Culture and Imperialism

In an extended discussion on Rudyard Kipling’s novel, Kim, Said analyzes the ways in which, when the fact of imperialism is uncontested either physically or psychologically, those who reside in the metropolis can take much pleasure from it. He begins by parsing the reputation of Kipling, whose India “was a timeless, unchanging, and ‘essential’ locale, a place almost as much poetic as it is actual in geographical concreteness” (134). He argues that past critics have elided the central truth of Kipling’s work: When Kim is confronted with having to choose between the mystical India as represented by the spiritual lama with whom he travels and the British service as represented by the authoritative Colonel Creighton, he does not seem to struggle at all in choosing the latter, puzzling readers of the book. Said suggests that, if one truly understands Kipling’s position, this is not confounding at all. As he writes, “The conflict between Kim’s colonial service and loyalty to his Indian companions is unresolved not because Kipling could not face it, but because for Kipling there was no conflict” (146). Kipling, like many of his contemporaries, believes so wholeheartedly in the imperial mission—that the natives recognize and accept the superiority of their colonial masters—that he knows, and the Indians know, “it was India’s best destiny to be ruled by England” (146).