Sinem KELEŞ

THE CONCEPT OF IDENDTITY IN ‘KİM’
About the Writer of the ‘KİM’ and the novel Rudyard Kipling, writer of the novel, is a British writer from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He acquired great fame with his novel which is notable for detailed depiction of the culture and people of India. It is described as a picaresque novel in which the adventures of the main characters are told. Kim is an orphan son of a British soldier. One day, he meets a Tibetian Lama who is in search of the River of the Arrow and becomes his chela. Incidentally, the priest of the regiment which his father is the member of it, identifies him and sends him to an English school. Then, Kim sets out on a journey with Lama who is in search of the River of Arrow. Meanwhile, Lama gets into a conflict with Russian agents. So, the Lama realizes that he should search for the river of the Arrow in other place, not in the mountains. Then, Kim summit the secret documents to the required people and the Lama finds his river and manage to reach Enlightenment. It is an adventure story of a boy who is seeking for his place in his country while he is trying to find an identity for himself. “The novel develops along two interconnecting threads of Kim‘s life from age thirteen to seventeen: his adventures as he traverses India both as the servant of Teshoo Lama, a Tibetan monk, and as a spy-in-training for the British government, and his eventual hand in saving British India from a Russian invasion; and his conflicted identity as both a ―Sahib‖—a member of the white ruling class in India—and a child born and bred as an Easterner” (Akbay 5). Kipling reflects Kim’s identity as being open to influences so that he responds positively to everyone. He doesn’t have any doubt for anyone in search for his identity. Additionally, Akbay states that Kim encounters with “displacement and identity loss” when he is sent from company of Indians and placed in a Catholic school in which he becomes proficient in “culture, academic knowledge and the language of the British rulers” (5). Šumberová states “The perception of identity is connected with the society in which an individual lives, its values and ways of thinking” (16). Regarding this, Achis Nandy tries to explain the double identity of Kipling from the perspective of psychology, mainly by emphasizing his negative experience from childhood spent at Southsea. Even if we may not attach so much importance to it and although we might refuse to accept its impact as a decisive influence on Kipling’s adult opinions, the author managed to precisely catch the double identity of his characters. Additionally, Šumberová states “A similar instance can be discovered in Kim’s Britishness. It is marked by the constituents of soldier and ruler, and these people are exactly those whom Kim hates when he is imprisoned among the white British soldiers. At the same time, according to the prophecy delivered by his father, Kim believes that one day, he will become a military leader and is proud of it”(27-28). The question of belonging and identity hurts Kim throughout the novel so that he has the feeling of loneliness. In the final chapter of the novel, he meets with a kind of feeling which he has never had. Kipling indicates this discovery of identity in his lines;
“I am Kim. I am Kim. And what is Kim? His soul repeated it again and again . . . tears trickled down his nose and with an almost audible click he felt the wheels of his being lock up anew on the world without.” (Chapter 15)

Cited Works
Akbay, Yakup. Justifiable Approach to Imperialism in ‘KIM’. Atılım University, Department of English Language and Literature
Šumberová, Klára. British Imperial Experience as Reflected on Different Identities in Kipling’s Novel Kim. 2006