РефератыИностранный языкRuRudyard Kipling Stalky Essay Research Paper Rudyard

Rudyard Kipling Stalky Essay Research Paper Rudyard

Rudyard Kipling Stalky Essay, Research Paper


Rudyard Kipling


Stalky & Company


Rudyard Kipling, was born in the city of Bombay, India on December 30, 1865.


He made a significant contribution to English Literature in various areas including poetry,


short stories, and novels. Rudyard Kipling came from an affluent family with his father


working at the Bombay School of Art, and his mother coming from a family of very


accomplished women. Most of his childhood was spent in India where he was taken care


of by a baby-sitter, that instilled in him Indian culture and traditions (?Biography? 1). At


the young age of five, he was sent to England, for education purposes, but he endured a


life of misery resulting from mistreatment. The experience left him with deep


psychological scars and a sense of betrayal (?Kipling? 1). Kipling suffered from insomnia


the rest of his life because of the victimization he went through when in the foster home.


This played an important part in his literary imagination. The English schoolboy code of


honor and duty affected his views in later life, especially when it involved loyalty to a


group or a team (?Biography? 1).


Returning to England in 1882 Rudyard worked as a newspaper reporter, which


helped him gain an experience of colonial life that he later represented in many of his


works. He found himself recognized by many admiring individuals. A few years after


returning to England, he produced some of his best work including his most acclaimed


poem ?Recessional? and his most famed novel Kim. In 1907 Kipling won the Nobel prize


for literature, the first English author to have done so (?Kipling? 1). Soon after winning


the Nobel prize, the deaths of both his children Josephine and John deeply affected his life.


Both of the incidents left a profound impression on his life, which is noticeable in his


works that were published after the deaths (?Biography? 1). As quoted, ?This tragic loss


led Kipling to change from being the poet of Empire, to the poet of bitterness and guilt? .


As quoted by Andrew Lang, ?There is a false air of bitterness; there is a knowing air; there


are mannerisms,…….? (?Bookworm? 1).


Rudyard Kipling is regarded as one of the greatest English short-story writers. His


poems dealt with racial and imperialistic topics that attracted many critics. Critics


condemned that unlike the popular model of poetry, Kipling?s poetry didn?t have an


underlying meaning, which resulted in only having to read that particular work only once


through (?Biography? 1).According to English and Western Literature, conservatism ,


optimism, and self-assurance marked the poetry of his age. As a poet, he is remarkable for


rhymed verse written in the slang used by the ordinary British soldier (?Kipling, (Joseph)?


1). His work was not limited to the highly educated. Many people regarded him as the


soldiers author. Kipling wrote so much from their point of view even though he never


was in any military duty. He also included the slang that the British soldiers used. The


writings of Kipling consistently projected three ideas : intense patriotism, the duty of the


English to lead lives of strenuous activity, and England?s destiny to become a great e

mpire


(?Kipling, (Joseph)? 1). T.S. Elliot describes Kipling?s verse as ??great verse? that


sometimes unintentionally changes into poetry? (?Biography? 1). Rudyard?s preoccupation


with physical strain, breakdown, and recovery was displayed later in his works, as a result


of self-experience (?Biography? 1). As the career of Rudyard Kipling matured, he


drastically improved as a poet, and by the time of his death, he had compiled one of the


most diverse collections of poetry in English Literature (?Kipling? 1).


After being plagued by illness for quite some time, Rudyard Kipling passed away


while residing in London on January 18, 1936, just after his seventieth birthday (?Kipling?


1). He was buried beside T.S. Elliot, and the following year after his death, his


autobiographical work Something of Myself was published (?Kipling? 1).


The basic theme throughout the novel Stalky & Company was the conflict with


authority, and a matter of preserving their individuality and self-respect against adults who


would break their spirits and try to transform these young men into descent members of


society. Stalky & Company is a collection of stories based on adolescence and moral


teachings. Rudyard Kipling based Stalky & Company on his own individual experiences


from growing up, and attending school. In this book, Kipling is represented by the


character Stalky. Stalky was the inventive, lively leader in all illegal pursuits schoolboy,


who had an attitude towards authority. Stalky was bullied somewhat throughout the story,


but Kipling felt it was necessary to add this to the story, because it was a character


-forming ritual. His attitude was that he considered it ?the necessary evil against which


happiness is achieved by reaction? (Rudyard 8). Punishment is a great concern as the


storyline thickens. It is the central concern for the schoolboys, where it becomes the


physical manifestation of a deep conflict in life. The conflict is between the young and the


old, as well as the endless struggle between the individual and the group. The group in this


story has the power to punish, and it uses this power for defense and for instruction. For


instance, Stalky & Company scheme to have their Latin teacher, Mr. King, run off a


neighboring farmer?s land as a poacher, and they succeed without violating any rules, but


the headmaster beats them anyway, and punishes them for deliberately bringing a master


into discredit and degrading school authority. Even though the boys were technically in


the right, there was no justification for the behavior that threatened the organization itself.


In Stalky & Company, Kipling was set out to demonstrate how perfect a place the


United States had been for the formation of the sort of characters that would maintain an


empire. The book is idealized by Kipling, and was imperialistic, yet in his own


experiences, his true headmaster was anti-imperialistic, and there was hardly any flogging.


Rudyard portrayed his old school in Stalky & Company as the perfect training grounds for


soldiers of the Empire. The school that the boys of the story Stalky & Company attended


preached success, because success was power. To be without power was to be a failure.

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