Colonizer and Colonized: Unraveling the system of Representation in Selected Short Stories by Rudyard Kipling

Abstract

During the British Indian colonial period, many authors wrote about the contact of the colonizer with the colonized. This dissertation examines some selected colonial narratives of the Anglo-Indian writer Rudyard Kipling. It examines the representation of the British and the Indian in relation to its historical context, using concepts of “otherness”, “representation”, “power” and “subversion”. To reach the purpose, we have applied Greenblatt’s theory of New-historicism. In the discussion, we have studied the historical context of the selected short stories: Lispeth, Beyond the Pale, Thrown Away, The Man who would be king, and the Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes, as well as the biography of the author in order to understand the historical, cultural, political circumstances and the ideology of the writer. We have attempted to put the texts of the selected short stories in the light of some chosen historical documents in order to read the former in the light of the latter.