Intertextuality in Rudyard Kiplings Kim - Essay Example

The author considers the colonization of the Indian republic by the British nation as of right (Ganapathy 45). The author does not seem to think that his stand might be questionable in the future by his readers. In the time that the book was written, there were revolts among the Indian population towards the Indian colonization by Britain. While ignoring the intentions of the Indian people against the British rule, the author tries to show us the contempt that the Indian people had in the British rule. In chapter four of the book, the author uses the character of a woman to show the confidence the people had in the rule. The woman states that the colonizers are the right people for ensuring justice prevails within their system since they seem to know the land and the customs well enough (Hopkirk 72).

Kipling describes Kim as a person born in colonial India who just happened to find a situation in the country to which he had no reason to question. The author tries to hide the wrongs committed by the British against the people of the Indian nation by portraying the innocent child’s opinion as to his own. This is despite the fact that the author is a fully grown adult. The comments made by the author concerning the Indian republic and its population are biased and rash and come from the author and not Kim, the main character in the book. The author tries to depict his love and knowledge for the Indian republic during the Victorian period (Fraser 55). He describes the events of the times as they were during the period while not considering their unacceptability by the current generations of readers. The book describes the lives of the Indian population both in the urban and rural settings along with characters who are generous, tolerant, and warm to foreigners (Watson 26). The author claims that had the book been published only for British readers, it would have been fascinating to them. This is because the author tries to describe the main character in his book as an exotic experience with a mysterious and adventurous man, who had roots in Britain but lived in colonial India (Kunzru 68).

Kipling depicts Kim as a young boy who is trying to find his position in the country of his birth and establish an identity for himself. Kim does ask himself several times in the novel who he really is. The story being told by the author seems to have a picaresque composition and relies on the author's story of a journey undertaken in order to enable him to convey his message. The author makes the book seem like a road story in order to inject and portray his themes in his main character, Kim. The author describes Kim as a white boy with roots from Ireland whose real name is Kimball O’Hara (Ganapathy 59). He additionally states that the boy’s father served in Ireland’s regiment in colonial India. In the first chapter of the book Kim, the author describes his main character as an orphan who lives on the streets of Lahore, currently known as Pakistan. The character is described as being very poor and being cared for by a woman who is also a half-cast. He describes the character's caretaker as most likely working as a whore who smokes a great deal of opium (Fraser 38). He describes her as a pretender who seems to be running her furniture business, which sells second-hand goods near the square where the people hire cheap cabs. The author describes the suffering that Kim has undergone as making him look like a Hindu from the lower castes who could not read, write or speak English properly. He describes Kim as having been nicknamed the ‘little buddy of the globe’(Ganapathy 72). This shows that from the beginning the author does not view the main character as being of any pure breed but rather a mixture of several things. These factors help in maintaining the character's urge of knowing who he really is throughout the story. This is despite the fact that the author gives his story through the journey he ventures into (Watson 91).

Lama meanders through Lahore searching for the relics of Buddhists in their museums along with the curator (Klass 67). The author then develops the plot for his story in two different views which seem to be running parallel to each other.