Abstract

While most previous studies on Rudyard Kipling’s works center either on the celebration of the British Empire or his racist doctrines, the present paper seeks to shed light on the neglected aspect of imperial defensiveness in his writings mainly in his novel Kim. By anchoring the text in its context, the article tries to unveil Kipling’s imperial anxieties and fears. As well, it puts forward his vision to rescue the British Empire and his discourse advocating the reconstruction of the shaken imperial confidence in the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. To do so, the study is based on the New Historicist approach, chiefly Stephen Greenblatt’s concepts of “wonder” and “resonance” in addition to a textual analysis of the main characters.