English writer and Nobel prize winner, born in India. These days Kipling is perhaps best known as the creator of Mowgli, star of The Jungle Book, though he wrote many other stories.Many of Kipling's works, including The Jungle Book, are set in British India, and popularised most of the associated tropes. His other works include some early Science Fiction, while his literary style, particularly indirect exposition, was a significant influence on Campbell, Bertolt Brecht and Robert A. Heinlein.Kipling's stories include:
The Just So Stories, tales written for his children based on Eastern and African myths and folktales.
Poems include:
"The White Man's Burden"
"If—" ("If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you" — one of his most famous poems, much quoted. It can be seen by players entering Centre Court at Wimbledon.)
"My Boy Jack"
"The Thousandth Man"
"Recessional"
He lost a son in World War One and was responsible for choosing two of the common phrases associated with Remembrance in the UK: "Their Name Liveth For Evermore" and "Known Unto God" (on the graves of Unknown Soldiers). And... referred to it in Double Entendre of all ways:
If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.
— Epitaphs of the War, "Common Form"
Poems from Kipling, sometimes set to music, are popular references in any military fiction or Sci Fi. His work (as well as that of Tennyson) received a recent boost in public attention after they were quoted by former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich (ironically enough considering his quote about Chicago that appears on The Windy City trope page).
Affectionate Parody: The Just So Stories is this for various different oral traditions (hence all the repetition), most obviously The Butterfly That Stamped, which is a parody of the Koranic style ("Now listen and attend!")
Including a rather... unconventional scene in The Ballad of Boh Da Thone.
Alternate Character Interpretation: A common trick of Kipling's was to follow up a short story with a poem looking at it from the point of view of a secondary character or villain. The results can be startlingly different — compare 'The Knife and the Naked Chalk' to 'The Song of the Men's Side'.
Badass Creed: For Indian postmen in "The Overland Mail":
Is the torrent in spate? He must ford it or swim. Has the rain wrecked the road? He must climb by the cliff. Does the tempest cry halt? What are tempests to him? The service admits not a "but" or and "if." While the breath's in his mouth, he must bear without fail, In the Name of the Empress, the Overland Mail.
Chekhov's Gun: Parodied mercilessly in the Just So Stories, specifically How The Whale Got His Throat, in which we are reminded practically every paragraph not to forget that the protagonist wears suspenders (braces). In the end these do play a part in the story (he ties a grate in place with them in the whale's throat) but this is hilariously minor compared to the leadup.
Creator Breakdown: Kipling was an ardent imperialist. Then his only son died in World War One, after dad had pulled some strings to get him into the service when medical conditions might otherwise have kept him out. His "Epitaphs of War" afterwards were extremely bitter about the nature of the conflict, including the famous "our fathers lied" segment.
Culture Clash: Several of his short stories are jokes about this.
Defictionalization: Some of the dialect of the British Army was actually made up by Kipling. Originally it was a device to give the atmosphere of how soldiers talked without using the words soldiers actually used. In World War I a lot of boys entered the army brought up on Kipling and imported the dialect they thought was "soldierly".
Framing Device: Kipling makes extensive and careful use of framing devices in his short stories and narrative verse, sometimes doubly framing stories (a story within a story within a story).
Locked Out of the Loop: "Marklake Witches" plays with the trope by having it narrated by the character who's locked out of the loop — and who, at the close of the story, still hasn't realised there's a secret being kept from her, let alone learned what it is. Recognising that her various moments of bemusement are connected, and figuring out the nature of the connection, is left as an exercise for the reader, and if achieved alters the tone of the story significantly.
Malaproper: The narrator of Just So Stories, with such famous ones as "'satiable curtiosity" (for 'insatiable curiosity').
Obstructive Bureaucrat: Kipling poured over these enough of acid to dissolve a battleship or two. From Pagett, M.P. to Mesopotamia and Stellenbosh to The Lesson:
And horses have four legs, and men have two legs, and two into four goes twice,
And nothing over except our lesson—and very cheap at the price.
Not so Different: Zig-zagged. Sometimes he described Europeans as just another tribe, sometimes as superior. Perhaps the summation was that he in fact thought Europeans were another tribe (and thus shouldn't make too much heavy weather) but that, by chance they happened to be a tribe that had a lot to teach other tribes.
Also Kipling was a good character writer and had a great fascination for how other people lived. His characters seem like real people that happen to be following the customs of their respective tribe/caste/whatever and not merely extensions of stereotypes.
The Roman Centurion's Song is about a Roman Centurion pleading not to be sent home to Rome, as he has lived among the 'primitives' of Britain so long that he has gone native. Kipling was making the obvious comparison of how many British soldiers felt after living in India, and pointing out that once upon a time it was the Britons that were the subject of colonial ambitions by a 'more civilised' power and were viewed as savages by their colonial masters.
P.O.V. Sequel: Several, including The Pirates in England vs. A Pict Song.
The Raj: The setting for most of his works. Kipling is largely responsible for spreading awareness of The Raj as a literary setting outside the former British Empire, and popularising it within the Empire.
Rated M for Manly: His poem simply entitled "If—" is about as good a summary as you can get for what it takes to be a virtuous and well-adjusted manly man. Also a good account of what it takes to be a Knight In Shining Armour in the modern world.
Damnable! Oh, damnable! But I'll be considerate. I'll be merciful. By gad, I'll be the very essence o' humanity! Did ye, or did ye not, see my notice-boards? Don't attempt to deny it! Ye did.
Running Gag: The Just So Stories has lots, most obviously "you must never forget the suspenders".
Settings: Kipling is best at this. His characters are quite good, and his plots are serviceable. However it is his ability to describe settings that really made him.
Trickster: Several, including Stalky (Stalky in Land & Sea Tales, Stalky & Co., A Deal in Cotton in Actions and Reactions, The Honours of War in A Diversity of Creatures), who fought anything unpleasant in Boarding School with tricks and little provocations. And won.
Stalky: Now, we must pull up. We're injured innocence — as usual. We don't know what we've been sent up here for, do we?
M'Turk: No explanation. Deprived of tea. Public disgrace before the house. It's dam' serious.
Dick: Then the art-manager of that abandoned paper said that his subscribers wouldn’t like it. It was brutal and coarse and violent,—man being naturally gentle when he’s fighting for his life. They wanted something more restful, with a little more colour. I could have said a good deal, but you might as well talk to a sheep as an art-manager.
True Companions: The Galley-Slave is about the brotherhood between a crew of galley slaves.
To the bench that broke their manhood, they shall lash themselves and die.
Unreliable Narrator: "The Gardener" has an omniscient narrator, but when he starts talking about what "every one in the village knew", you have to pay close attention to what he's actually saying.
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