Kim displays Kipling's fascination with and also kipling’s nostalgia for the exotic India of his childhood; Kim's facility for language and disguise models Kipling's interest in "putting on" various aspects of Indian culture in his narrative.
The story begins when Kim teams up with an old Tibetan lama, who wanders into Lahore to look at the Buddhist relics in 'The Wonder House' (Lahore museum) with the 'Keeper of the images' (the curator). From then on the plot develops two strands that run in parallel, and to a large extent overlap. One strand concerns Kim's discipleship to the lama, who is an abbot in his own country, and now, in old age, on a Buddhist quest, following 'The Way' to free himself from the 'Wheel of Things', and merge his soul with the 'Great Soul'. Throughout this novel his goal is to find a holy Buddhist river and to cleanse himself of ‘all taint and speckle of sin’. Kim seems to think of the lama as his father and repeatedly talks about him as ‘my lama’. Kim also shows real love for the lama as they get used to each other.
Kim is fascinated by the stranger, and accepts readily accepts the role of being his ‘chela’ (disciple) and joins him on his journey, with the intention of also following his own quest, to find the meaning of a prophecy that was made by his father, that 'Nine hundred first-class devils, whose God was a Red Bull on a green field, would attend to Kim'. This prophecy eventually gives rise to the second strand of the plot - Kim's recruitment as a spy in the British Secret Service.
The cunning streetwise Kim almost acts as the lama’s guide through the complicated hustle and bustle of Indian life in which the lama seems unfamiliar with. One of the greatest features of the book is how kipling shows the richness of india’s exotic landscape and life through these two amazing characters whilst overlaid by the uneasy presence of the British Raj. In this way I suppose kipling describes India by not looking at it directly but by weaving it into the lives of the characters. This makes the book ever more intriguing as you read on.
One of the bonds uniting Kim and the lama on their respective quests is that both reject relationships with women. They both see women as dangerous distractions from their higher goal:
’How can a man follow the Way or the Great Game when he is so-always pestered by women? ‘(Ch.14 )
kim is a male oriented character as we can see from the beginning when he is sitting astride a canon.
But the two companions are in many ways very different. Kim is young, the lama is old. Kim is knowledgeable and streetwise and the lama is naive and inexperienced. The adolescent Kim is mature beyond his years, while the aged lama is childlike. And in some ways the tactics they employ to achieve their aims are opposite too. The lama adopts an attitude of honesty and openness, while Kim adopts an attitude of deception, manipulation, and lies.
And yet the two become interdependent. Kim's association with the lama provides him with an excuse to travel around India, and an ideal cover for his true role as a spy, while the lama often relies on Kim to do their begging and find them shelter, often physically leaning on Kim's shoulder as they travel. This relationship seems too perfect in some ways.
Kim defines and creates his identity during his adventures by being open to influences; by responding positively to people he can look up to, while warding off influences that he finds harmful. His distinctive ability to ignore caste divisions and experience true freedom of motion allows Kipling to make a vision of India unrestrained by typical limits of perspective and prejudice. The motif of Kim's white blood further provides a unifying theme for the portrayal of India's struggle between British Imperialism and national pride.
In chapter 5, when he finally finds the 'Nine hundred first-class devils, whose God was a Red Bull on a green field', (his father's old regiment - the red bull on a green field being their flag), he is captured by the soldiers and his instinct is to escape back to the lama at all costs. This is the first close encounter with a group of white men Kim has had in his life, and Kipling uses it to show a clash of native and British mentality, with Kim and the lama showing the native side, and the members of the regiment showing aspects of British mentality that Kipling holds up for criticism.
Among the white men, Kipling's targets for mockery include Christian ministers - ministers of the 'creed that lumps nine-tenths of the world under the title of 'heathen'.' (Ch.5). The Reverend Bennett and Father Victor, who at first assume he is a native thief, capture Kim, then discover his identity papers, revealing that he is the son of the O'Hara of their regiment, whom they knew. But Kipling emphasises their narrow-mindedness by showing them shocked by his non-Christian appearance and manner. To an extent we can applaud kipling for exposing the ignorance of these people, in a way showing a native being superior.
Powers of Darkness below, what a country! ‘ It's O'Hara's boy, sure enough. O'Hara's boy leagued with all the Powers of Darkness. (Ch.5)
The regimented life is intolerable to Kim, but he resigns himself to the fact that he is going to me made, at least partly into a sahib, and when in Chapter 7 he moves on to St. Xavier's school, then meets Colonel Creighton, he finds himself among white people of a better quality, whom he can admire and respect, and he starts to accept and appreciate the white component to his identity. Kim can look up to him, and he becomes the anchor that links Kim to the West, while the lama is the anchor that links him to the East.
When the story opens the influences on him have been almost exclusively Indian. But even at this stage he cannot think of himself as a native. He remembers his father and his prophecy, carries his identity papers in a leather amulet case around his neck, and of course his skin is white. And inwardly his attitudes are already at least partly those of a white ruler. The opening paragraph showing him sitting astride the cannon shows that he feels it natural to claim the position of power, a position he asserts with a game of 'king-of-the-castle' in which he prevents the native boys, both Moslem and Hindu, from taking his place. And, as we have seen, this inherited assumption that he is entitled to the position of power over his native peers is matched by his assumption of 'ownership' of the lama. 'The lama was his trove, and he proposed to take possession' (Ch1)
His white skin, his identity papers, and this in-built tendency to own and rule will prove to be essential to the identity he is seeking to build, but neither at the beginning nor the end does he think of himself as a 'sahib', and his encounter with the white man's world is at first a shocking experience which he resists with all his might.
‘A Sahib is a Sahib, and no amount of friendship or camaraderie can change the rudiments of racial difference" (Said)
Yet, despite this absolute sounding theory, Kipling manages to disprove Said with Kim, who is both white and non-white. Kim remains inferior to the Lama for the duration of the novel in the position of chela, begging for him, washing his feet, and carrying his baggage. It is precisely this ability to shrug off a Sahib's purpose in Indian society that allows Kim to enter the non-white world.
Kim does not understand Sahib's and cannot relate to them until he has finished his training at St. Xavier's. After living with white people and learning their customs, Kim can understand the priest's and Mahbub Ali's statement that "once a Sahib always a Sahib (Ch 5 and Ch 6). Yet, throughout the novel Kim rebels this, saying: "I do not want to be a Sahib" (Ch 6). To accept the priest and Mahbub Ali would mean his chameleon powers had vanished and he could no longer enter the non-white world. With all of the previous points it seems that Kim’s identity is unanswerable.
Kim is successful because he is not a British native and can view the richness of India because he is part of it. On the other hand, Kim is the only person in the novel who can see all the beauty in India and he happens to be a white man, thus implying that a nonwhite could not have the same vantage point. Therefore, empire is in the back of Kipling's mind at all times, even while attempting to escape from it in the most genuine settings in India. With Kim’s indecisive and confusing identity it seems to allow him to move with ease between the white and non-white worlds of India and therefore succeed in the lama’s and Kim’s own quests.
What I find about kipling’s descriptions and insights into Indian life is that he draws a clear contrast between the people of India. Every Indian, whether they live in the plains or in the mountains are distinct. They are very much like portraitures and landscapes; they give the reader glimpses into people and places. This image of India adds something really special and unique to throughout the novel. This makes Kim stand out from other books.
Even though these qualities give the plot an interesting insight into India, stories and hierarchy of races, what makes the story tick is those two simple characters. Kim and his lama. This is the real quality of the book and is unquestionable that this is a huge selling point.
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