Gender and the colonial short story: Rudyard Kipling and Rabindranath Tagore Item Type text; Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Khanum, Suraiya Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 04/10/2021 03:57:58 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/282819 INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter fiice, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. 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Contact UMI directly to order. UMI A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Aibor MI 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 GENDER AND THE COLONIAL SHORT STORY: RUDYARD KIPLING AND RABINDRANATH TAGORE by Suraiya Khanum copyright © Suraiya Khanum 1998 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 1998 DMI Nxamber: 9912123 Copyright 1998 by Khantun, Suraiya All rights reserved. UMI Microform 9912123 Copyright 1999, by UMI Company. AH rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 2 » THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA ® GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Final Examination Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Suraiya Khanum entitled Gender and the Colonial Short Story: Rudyard Kipling and Rabindranath Tagore and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy ^ r /is- / ^ Gerald Nonsman Date ' ' _KhlJ3^ TSowen Date / W suresn Kaval Date UJ> - V i!^ William tf^tein Date Date Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate's submission of the final copy of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. Dissertation Director Date ' ' 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial hilfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. SIGNED: OmMy 4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation would have never been written without the acceptance of my ideas by my advisor. Professor Gerald Monsman. Without his splendid teaching and scholarly corrections, my initial ideas could not have advanced to their final shape. I am sincerely thankM for Professor Monsman's command of the subject and open-mindedness for new ideas. Without those very qualities in my advisor, my cherished desire to present Tagore and Kipling could not have materialized. I could never have picked up the many threads that evidendy come together in this dissertation. I especially thank Professor Roger Bowen for his unslacking interest in my expUcation of cross-cultural ideas in the process of writing. Professor Wilham Epstein deserves credit for challenging my awareness about the theoretical implications of my topic. Professor Suresh Raval has been extremely helpful in explaining the theories. As members of my dissertation committee, I could not have hoped for a better group of teachers. I also thank the Department of EngUsh for the diversity of intellectual fermentation it provided during my stay as a graduate student. I thank all the other professors, whose knowledge and teaching have led me to this writing. Dedication To the memory of my parents: Father Bazlur Rahman Khan Mother Showkat Ara Khanum 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract 8 CHAPTERS 1. The Context and Connotation of Gender and Genderization: Honestly, what do Kipling and Tagore have in Common? 10 2. The Short Stories of Rudyard Kipling and Rabindranath Tagore; Rising Tide and Bridge Building 87 3. Kipling: The Anglo-Indian? 154 4. Tagore: The Indian Nationalist? 206 5. Gender and Class: Streamlining Mainstream and Penalty for Love Kipling: "Kidnapped 257 7 Tagore: "The Tutor" 276 6. Gender and Race; The Visible and the Invisible Divide Kipling: "The Man Who Would Be King" 294 Tagore: "The Hungry Stones" 314 7. Gender and Religion: Freedom from Religion and the Religion of Freedom Kipling: "Lispeth" 334 Tagore: "Boshtomi" 351 8. Gender and Family: The Birth of a Family, the Death of a Family Kipling: "Yoked With an Unbeliever" 368 Tagore: "Living or Dead?" 389 9. References: Primary and Secondary 413 ABSTRACT Gender is given a new definition that differs fi-om the feminist conceptualization of the issue in this study of selected short stories by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) and Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). In the colonial ordering or pervasive power mechanism, gender regulates all men and all women. Gender is just as manifest in race, class, rank, manners, and beliefs as it is in sexual ordering. My new coinage of the term "genderization" is defined as an enforcement of power relationships and indicates either a negative or positive effect on society within colonial practices. Literature seen as an avenue of creative genderization leads to a fresh assessment of Kipling and Tagore. Despite a history of divisive practical conditions and a negative discursive heritage, a creative and conciliatory transformation of gender is contained within the short fiction of Kipling and Tagore. Indispensable in understanding postcoloniahsm, yet not credited for it, Kipling spoke from the forum of the ruling Anglo administration and indirectly undermined the rigid race policy. This author deserves more recognition for the cross- cultural healing gestures within his hidian short stories. Tagore, the first non-European Nobel Prize winner and the father of Indian modernism, spoke in a muted manner to appease the persistent censorship and the hostilities of the orthodox Hindus against his desired modernist reforms. Well known in the West for his lyrical poetry, easily accredited as the 9 spiritual mentor of Gandhi, Tagore is much less understood as a writer who used short story as a positive vehicle of reform. The idea of "stracturation" proposed by Anthony Giddens defines society in three distinct yet interactive structures that cover the practical world (political, economic, bureaucratic, and military), the discursive tradition (religion, literature, media, and education), and the unconscious (myth, music, cultural beliefs). Giddens' kinetic, inclusive, and flexible model helps to elucidate these cryptic short stories written during a transitional period of high imperialism. Biographical and sociopolitical data are intertextually brought together to reveal the subtexts of the short stories. These two dissimilar authors, responding to the great paradigm shift of modernism, nonetheless project an ideal world of rational and material progress in an international global union. 10 Chapter One: The Contexts and Connotations of Gender and Genderization: Honestly, what do Kipling and Tagore have in common? This introduction justifies the coupling together of two eminent authors of the British Empire in wliich the contrast between the imperial and native cultures is thereby laid bare through a reference to the sociohistorical ground of gender production. The complicity of the discursive practices with the material condition is exposed with an analysis of the tradition of literary modernism. Since the two authors adhered to the Enlightenment idea of development, I have sought the help of a broader and more inclusive social theory that revives and modifies the Enlightemnent idea of social progress. In the following pages, the argument revolves around a modified idea of gender and genderization directed by a perspective afforded by Anthony Giddens. This chapter unfolds the three simultaneously