Kim by Rudyard Kipling

Résumé du document

The theme that interests us is the quest for identity in Rudyard Kipling's novel Kim. The book was written in 1901 and the plot takes place in India during the time of the British colonization. Kim presents several quests: a quest implies that the protagonist has to seek something noble, like the River of the Arrow for the lama, and that it generally has to undertake a long and difficult trip to reach it. Actually, Kim relates the story of the ambitious trip of two characters throughout India seeking for something fundamental in their lives. The theme of identity is essential in Kim: both Oriental and European origins of the eponymous hero play a major role in the novel. That is why it is interesting to study the novel through the prism of the quest for identity. We are going to see how the quest goes on and what is hidden behind this quest for identity.

Extraits

[...] Kim, by Rudyard Kipling The theme that interests us is the quest for identity in Rudyard Kipling's novel Kim. The book was written in 1901 and the plot takes place in India at the time of the British colonization. Kim presents several quests: a quest implies that the protagonist has to seek for something noble, like the River of the Arrow for the lama, and that it generally has to undertake a long and difficult trip to reach it. Actually, Kim relates the story of the ambitious trip of two characters throughout India seeking for something fundamental in their lives. [...]

[...] Kim seems to be the archetypal example of the spiritual individual, who is free from any physical constraint: indeed, Kim is very free, from the beginning of the novel to the end: he has no physical links with people or places, he feels at home everywhere he goes; he does not even belong to any spiritual concept: “What am Mussulman, Hindu, Jain, Buddhist?” “Thou art beyond question an unbeliever” (in a conversation between Mahbub Ali and Kim in chapter 8). The freedom that Kim enjoys makes him closer to a spiritual individual rather than a physical one. [...]

[...] [ (chapter in this sentence, we can feel that he completely considers himself as an Indian, and he puts a distance with the European strangers: he applies to the Englishmen with When he enters the English school, Kim cannot manage to abide by the rules of the school and he feels very unhappy in it, as it has taken away from him the liberty he could enjoy in his Indian life. But as the time goes by and as he discovers the Great Game, he becomes less reluctant to the European world, even saying to the lama: am a sahib” (chapter 12). Indeed, he discovers a real passion in the Great Game and friends among the Europeans, like Lurgan sahib; and he handles perfectly English from the middle of the novel. The Great Game enables Kim's European identity to catch up with his Indian identity. [...]

[...] Indeed, this will to lead and possess makes think about the English colonizer, and Kim seems to have naturally inherited this feature of the Englishman. So there is a conflict at the beginning between the two cultures, as the Indian manners Kim adopted in his infancy meet the invincible obstacle of his physical European identity. Kim has to do with both identities: humour of the situation tickled the Irish and the Oriental in his soul.” (Chapter 13). This balance between the two identities is going to evolve during the quest. [...]

[...] In a minute [ ] he felt he would arrive at the solution of the tremendous puzzle.” (Chapter 11) Kim finally does not manage to answer the question at that moment of the novel; later on in the text, he says to himself am Kim Kim Kim alone one person in the middle of it all.” Kim is so much prone to absorb influence from everyone - he says several times that the lama is the one who built his identity: not forget that he made me that I - That he has to stop and try to find again his unity, his self, by imagining himself as an individual. He needs to remind who he is, and for that he repeats his name: am a sahib. [ ] No, I am Kim.” He wants to make the difference between him and the whole whirl of people and events around him: was one insignificant person in all this roaring whirl of India, going southward to he knew not what fate.” (Chapter 7). The last time he wonders am Kim. [...]