“Why-for are you such a horrible contradiction?”: Kipling and the “Chinese Question”

( Qian Wang ) 한국영어영문학회 2019 영어 영문학 Vol.65 No.2

While there have been numerous studies on Rudyard Kipling’s writing about the British Raj, relatively little has been done on his perception of China. This paper looks at Rudyard Kipling’s representation of China in his collection of early travel letters From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches: Letters of Travel (1899). The encounter with Chinese immigrant labourers provoked profound psychological disturbances for Kipling, as was revealed in his persistent and obsessive need to solve the “Chinese question” throughout these letters. This paper analyses the figuration of the Chinese and considers how it contributes to the debate about the effects of Chinese immigration emerging in the second half of the nineteenth century. Kipling’s representation of the immigrant Chinese partakes of, and is conducive to, a Yellow Perilist preoccupation with invasion scares. Further, Kipling’s seemingly unaccountable fear and extreme hatred of the Chinese were the result of his frustration to solve “the Chinese question.” The supposedly paradoxical nature of the Chinese frustrated Kipling’s attempt to interpret them in clear-cut ways and in turn provoked his extreme abhorrence and vituperation. Finally, the paper also reflects on the ways in which different formations of imperialism might inflect British representations of China, as indicated by Kipling’s writing.

Imperialism in Rudyard Kipling's Early Short Stories

김순식 한국영미어문학회 2009 영미어문학 Vol.- No.91

Rudyard Kipling was the first Englishman to receive the Nobel Prize for literature in 1907 and he was known as an avid supporter of imperialism. This study examines aspects of imperialism reflected in his early short stories about India written in the late 1880s--1890. His tales from India are a repository of imperial messages to contemporary Anglo-Indian readership. The discussed short stories here are: "The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes," "Thrown Away," "At the End of the Passage," "Phantom Rickshaw," "Beyond Pale," "To Be Filed for Reference," "The Man Who Would Be King," "Without Benefit of Clergy" and "The Head of the District." Through analysis of the stories, the colonialist's nightmarish experiences in India provide readers with political allegories and lessons to heed in the process of Empire building and maintaining. His stories also warns the colonialist about the dangers of immersion into the native culture, which Kipling considers as having inescapable charms. The stories can be categorized into two parts: manifestations of infantile fear on the colonizer's individual level and those of collective wishes to control India and to justify British rule. The former aspects are related to fear of separation or of abandonment as Kipling himself experienced as a child; the latter closely reflects the fear of rebellion as the fearful memory of the Mutiny in 1857 still loomed over the consciousness of contemporary British at the time of his writing. Kipling reinforces in the stories that each Anglo-Indian should endure and work for the great cause of the Empire, no matter how hard the colonialist's hardships. He also glorifies the colonialist spirit as shown in "The Man Who Would Be King." Rudyard Kipling was the first Englishman to receive the Nobel Prize for literature in 1907 and he was known as an avid supporter of imperialism. This study examines aspects of imperialism reflected in his early short stories about India written in the late 1880s--1890. His tales from India are a repository of imperial messages to contemporary Anglo-Indian readership. The discussed short stories here are: "The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes," "Thrown Away," "At the End of the Passage," "Phantom Rickshaw," "Beyond Pale," "To Be Filed for Reference," "The Man Who Would Be King," "Without Benefit of Clergy" and "The Head of the District." Through analysis of the stories, the colonialist's nightmarish experiences in India provide readers with political allegories and lessons to heed in the process of Empire building and maintaining. His stories also warns the colonialist about the dangers of immersion into the native culture, which Kipling considers as having inescapable charms. The stories can be categorized into two parts: manifestations of infantile fear on the colonizer's individual level and those of collective wishes to control India and to justify British rule. The former aspects are related to fear of separation or of abandonment as Kipling himself experienced as a child; the latter closely reflects the fear of rebellion as the fearful memory of the Mutiny in 1857 still loomed over the consciousness of contemporary British at the time of his writing. Kipling reinforces in the stories that each Anglo-Indian should endure and work for the great cause of the Empire, no matter how hard the colonialist's hardships. He also glorifies the colonialist spirit as shown in "The Man Who Would Be King."

Considering Kim’s Dual Identity in the Post-colonial Discourse

Kim Hoyeol 한국외국어대학교 영미연구소 2015 영미연구 Vol.34 No.-

It is becoming significant for individuals to find their own individual identities, as the today’s ongoing globalization has become much more complicated. A similar situation occurred when the British Empire influenced the world politically, economically, and culturally in the nineteenth century. In order to grasp human intrinsic identities, my thesis aims to use postcolonial theories to examine characters’ identities in a nineteenth-century British novel, Kipling’s Kim (1901). In Kipling’s Kim, I examine Kim, an Irish boy who experiences racial identity confusion by living in British India. Kim’s identity is ambiguous as his background is complicated: his parents are Irish, Kim was born in India, he was educated in a British school, and he participated in the Great Game. It would prove inadequate to try to see Kim’s identity based on binary oppositions, as Kim’s identity is neither British nor native Indian. Aside from simply being a person named Kim, Kim’s identity consists of being someone who has cultural hybridity. Through the main character of Kim, Kipling suggests that a Brit who understands the local Indian culture and society, as Kim does, would govern India with ease. Overall, Kipling’s Kim elaborates on why or how India should be governed by Britain and also seems to justify the British rule of India. In Kim, Kipling creates the main character of Kim, who has cultural hybridity and whose process of personal growth throughout the novel depicts Kipling’s ideas on how to govern India easily. In order to justify British rule in India, Kipling also depicts how British-Indian society was developed by Britain, also through the character of Kim. Looking into characters’ identities throughout nineteenth-century British novels helps modern readers who live in this complicated world to grasp human intrinsic identities.

Considering Kim’s Dual Identity in the Post-colonial Discourse

김호열 한국외국어대학교 영미연구소 2015 영미연구 Vol.34 No.-

It is becoming significant for individuals to find their own individual identities, as the today’s ongoing globalization has become much more complicated. A similar situation occurred when the British Empire influenced the world politically, economically, and culturally in the nineteenth century. In order to grasp human intrinsic identities, my thesis aims to use postcolonial theories to examine characters’ identities in a nineteenth-century British novel, Kipling’s Kim (1901). In Kipling’s Kim, I examine Kim, an Irish boy who experiences racial identity confusion by living in British India. Kim’s identity is ambiguous as his background is complicated: his parents are Irish, Kim was born in India, he was educated in a British school, and he participated in the Great Game. It would prove inadequate to try to see Kim’s identity based on binary oppositions, as Kim’s identity is neither British nor native Indian. Aside from simply being a person named Kim, Kim’s identity consists of being someone who has cultural hybridity. Through the main character of Kim, Kipling suggests that a Brit who understands the local Indian culture and society, as Kim does, would govern India with ease. Overall, Kipling’s Kim elaborates on why or how India should be governed by Britain and also seems to justify the British rule of India. In Kim, Kipling creates the main character of Kim, who has cultural hybridity and whose process of personal growth throughout the novel depicts Kipling’s ideas on how to govern India easily. In order to justify British rule in India, Kipling also depicts how British-Indian society was developed by Britain, also through the character of Kim. Looking into characters’ identities throughout nineteenth-century British novels helps modern readers who live in this complicated world to grasp human intrinsic identities.

논문 : 『킴』에 나타난 자아탐색과 구원

이선희 ( Sun Hee Lee ) 한국문학과종교학회 2011 문학과종교 Vol.16 No.2

Rudyard Kipling was born in India in 1865 and spent rather a long period there, so he can be regarded as a writer acquainted with Indian Culture, languages and life. He embodied his understanding and interest in India in Kim. But revealing the negative aspects of Kim, some critics have pointed out Kipling`s viewpoints as a racist and an imperialist disguised behind a plausible appearance. On the other hand, some have praised him for his works which are likely to incarnate Kipling`s experiences and understanding in India, so are great works aesthetically. In other words, Kipling not only wrote about India but he was a part if it. To portray the real aspects of India, Kipling is focusing the growth of Kim from childhood to manhood, orphaned in early age and learn how to get on in the world to be most worldly. Though being a sahib, Kim is more likely to be an Indian as he was born and grew in Indian cultures. He fails to find out his identity as a sahib and a fanciful chosen hero in the course of the journey with the lama. Though he was for some time attracted to the fact that he is a sahib, he could not entirely deny his identity as an Indian. His true identity, however, arisen by a self questioning "What is Kim?" is the lama`s chela. It is clear that the lama occupies a very crucial place in the design of the novel. It is the lama who embodies the ideas and tenets of Buddhism as practiced in Tibet. He has searched for spiritual values and his final destination in seeking truth is the Salvation River. But he realizes the limit of his truth seeking through the mutual relationship with his chela Kim. He realizes the secular world and spiritual world are not different but one thing composed of variations, so can not be divided. Therefore, he refuses to enter the state of bliss or spiritual enlightenment. He realizes God is within us not without. Among the important symbols in Kim, Grand Trunk Road outstands as the most significant. It is a space where Indian people`s dynamic and pulsating life is expressed. It is a place where Kim grows to be a youngman physically and spiritually. The Road, therefore, becomes a symbol of his Becoming - from childhood to manhood. Seen as a secular and confounding world, the Road is at the same time a worldly and spiritual place as the Road and River are the two aspects of one, indivisible reality. Controversial novel as Kim is, it is a great work embodied Kipling`s understanding of India who loved Indian people`s life and well shown Eastern values and spiritual world. Kipling is expressing the meaning of harmony and ``Midway`` which doesn`t divide things through Tibetan Buddhism.

양 극단의 정치적 스펙트럼

박경서(Kyung seo Park) 한국영미어문학회 2014 영미어문학 Vol.- No.114

The purpose of this study is to compare Rudyard Kipling and George Orwell, and to analyse their works as regards British imperialism. The study is based on the opinion that the history of English novels is the history of indoctrination with imperialistic ideology. In the light of the opinion, Kipling and Orwell reflect the history of British imperialism and their works are mirrors of British imperialism. So, the study reveals two writers' extreme political views. Kipling puts emphasis on the white man's burden propagating and defending ideology of British imperialism. On the other hand, Orwell regards Kipling's 'the white man's burden' as falsity and hypocrisy, criticizing British imperialism. At first Orwell had emotional ambivalence about British imperialism, and it led to the ambivalence about Kipling. As time passes, Orwell points out severely that Kipling is a jingo imperialist. This study will explain why Kipling has imperialistic attitude and Orwell anti-imperialist sentiment on the British rule in India and Burma.

Imperialism in Rudyard Kipling's Early Short Stories

Soonsik Kim 한국영미어문학회 2009 영미어문학 Vol.- No.91

Rudyard Kipling was the first Englishman to receive the Nobel Prize for literature in 1907 and he was known as an avid supporter of imperialism. This study examines aspects of imperialism reflected in his early short stories about India written in the late 1880s--1890. His tales from India are a repository of imperial messages to contemporary Anglo-Indian readership. The discussed short stories here are: "The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes," "Thrown Away," "At the End of the Passage," "Phantom Rickshaw," "Beyond Pale," "To Be Filed for Reference," "The Man Who Would Be King," "Without Benefit of Clergy" and "The Head of the District." Through analysis of the stories, the colonialist's nightmarish experiences in India provide readers with political allegories and lessons to heed in the process of Empire building and maintaining. His stories also warns the colonialist about the dangers of immersion into the native culture, which Kipling considers as having inescapable charms. The stories can be categorized into two parts: manifestations of infantile fear on the colonizer's individual level and those of collective wishes to control India and to justify British rule. The former aspects are related to fear of separation or of abandonment as Kipling himself experienced as a child; the latter closely reflects the fear of rebellion as the fearful memory of the Mutiny in 1857 still loomed over the consciousness of contemporary British at the time of his writing. Kipling reinforces in the stories that each Anglo-Indian should endure and work for the great cause of the Empire, no matter how hard the colonialist's hardships. He also glorifies the colonialist spirit as shown in "The Man Who Would Be King."

신상품 개발을 위한 TRIZ 모순해결 알고리즘: 키플링의 육하원칙과 도구-대상 분석의 연계과정을 중심으로

신원식,현정석,하환호 한국경영컨설팅학회 2022 경영컨설팅연구 Vol.22 No.1

Altshuller and his colleagues found that creative and innovative invention patents commonly resolved contradictions and established TRIZ. TRIZ is an acronym in Russian meaning ‘Theory of Inventive Problem Solving’. Leading domestic and foreign companies are actively introducing TRIZ to develop innovative new products. TRIZ proposes the separation principle and 40 invention principles as a way to solve the contradiction of the problem. For beginners to use TRIZ, the contents of TRIZ are vast and complex, so it is difficult for beginners to actually use TRIZ. This study presents an algorithm that defines the contradiction problem and derives a solution to the problem using the widely known Kipling's six-fold principle method, the tool-object analysis of value engineering that defines the contradiction problem. Applying Kipling's six-fold principle method has the advantage of analyzing the goal, solution, and time and space in which the problem occurs. In the process of applying Kipling's six-fold principle method, the goal of the contradiction problem (Why), what to achieve concretely the abstract goal of the system, and how as a means to achieve the goal of the system can be grasped. After applying Kipling's six-fold principle method, tool-object analysis can be used to understand how the components of a system interact. By understanding the components of the system and their interactions, it can be extracted the definition the structural relationship between the abstract goal of the contradiction problem and the concrete solution by these analyses. After they are done, a specific solution can be derived for solving the problem by using the time-tool table. Altshuller와 그의 동료들은 창의적이고 혁신적인 발명 특허들이 공통적으로 모순을 해결하였다는 사실을 알아내어 트리즈(TRIZ)를 정립하였다. TRIZ는 ‘발명 문제 해결 이론(Theory of Inventive Problem Solving)’을 의미하는 러시아어의 머리글자에 해당한다. 국내외 유수 기업들이 혁신적인 신상품 개발을 위해 TRIZ를 적극적으로 도입하고 있다. TRIZ는 문제의 모순을 해결하는 방법으로써 분리원리와 40 발명원리 등을 제시한다. 그렇지만 초보자가 TRIZ를 활용하기에는 TRIZ의 내용이 방대하고 복잡하여 실제적 활용에 많은 어려움을 겪는다. 이에 본 연구는 대중적으로 널리 알려진 키플링의 육하원칙 방법과 가치공학의 도구-대상 분석을 활용하여 모순문제를 정의하고 문제의 해결방안을 도출하는 알고리즘을 제시하였다. 키플링의 육하원칙 방법을 적용하면 문제의 목표와 해결수단 그리고 문제가 발생하는 시공간을 분석할 수 있는 이점이 있다. 키플링의 육하원칙 방법을 적용하는 과정에서 모순문제의 목표(Why), 시스템의 추상적인 목표를 구체적으로 달성하기 위한 무엇(What), 시스템의 목표를 이루기 위한 수단으로써 어떻게(How)를 파악할 수 있다. 이후 적용하는 도구-대상 분석은 시스템의 구성요소들이 어떻게 상호작용하는지 파악할 수 있다. 키플링 육하원칙 방법과 도구-대상 분석의 연계 과정은 모순문제의 추상적인 목표와 구체적인 해결수단 간의 구조적인 관계를 정의하게 하며, 이를 시간-도구 테이블에 적용하여 문제 해결을 위한 구체적인 해결안을 도출할 수 있다.

Kim’s Mobility and Its Contradictions in Rudyard Kipling’s Kim

( Ilsu Sohn ) 21세기영어영문학회 2019 영어영문학21 Vol.32 No.1

This essay explores literary representations of mobility in Rudyard Kipling’s Kim and examines how they problematize the current understanding of the novel as well as the history of British imperialism. Recent scholars focus on Kim’s hybridity and tend toward interpreting it as discursively inherent to colonial culture. In this paper, I argue that Kim’s hybridized identity, unsettling as it is, derives from his historically situated position as low-class Irish as well as that of the migratory masses in colonial India. My primary analysis focuses on how Kim’s mobility is harnessed to serve the British Empire but also results in interpersonal intimacies. In particular, Kim’s intimacy with the lama marks out a contested site in which the homogenizing force of the British Empire facilitates other experiences that cannot be predicted, much less controlled. The individual character’s mobility and his corporeal and emotive experiences that follow serve to highlight limits of British imperial agenda.

The Son Who Does Not Return: Displacement and Alternative Nationality in Kipling’s Kim

( Soyoun Kim ) 한국영어영문학회 2020 영어 영문학 Vol.66 No.2

As an Indian-born writer, Rudyard Kipling is characterized by his consistent interest in the problem of belonging. In the novel Kim (1901) he deals with the issue of feeling displaced and struggling to find a true home within imperial geography. Since Kim, the juvenile protagonist of the novel, is outside the familial and social structure as an orphan, he is able to travel across India while transgressing both social and geographical boundaries. Through the journey, he comes to invent his own identity in colonial India instead of passing through a rite of passage to acquire British masculinity. Unlike the Tibetan lama, who feels displaced because of his desire to escape from the men’s world, Kim begins perceiving himself as a part of the imperial structure. His getting into the imperial world does not cause him to become a white master, though. Comparing and contrasting him with other characters who occupy divided cultural location like him helps us to locate him in the empire. Just as in the case of Lispeth, the hill-woman who attempts to seduce him using her familiarity with the English culture, Englishness remains fundamentally foreign to him till the end of the novel. His alternative identity both empowers and disempowers him; while it allows him to feel at home in India, it also makes him physically and socially less mobile than English men. Either way, his character produces an unsettling effect through anticipating white men who would not return to the father’s home country.