Kim

Summary

Kim is Rudyard Kipling's novel of British India in the 1880s, a story of adventure and espionage that is also a portrait of the country's peoples, roads and religions. Kimball O'Hara is the orphaned son of an Irish soldier, raised in poverty in Lahore and so at home in the streets that he passes for a local boy. Known as the "Little Friend of all the World", he runs errands for anyone, including the Afghan horse-trader Mahbub Ali, who secretly gathers intelligence for the British. At the Lahore Museum Kim meets a Tibetan lama, Teshoo Lama, who is searching for the River of the Arrow, which he believes will free him from the Wheel of Things. Kim becomes his chela, or disciple, and the two set out along the Grand Trunk Road. Kim also carries a message from Mahbub Ali to a British officer, and so begins his part in the Great Game, the rivalry between Britain and Russia for influence in Central Asia. When Kim stumbles on his father's old regiment, the soldiers discover that he is white and send him to school. The lama, who has come to love him, pays for his education at St. Xavier's in Lucknow. During his holidays Kim is trained in observation and disguise by Colonel Creighton's agents: Mahbub Ali, the mysterious jeweler Lurgan Sahib and the Bengali agent Hurree Chunder Mookerjee, known as the Babu. At sixteen he rejoins the lama on the road, now also on a secret mission. In the Himalayas the two encounter a Russian and a French agent who are mapping the passes. When one of them strikes the lama, Kim fights them, and with the help of the hill people he takes their papers. Exhausted, Kim and the lama descend to the plains and are nursed by a wealthy widow. Kim recovers and wonders who he is; the lama announces that he has found his River and achieved enlightenment, which he has turned back from in order to bring Kim with him. Kim is Kipling's most admired novel and was written in the years before he received the Nobel Prize in 1907. Readers value its vivid picture of Indian life and the tender friendship between the boy and the lama. Postcolonial critics, notably Edward Said, have also examined how it assumes and celebrates British rule. The novel is widely studied both as a classic adventure story and as a document of empire.

Plot or Argument

• Chapters I–IV: Lahore and the road

  Kim meets the lama at the Lahore Museum, becomes his disciple, carries Mahbub Ali's message to Umballa and travels the Grand Trunk Road.

• Chapters V–VIII: The regiment and the school

  Kim is identified by his father's regiment, the Mavericks, and sent to school; the lama pays for him to attend St. Xavier's in Lucknow.

• Chapters IX–XI: Training

  Kim learns the Game from Lurgan Sahib and Hurree Babu and is tested in the field.

• Chapters XII–XV: The hills and the River

  Kim and the lama travel into the Himalayas, foil Russian and French agents, return to the plains, and the lama finds his River.

Characters

• Kim (Kimball O'Hara), protagonist

  Orphaned son of an Irish soldier, raised in Lahore, clever, curious and at home in every community.

• Teshoo Lama, major

  Gentle Tibetan abbot seeking the River of the Arrow, who becomes Kim's teacher and spiritual father.

• Mahbub Ali, major

  Pashtun horse-trader and British intelligence agent who befriends Kim.

• Colonel Creighton, major

  Ethnologist and head of British intelligence who recruits Kim.

• Hurree Chunder Mookerjee (the Babu), major

  Bengali agent who hides great skill behind comic manners.

• Lurgan Sahib, minor

  Simla jeweler and agent who trains Kim in memory and resistance to illusion.

• The Woman of Shamlegh, minor

  Hill woman who helps Kim and the lama after the attack.

• The Sahiba, minor

  Wealthy old widow of Kulu who shelters and nurses Kim and the lama.

Lessons

• Who is Kim?

  Kim belongs to many worlds, Irish, Indian, Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist, and keeps asking who he is. The novel invites reflection on identity formed by place and relationship as much as birth.

  • How do different characters define Kim, and how does he define himself?
  • What does Kim gain and lose by being sent to school?

• Two paths: the Game and the Way

  Kim serves both the lama's spiritual quest and the British secret service. Kipling sets action against contemplation without forcing a final choice between them.

  • Can Kim serve both the lama and Creighton honestly?
  • What does the lama learn from Kim?

• Reading empire

  The novel presents British rule as natural and benevolent. Reading it alongside critics allows students to enjoy its art while analyzing its assumptions.

  • Which details show the novel's view of British rule?
  • How might an Indian reader in 1901 have read the book differently?

Context

Kim is set in British India in the 1880s, when Britain and the Russian Empire competed for influence in Afghanistan, Tibet and Central Asia, the rivalry Kipling helped name the Great Game. Lahore, where Kipling's father was curator of the museum, and the Grand Trunk Road are rendered from Kipling's own experience.

Composition

Kipling worked on the novel for several years with help from his father, John Lockwood Kipling, who also provided illustrations. It was serialized in McClure's Magazine and Cassell's Magazine in 1900–1901 and published as a book by Macmillan in 1901.

Reception

Kim was immediately popular and is often called Kipling's masterpiece. T. S. Eliot and others praised it, and later Edward Said's introduction and Culture and Imperialism made it a central text for postcolonial criticism.

Comparisons

• The Jungle Book

  Kipling's earlier stories of Mowgli also follow a boy raised between two worlds who must learn their laws.

• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

  A boy and an older companion on a journey through a varied society, told with humor and tenderness.

• Siddhartha: An Indian Tale

  Hesse's novel of a spiritual seeker on the path to enlightenment shares the lama's quest.

• Heart of Darkness

  Conrad's contemporaneous novella examines empire with far more doubt than Kim.

• Captains Courageous

  Kipling's earlier novel of a boy transformed by work and comradeship.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• How Kim changes his speech, clothes and religion to fit each setting.
• The Grand Trunk Road as an image of India's variety.
• The lama's Wheel of Things and Kim's love of the world.
• The rules and tests of the Great Game.

Key terms and names

The Great Game

The nineteenth-century rivalry between Britain and Russia for influence in Central Asia.

Chela

A disciple or student of a spiritual teacher.

Sahib

Term of respect used in British India for a European man.

Grand Trunk Road

The ancient highway running across northern India.

The Wheel of Things

The lama's term for the Buddhist cycle of rebirth and desire.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What is the lama looking for, and why?
2. Comprehension How does Kim become part of the Great Game?
3. Interpretation Why does the lama pay for Kim's schooling?
4. Interpretation What does Kim's question 'what is Kim?' mean at the end?
5. Big Question Can a person belong fully to more than one culture?
6. Big Question Is it possible to love a place and also serve those who rule it from outside?

Faith Connections

• The Dhammapada (Great Conversation)

  The lama's quest for release from desire draws on Buddhist teaching that the Dhammapada summarizes.

• Ecclesiastes 1:1-9 (Scripture)

  The Preacher's reflection on the restless round of human life can be compared with the lama's Wheel of Things.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: If identity is formed by the many communities a person moves through, then Kim's question of who he is cannot be answered by birth alone but by the loyalties he chooses.

Rhetorical device: juxtaposition. The lama's spiritual Way and Creighton's secret Game run side by side, set against each other in alternating scenes.

Debate: Resolved: Kim should follow the lama rather than the Great Game.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Analyze how Kipling presents the relationship between Kim and the lama and what each gives the other.

Comparison with Heart of Darkness: Compare the views of empire in Kim and Heart of Darkness, published within three years of each other.

Medical Lens

Lurgan Sahib's attempt to make Kim see a broken jar made whole is an early literary depiction of suggestion or hypnosis, which Kim resists by reciting the multiplication table.

• Chapter IX

  Lurgan Sahib's test of Kim with the jar.

  Altered States

Creative Prompts

• Fiction

  Write a scene of the Kim's Game memory test, in which a character must recall a tray of objects, from Kim's point of view.

• Essay

  Is Kim a story about freedom or about service? Argue with evidence from both the lama's and Creighton's plots.

• Classroom

  Play Kim's Game: study a tray of objects for one minute, cover it, and list everything you remember.

Further Reading

• The Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling

• Culture and Imperialism, Edward W. Said

• The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia, Peter Hopkirk