Special Edition of ‘Kim’ by Rudyard Kipling (2)
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Toronto: The MacMillan Company of Canada Limited, at St. Martin’s House 1936
Special edition exclusively for use in Canadian Schools: prescribed by yhe Minister of Education for use in Ontario.
www.enotes.com/kim
Rudyard Kipling was one of the most popular writers of his era, and his novel Kim, first published in 1901, has become one of his most well-known nonjuvenile works.
The novel takes place at a time contemporary to the book’s publication; its setting is India under the British Empire. The title character is a boy of Irish descent who is orphaned and grows up independently in the streets of India, taken care of by a “half-caste” woman, a keeper of an opium den. Kim, an energetic and playful character, although full-blooded Irish, grows up as a “native” and acquires the ability to seamlessly blend into the many ethnic and religious groups of the Indian subcontinent. When he meets a wandering Tibetan lama who is in search of a sacred river, Kim becomes his follower and proceeds on a journey covering the whole of India. Kipling’s account of Kim’s travels throughout the subcontinent gave him opportunity to describe the many peoples and cultures that made up India, and a significant portion of the novel is devoted to such descriptions, which have been both lauded as magical and visionary and derided as stereotypical and imperialistic.
Kim eventually comes upon the army regiment that his father had belonged to and makes the acquaintance of the colonel. Colonel Creighton recognizes Kim’s great talent for blending into the many diverse cultures of India and trains him to become a spy and a mapmaker for the British army. The adventures that Kim undergoes as a spy, his endearing relationship with the lama, and the skill and craftsmanship of Kipling’s writing have all caused this adventurous and descriptive—if controversial—novel to persist as a minor classic of historical English literature.
Kim Summary
Chapter 1
The novel Kim by Rudyard Kipling takes place in British India in the 1880s and 1890s. The novel opens with the introduction of the title character: Kim is a thirteen-year-old boy of Irish heritage who has been orphaned in India and raised by an opium den keeper in the city of Lahore, amid the myriad cultures of India. Because of the ability he has developed to blend in seamlessly among many different cultures through language and his broad knowledge of customs, Kim is known to his acquaintances as Friend of All the World.
Kim meets a Tibetan lama—a Buddhist—who has come to India in search of the Holy River that sprang from the arrow of the Buddha and which promises Enlightenment to its believers. The River proves elusive; even the learned museum curator at Lahore knows nothing of its location. Kim learns that the lama is traveling alone, as his chela, or follower and servant, died in the previous city. Seeing that the lama is an old man in need of assistance, Kim, dressed in the manner of a Hindu beggar child, agrees to be the lama’s new chela and accompany the lama on his quest. He informs his friend and sometime guardian, Mahbub Ali, a wellknown Afghan horse trader, that he will be leaving Lahore with the lama, and he agrees to carry some vague documents from Ali to an Englishman in Umballa as a favor. However, later that night Kim observes two sinister strangers searching Ali’s belongings. Realizing that his favor to Ali smacks of danger, he and the lama, who remains ignorant of Kim’s secret dealings, depart early for the road.
Chapter 2
On the train to Umballa, Kim and the lama meet a Hindu farmer and several other characters all representing an array of customs, languages, and religions from all over India, illustrating—as Kipling will often make a point of doing—the diversity of peoples that make up India’s native population. Upon arriving in Umballa, Kim secretly seeks out the home of the Englishman—whom he discovers to be a colonel in the army—and delivers Ali’s documents. He overhears word of an impending war on the border and realizes that Ali’s documents were directly related to this development.
Chapters 3–4
The next day, Kim and the lama proceed to the outskirts of Umballa in search of the River, where they accidentally trespass in a farmer’s garden. He curses them until he realizes that the lama is a holy man. Kim is angry at the farmer’s abuses, but the lama teaches him not to be judgmental, saying, “There is no pride among such who follow the Middle Way.” In the evening they are entertained by the headmaster and priest of a village. Kim, who loves to play jokes and games, pretends he is a prophet and “forsees” a great war with eight thousand troops heading to the northern border, drawing on what he had heard in Umballa. An old Indian soldier, who had fought on the British side in the Great Mutiny of 1857, calls Kim’s claims to question until Kim makes an accurate description of the colonel—which convinces the soldier of his authenticity.
The old soldier, with renewed respect, accompanies Kim and the lama the next morning to the Grand Trunk Road. During their journey, the lama preaches to the soldier the virtues of maintaining detachment from worldly items, emotions, and actions in order to attain Enlightenment; however, when the lama goes out of his way to entertain a small child with a song, the soldier teases him for showing affection. It is the first evidence of the lama’s truly human struggle with maintaining distance from his human emotions.
Eventually, the small party comes upon the Grand Trunk Road, a fifteen-hundred-mile-long route constructed by the East India Company that connected east Calcutta, East Bengal, and Agra. A vivid, detailed description of the masses of travelers is given, including descriptions of several different religious sects, including Sansis, Aklai Sihks, Hindus, Muslims, and Jains, as well as the various wedding and funeral processions marching along the road. This section provides yet another instance of Kipling’s travelogue-type digressions to paint a vivid picture of India for his British and American readership. Kim is utterly delighted by the masses of people traveling before his eyes. The lama, however, remains deep in meditation and does not acknowledge the spectacle of life surrounding him.
In the late evening, Kim, utilizing his sharp wit and cunning, procures the aid of a rich old widow from Kulu, herself of a sharp and salty tongue, who is traveling in a royal procession from the northern lands to her daughter in the south. She offers food, shelter, and care for the lama in exchange for the holy man’s charms and prayers interceding for the birth of many future grandsons for her.
Chapter 5
While resting along the Grand Trunk Road, Kim comes upon an English army regiment, which bears a green flag with a red bull on it. Since he was a young child, Kim had been told by his guardian that his father—a former soldier—had said that a red bull in a green field would be Kim’s salvation. With excitement at having found the sign of the bull, he sneaks into the barracks to find out more information, only to be captured by the Protestant chaplain, Mr. Bennett. Together with Father Victor, the Catholic chaplain, he discovers the personal documents that Kim carries with him everywhere, which reveal him to be not a Hindu beggar but an Irish boy—and the son of Kimball O’Hara, who himself had been a member of this same regiment. Seeing that he is white and the…