards this, revealing an ironic view:
those that crossed these boundaries did so, because they wish to gain information on the
natives to help the British empire, such as Strickland did in his stories or McIntosh in ‘To Be
Filed for Reference’ (1888), since their work ameliorates the state of the empire,
strengthening their control over the country. However, they are ostracised and stigmatised for
their work.
Kipling also reveal that the myth of the white civil servant is not always to be applied
on his stories. His stories reveal that the civil servant does not have to be English, but is
referred to as a European in general, and does not even have to be part of the white society,
since Michele D’Cruz in ‘His Chance in Life’ (1887) only has one drop of white blood in his
body, but still Kipling depicts him as a good civil servant. Kipling does not count race as
important to being a good civil servant, but emphasises the importance of certain inherent
qualities that have to be displayed to be seen as part of the ruling class.
The myth of the hard-working civil servant can also be questioned in Kipling’s early
short stories. In observing and describing Strickland’s stories, questions are raised if
Strickland is really working, since in ‘Mrs. Youghal’s Sais’ (1887) and ‘The Brockhorst
Divorce-Case’ (1888) references are made to how he does his job, emphasising his passive
listening. In ‘The Return of Imray’ (1891) he does search for the body of Imray, but it appears
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at a moment that he least expects it and almost needs to fall in his lap (both figuratively and
literally) for him to find it and solve the case. In the same way he is only driven to action in
‘The Mark of the Beast’ (1890) when he hears the Silver man calling Fleete. But still it seems
that he is still rewarded for his actions: he marries Miss Youghal, receives thanks from Biel,
and solves the other cases. This contrasts with the stories of other hard-working men, such as
Dicky Hatt in ‘In the Pride of his Youth’ (1887) who work himself to death to achieve the
same goal as Strickland, i.e. getting his wife and child to India to start a family, but he is
destroyed by his work, and later rebutted by his wife and the thought of his dead child. This
add a rather bleak and futile outlook to the image of the hard working-civil servant.
On the whole, Kipling’s male civil servants are ambiguous and cannot be stereotyped
as the ideal civil servant. Each of his characters in the stories seem to conform with certain
aspects of the stereotype, but other important aspects are not present in that same character.
This again reveals that Kipling did not wish to create stereotypes or that his characters cannot
be grasped by the current stereotype of the civil servant of those days. Kipling created human
beings with their flaws and vices, not idealised pictures of how men should be.
5. Results
The division in the setting of Kipling’s early short stories between the hill and plains stations
is mostly based on the outward appearance of people and the amount of work that is done in
these stations. The stories focusing on the plains stations appear to centre around the themes
of hard work, disease, civil unrest and other negative elements that happen when governing an
empire. These give the stories a general atmosphere of hardship and often futility. In contrast,
the hill station stories seem to engage more with the social element of colonial life, focusing
on social gathering and love interests, leading to an atmosphere of light-heartedness in these
stories contrasting with life in the plains stations. However, after closer analysis, this light-
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hearted atmosphere is only a thin veneer. When these social gatherings are analysed, it seems
that hardship is just as much the case in the hill station stories as in the plains stations. In the
hill stations the hardship is more about protecting one’s reputation, and how quickly this
carefully built reputation might be destroyed by an interracial marriage in ‘Kidnapped’
(1887), by gossip in ‘Three and – an Extra’ (1886) or even by having a relationship with a
woman who is regarded as a femme fatale by the rest of hill station society such as Mrs
Reiver. On the whole, it seems that both areas have certain hazardous elements in them,
which might be problematic for the characters. This depicts a much closer relationship
between the hill and plains stations than just the contrast between light-hearted enjoyment of
life and hardship, since both have good and negative aspects. Therefore it is true that “[t]he
geography of India exhibits a curious paradox. In northern India there is no intermingling of
hill and plain, and in passing from the one to the other a man passes from one world to
another. […] At the same time there is an unbreakable articulation between the Himalayas
[hill stations] and the Indo-Gangetic plain [plains stations]” (Chaudhuri 1972: 32-33). This
articulation shows that the Anglo-Indian colonists need both locations to govern this empire,
these two ways of life, symbolised by their location, are two sides of the same coin.
On the depiction of women, it can be concluded that the stereotypical depictions of
Kipling’s women such as the femme fatale or the docile memsahib are more ambiguous than
previous scholarly works on Kipling have portrayed them to be. The main reason for this is
the depiction of Mrs Hauksbee: by collecting and comparing stories focusing on her, a much
more complex view of her is formed than was first revealed. At certain moments she is
depicted as a femme fatale, while at other moments she can be a caring mother figure who
wishes to help her protégés. This already reveals that these stereotypes should rather be seen
as two dimensions of the same person and in certain situations one dimension may be more
dominant. Of equal importance is the distinction that can be made between certain femmes
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fatales in Kipling’s early stories, since Mrs. Hauksbee is a different type of femme fatale as
Mrs Reiver, since their motivations are completely different. This is important, since it
differentiates these two women who most critics have both placed under the common
denominator of femme fatale. If motivations are taken into account, then a femme fatale might
be a good thing, since Mrs Hauksbee behaviour as a femme fatale makes Mrs CussackBremmil forget the tragedy of her child’s death in ‘Three and –an Extra’ (1886) and again lets
her become the women she used to be. In the same way, she “captures Pluffles” (The Rescue
of Pluffles (1886); Kipling 2009: 45) only to keep him away from Mrs Reiver and educates
him as a caring mother afterwards. This contradicts Sen’s view that women are only
destructive or disruptive forces in hill station culture (cf. Sen 2000: 15) we can see that they
inspire the men to great feats and restore their self-esteem and confidence to advance in life,
such as Mrs Hauksbee helps Otis Yeere advance in life in ‘The Education of Otis Yeere’
(1888) or how Mrs Reiver’s image inspires Moriarty to overcome his alcoholism in ‘In Error’
(1887). This means that they are not only disruptive, but can be a constructive factor in hill
station society. The ambiguous depiction of Mrs Hauksbee raises the question of whether
other female characters might be more ambiguous, since it seems that even Kipling’s greatest
femme fatale, Mrs Reiver, receives some reluctant praise, in ‘In Error’ (1887). It seems that
Kipling believed that some good may arise even from a destructive or disruptive force. In
addition, questions can be raised if the women are the only people guilty of the downfall of
the men in these stories, since the men are implicated in this as well by seeing signs of
affection where there were none. This ambiguity in Kipling’s female characters diverts from
the idea of a stereotype and especially the idea that “Kipling’s women are – just women”
(Frankau (1928) 1971: 365), showing them as more complex and ambiguous, thus creating a
depth in character going further than a stereotype.
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Kipling’s male characters depict this form ambiguity as well since they too divert from
the stereotype of the ideal hard-working civil servant in the way they appear. His civil
servants always seem to have an aspect of being a good civil servant, but at the same time
they do not show other aspects that are also part of this stereotype, e.g. Michele D’Cruze is
depicted as a very good civil servant in ‘His Chance in Life’ (1887), but breaks with the
aspect that these civil servants must be part of the white ruling race. Kipling emphasises that
race is not important, but that certain qualities are shown that depict this person as a good
civil servant. This questioning of the civil servant is mostly important with Strickland who is
seen as the epitome of the civil servant, by several of Kipling’s contemporaries, such as
Edmund Gosse (cf. Gosse (1891) 1971: 115). However, as the analysis has shown, Strickland
fails to correspond with this ideal. At certain moments it seems as if he solves the case even
by accident such as in ‘The Return of Imray’ (1891). Strickland and other male protagonists
also show a tendency towards violence to get what they want, thus violence and cruelty
become a recurring theme in all stories focusing on male protagonists. Either this is violence
they do upon others, as Strickland does to the Silver Man in ‘The Mark of the Beast’ (1890)
or violence that has been exacted on them, such as the cruel mental strain that has been put on
Dicky Hatt in ‘In the Pride of his Youth’ (1887). The stories with violence and cruelty at the
core of them often give a bleak and futile image of what these hard-working civil servants are
doing, which contrasts with characters that do not show this strain such as Strickland, but still
receives the rewards and the glory for their actions. A last element that becomes clear in these
stories is the need for native knowledge to govern them properly, which contrasts with the
way that the civil servants are treated who risk everything to gain this knowledge, such as
Strickland, Trejago or McIntosh. They are judged by their fellow Anglo-Indians as personae
non gratae and regarded with a wary eye, having crossed social and cultural boundaries that
are not supposed to be crossed. However, in ‘Tod’s Amendment’ (1887) it is made clear how
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incapable government officials are if they do not have this knowledge, almost harming the
natives for which they have to care.
The ambiguous depiction of Mrs Hauksbee and Strickland is the factor in questioning
if there are other women or men that contradict these stereotypes. By placing the stories of
these recurring characters together, a more complex image is created from a single character,
which makes the reader wonder if other characters might have this ambiguity as well in that
story in which they are depicted. On the surface these stereotypes that were made after
Kipling seem to correlate, but if close reading is applied and several stories are put together,
questions may arise whether this attribution of stereotypes was actually correct.
A thematic element that seems to appear in several stories is a form of mental or
physical violence towards the community in which the story takes place. Remarkably, the
form of violence depends on the location of the story i.e. whether it takes place in a hill
station or a plains station, and this is the case for both male and female protagonists. The
stories on hill station culture show a mental cruelty towards characters: women seem to be
cruel to the men that love them (e.g. Mrs Reiver), women become depressed after the death of
a child (e.g. Mrs Cussack-Bremmil) and mothers wishing their daughter to marry high ranking
officials for additional status, instead of following their heart (e.g. Mrs Beighton). In the same
way, men are also subject to mental violence or engage in it in hill station society, such as the
narrator and Jevon in ‘A Friend’s Friend’ (1887), where Jevon is driven out of the
community, and the narrator’s reputation in hill station society is ruined. Physical violence
mostly takes place when men are involved, as is clear from the chapter on Kipling’s civil
servants. Mostly this violence is done towards the natives such as in ‘His Chance in Life’
(1887) or ‘The Mark of the Beast’ (1890). However, it can also be done to a fellow AngloIndian such as Biel who thrashes Mr Bronckhorst in ‘The Bronckhorst Divorce-Case’ (1888).
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On the whole, Kipling’s early short stories give an insight in colonial life in India as it
was, and does not construct his characters as ideals or stereotypes. He creates a certain form
of ambiguity in every character that makes it impossible to categorise his male and female
characters. His depiction of men and women, show them as he saw them during his time in
India, as human beings who have their virtues, but their flaws and vices as well.
6. Implications
This analysis has implications for the study of Kipling’s early short stories and his work in
general. The images that have been created on the basis of his stories of his depiction of men
and women, seem to have been too stereotypical to be correctly applied to his characters,
since if applied, certain defects are revealed. This shows that Kipling’s characters are much
more ambiguous than first thought by certain scholars. The stereotypical views on Kipling’s
men and women need to be adapted: both Kipling’s male and female protagonists are depicted
with certain stereotypical aspects, however they also reveal an inherent ambiguity that cannot
allow them to be categorised as mere stereotypes. Therefore, the critical approach to Kipling’s
work should be adapted to conform to the ambiguity in his characters to come to more
conclusive points on several stories. If critical studies on Kipling’s works continue to use
these stereotypes, certain nuances will not be noticed, and with Kipling these nuances are
vital, since they add the depth to his stories making them imaginative representations of
Kipling’s own background. At the same time, Kipling’s depiction of women needs to come
under closer scrutiny. Without a deeper understanding of these female characters they will
just be defined as disruptive forces (cf. Sen 2000: 15). In addition, the idea that “[i]n Kipling’s
fiction, the all-male worlds evoked seem to need a female presence mainly to define
themselves against” (Montefiore 2007: 67) should be considered false: Kipling’s women
stand on their own merits and are at the core of certain stories, without having any male
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protagonists to be defined against. This again implies that Kipling was not “a misogynist”
(Sen 2000: 17), but depicted women as he saw them, sometimes this was in a good way,
sometimes bad.
On the whole, the research that has been done on Kipling’s depiction of men and
women does not appear to be wrong, however, it is time that certain fixed stereotypes are
placed under closer scrutiny to question their rightfulness and to adapt certain aspects to grasp
the complexity that Kipling instilled in his characters.
7. Conclusion
In his time, Rudyard Kipling was a very influential writer who was able to feel the pulse of
the British empire in India, which he reflects in his stories. He gives his characters a deep
complexity, without resorting to stereotypes to depict them. He has used his own colonial
background as a basis to create them, fully aware of the image that the British had of
themselves in India, but still aware of certain defects or flaws in this system or mentality,
which he approaches in his stories by evoking situations that dared to show the lesser sides of
the British in India, sometimes even adding a hint of critique. This made sure that his male
and female protagonists could not be seem as the idealised stereotypes that they were, but as
something more: they were created to represent human beings, having their virtues, but
having vices as well. This seems to be the power of Kipling’s writing and the reason why his
work was so successful at the time, and even up until now: because of his ambiguous and
remarkably human characters, he is able to evoke a feeling of reality, instead of a constructed
story, and makes his readers feel that this might have really happened.
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