Narratives of Empire: The Fictions of Rudyard Kipling [Hardcover]

Zohreh T. Sullivan (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521434254 | ISBN-13: 978-0521434256 | Publication Date: May 28, 1993 | Edition: 1st edition,

Writers whose work reflects the experience of empire betray the anxieties and contradictions at the heart of the imperial enterprise. Zohreh T. Sullivan's reading of Rudyard Kipling's writings about India expands our sense of colonial discourse and recovers the cultural context and recurring tropes in his early journalism and fiction, in Kim, and in his late autobiography. She charts the fragmentation of Kipling's position as child, as colonizer and as 'poet of empire', finding in his representation of childhood's loss the site of repressed and disavowed desires and fears that resurface in later work. In using Kipling's troubled intimacy with empire as the link between history and narrative, Sullivan sees in Kipling's ambivalence his negotiation between the desire for union with his golden 'best-beloved' India and the historic imperatives of separation from it.

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

A reading of Kipling's writings about himself and about India that considers the ambivalence of his fiction in terms of the fragmentation of his position as Indian child expelled from a golden India, as 'poet of empire', and as colonizer.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 216 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1st edition, edition (May 28, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521434254
• ISBN-13: 978-0521434256
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,136,736 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Generalisations of Kipling's attitude to the Indian Other, October 9, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Narratives of Empire: The Fictions of Rudyard Kipling (Hardcover)

Sullivan attempts to alingn post-colonial theory (in the sense of the treatment of the Other in Kipling's works) with that of victorian race sensibilities and Kipling's childhood.Although the two obviously have many concepts in common-the idea of India itself as a helpless fledgling society-they are essentially concepts applied in a theoretical sense rather than that of a factual understanding of Kipling's work.Sullivan uses a method of personal autobiography to explain theories developped years after his death.This may be a way to explicate Kipling and his colonialism,but does not bear up to close scrutiny when we discuss a number of texts by kipling and other authors.Sullivan's work is an excellent introduction to colonial theory and kipling but one that is floored in its assumptions about the writer from biographical 'evidence'.
Matt Gordon [e-mail]