Rudyard KIPLING (1865-1963)

Rudyard KIPLING (1865-1963) - [Libro E pag 119 + schede short stories-] Rudyard KIPLING (1865-1963) Life & main works: Born in Bombay, India. >>BRITISH COLONIAL EXPERIENCE Sent to England to attend school >> DIVIDED LOVE FOR INDIA AND ENGLAND Journalist Poems short stories and novels about Indian life: Plain Tales from the Hills (1890) [short stories]>> THE STORY OF MUHAMMAD DIN (1886); LISPETH BEYOND THE PALE (1887) KIM (1901) [novel] > 1907 > first Englishman to receive the Nobel prize for literature during the First World War he worked as a correspondent >> POEMS ABOUT FIRST WORLD WAR He was one of the most important British colonial writers. THEMES: HE EXALTED IMPERIAL POWER AND BELIEVED IN THE “BURDEN” OF THE BRITISH, WHO, AS THE ELECTED RACE, HAD TO CARRY CIVILIZATION ALL OVER THE WORLD AND ESTABLISH THEIR GOVERNMENT BASED ON HONOUR AND DIGNITY (he had always been proud to be English). BUT HE ALSO HAD ALWAYS SYMPATHY FOR INDIAN PEOPLE. PESSIMISTIC VISUAL: incompatibility of the two world (British and Indian) KIM (1901) KIM AT AN INDIAN RAILWAY STATION SETTING: India, a railway station. It's a sign of English civilization. Night (3.25 a.m.) (line 16). PLOT: Kim helps the lama to take to write train to Benares. He has the control of the situation, instead the Lama doesn't know what to do. LANGUAGE: use of Indian words and expressions. NARRATOR/ POINT OF VIEW: third person narrator, UNOBTRUSIVE. Point of view: an English man (see lines 29-30, 35-36), but he tries to make the reader see through the characters' point of view. CHARACTERS: Kim: the protagonist. (He lived in workhouses, he didn't have a family, was adopted by a benefactor who was also his uncle). He's brighter than the people around him; he's protective and generous, he's helping the lama out. He has BRITISH ABILITIES and KNOWLEDGE OF INDIAN TRADITIONS The Lama: a Buddhist monk of Tibet or Mongolia. He' uncivilized, defenceless in this foreign world, innocent, naïve, with no money. (lines 4, 16, 22, 33, 37-38). The clerk: He sells the tickets at the station. He doesn't care about Kim and the Lama, he simply does a mechanical work. He's cold, detached. He doesn't work well (he gives them the wrong ticket). >> SYMBOL OF CORRUPTION SHORT STORIES: Narrative form popular Against the omniscient narrator >> more ambivalent vision of the world; NARRATOR=a fictional character in different situations STYLE: Kipling has a particular ability to use the words to convey feelings and emotions and portrait BOTH EXPONENTS OF THE BRITISH RULING CLASS AND THE NATIVES. THE STORY OF MUHAMMAD DIN (1886) SETTING: India, a English master's house. NARRATOR: internal first person (the English master). He's amused for the energy of the son (lines 22-29) LANGUAGE: use of Indian words. NARRATIVE TECNIQUE: at the beginning there are two lines of a quotation that summarizes the theme of the story. CHARACTERS: The protagonist (Mohammad Din) isn't British and he's a servant's child > important; The ma