How we cite our quotes: (Chapter. Paragraph)
Quote #4
'These be the sort'—she took a fine judicial tone, and stuffed her mouth with pan—'These be the sort to oversee justice. They know the land and the customs of the land. The others, all new from Europe, suckled by white women and learning our tongues from books, are worse than the pestilence. They do harm to Kings.' (4.147)
Here the Kulu woman is speaking approvingly of Anglo-Indians: men of British descent who nonetheless "know the land and the customs of the land." What the Kulu woman does not like are straight Englishmen: people who come to work in the Indian government who have learned Indian languages from books in English schools but who have no real feel for India.
The Kulu woman is not saying simply that the British government of India is a good thing, but that some British administrators are better than others. The ones who have grown up in India, with Indian nurses, are "the sort to oversee justice." What do you think of the distinction that the Kulu woman is making? What kind of administrators does Kipling want to see in India, and why?
Quote #5
'Never speak to a white man till he is fed,' said Kim, quoting a well-known proverb. 'They will eat now, and—and I do not think they are good to beg from. Let us go back to the resting-place. After we have eaten we will come again. It certainly was a Red Bull—my Red Bull.' (5.49)
This moment when Kim quotes this proverb to the lama is a strange one: Kim is talking about "a white man" as though he is not one himself. Kim's equal sense of distance from all races, which allows him to observe the habits and ideas of many different peoples, comes partly from his childhood background. Even though Kipling talks about race as something that gives a person status (see, for example, our section on "Foils: Kim and the Babu," under "Character Roles"), he also seems to think of whiteness as something Kim needs to learn how to perform in school, rather than as something that attaches to him by birth.
Kipling's understanding that each person's manners and customs are culturally determined and learned from other people seems kind of at odds with his totally hierarchical, rigid understanding of a "natural" racial order.
Quote #6
'They'll make a man o' you, O'Hara, at St Xavier's—a white man, an', I hope, a good man. They know all about your comin', an' the Colonel will see that ye're not lost or mislaid anywhere on the road. I've given you a notion of religious matters,—at least I hope so,—and you'll remember, when they ask you your religion, that you're a Cath'lic. Better say Roman Cath'lic, tho' I'm not fond of the word.' (7.26)
The Babu is not the only character who Kipling singles out by spelling his accent: here, we see Kipling trying to portray Father Victor's Irish accent. Father Victor is a good man—certainly more understanding of Kim's feelings than Reverend Bennett, the Anglican minister—but at the same time, like the Babu, Kipling seems to play on Father Victor for comedy. Father Victor is pretty clownish, with his frequent repetition of the weird exclamation, "Powers of Darkness!" (5.73).
How might Kipling's portrayal of Father Victor seem like an Irish stereotype? How do these stereotypes compare to other kinds of stereotypes in the book?