Exploring Kim, by Rudyard Kipling

First of all to examine the qualities of this book we should approach

it as an adventure story probably aimed primarily at adolescent boys.

In this book the main character Kim is seeking to find his place in

the country in which he was born, while at the same time struggling to

find, or build, an identity for him. 'Who is Kim?' 'What is Kim?' Kim

asks himself at several points in the novel, and although the plot has

a loose picaresque structure, being held together by a journey, making

it a kind of road novel, the theme of Kim needing to find himself

seems to be the backbone of the story. The quest for meaning of

existence is called existentialism.

Kim has also been seen as the best of a genre among 19th century

schoolboys, the historical adventure story. These stories normally

involved a boy-hero travelling around the empire. It is common that

they revolve around wars against ‘native people’ in remote colonies.

It was normal for a schoolboy to perceive a ‘native’ as a cannibal.

Kim can be seen as different from the majority of these novels as it

is not racist or one-sided. Kim maybe British but is influenced almost

entirely by his upbringing into Indian life. Kim also has complex

personality, which matures as he learns from other personalities, such

as the lama.

By birth Kim is a white, Irish boy, Kimball O'Hara, whose father was a

soldier in an Irish regiment. But, as we see in Chapter 1, he has

grown up as an orphan in Lahore, 'a poor white of the very poorest',

looked after by a half-cast woman, probably a prostitute. Both of

kim’s parents died when he was young.

Kipling immediately engrosses you with the character of Kim. He is

such a fascinating character: young and even naive but yet razor quick

and perceptive. White, a sahib, and yet wrapped up in his adopted

land's culture and customs he is ambitious and bold yet somehow

faithful and obedient. Kipling in this way adds an interesting twist

to the character of kim and more importantly to the story.

Understanding this book and kipling you can easily draw close

comparisons and differences. Reading kipling’s biography it is easy to

understand why he wrote this book. Kipling had a happy early childhood

in India that stopped when he moved to England.

Kim displays Kipling's fascination with and also kipling’s nostalgia

for the exotic India of his childhood; Kim's facility for language and

disguise models Kipling's interest in "putting on" various aspects of

Indian culture in his narrative.

The story begins when Kim teams up with an old Tibetan lama, who