"His Chance in Life" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills (1888), and in subsequent editions of that collection. The story is illuminating about Kipling's attitudes to race, which are less cut-and-dried than is often thought. Kipling is interesting, if not very detailed, on people of mixed race and the snobberies involved. (For some detail, see the Kipling Society notes.)
The epigraph includes the line "'Love hath made this thing a Man'", which adumbrates one of Kipling's themes in this story, as in others. The 'love' in 'His Chance in Life' is that between Michele d'Cruze, who "looked down on natives as only a man with seven-eighths native blood in his veins can" and Miss Vezzis, similarly "from across the Borderline" "where the last drop of White blood ends and the full tide of black sets in". D'Cruze works as a telegrapher, and Miss Vezzis' Mamma won't let them marry till he earns at least 50 rupees per month: he has 35 rupees a month at the start of the story.
The story concerns his new posting to the telegraph station at Tibasu, a remote sub-station whose real function is only to relay messages. One day in the Muslim period of Mohurrum, the locals start a riot, with Hindus and Muslims joining in: "It was a nasty little riot, but not worth putting in the papers." An angry crowd approaches Michele's office with the intention of wrecking it. ("Never forget that unless the outward and visible signs of Our Authority are always before a native he is as incapable as a child of understanding what authority means, or where is the danger of disobeying it" - a second theme of Kipling's is that of the difference between the British and the Indian, in terms of 'fitness to rule'.) The Native Police Inspector panics, but obeys "the old race-instinct which recognises a drop of White blood as far as it can be diluted", asks "the Sahib" for orders. "The Sahib decided Michele." He leads the native police and fires on the crowd, killing a man, whereupon the others flee "curs to a man". A deputation of the locals claim he has acted unconstitutionality, citing the (presumably native) Sub-Judge. Michele replies that he is the effective Government, and the deputation "bowed their heads".
The next day, Michele greets the Sub-Collector. "[I]n the presence of this young Englishman", Michele loses the effect of whiteness and weeps, to his shame. "But the Englishman understood", reports Michele's conduct favourably, through the Proper Channels, and he is transferred back 'up-country' on a salary of 66 rupees per month. So he marries Miss Vezzis. "Which proves that, when a man does good work out of all proportion to his pay, in seven cases out of nine there is a woman at the back of the virtue."
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All quotations in this article have been taken from the Uniform Edition of Plain Tales from the Hills published by Macmillan & Co., Limited in London in 1899. The text is that of the third edition (1890), and the author of the article has used his own copy of the 1923 reprint. Further comment, including page-by-page notes, can be found on the Kipling Society's website.
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work.
This is a bibliography of works by Rudyard Kipling, including books, short stories, poems, and collections of his works.
Kim is a novel by Nobel Prize-winning English author Rudyard Kipling. It was first published serially in McClure's Magazine from December 1900 to October 1901 as well as in Cassell's Magazine from January to November 1901, and first published in book form by Macmillan & Co. Ltd in October 1901. The novel is notable for its detailed portrait of the people, culture, and varied religions of India. "The book presents a vivid picture of India, its teeming populations, religions, and superstitions, and the life of the bazaars and the road." The story unfolds against the backdrop of the Great Game, the political conflict between Russia and Britain in Central Asia. The novel popularized the phrase and idea of the Great Game.
"The Man Who Would Be King" (1888) is a story by Rudyard Kipling about two British adventurers in British India who become kings of Kafiristan, a remote part of Afghanistan. The story was first published in The Phantom 'Rickshaw and Other Tales (1888); it also appeared in Wee Willie Winkie and Other Child Stories (1895) and numerous later editions of that collection. It has been adapted for other media a number of times.
The Omaha Race Riot occurred in Omaha, Nebraska, September 28–29, 1919. The race riot resulted in the lynching of Will Brown, a black civilian; the death of two white rioters; the injuries of many Omaha Police Department officers and civilians, including the attempted hanging of Mayor Edward Parsons Smith; and a public rampage by thousands of white rioters who set fire to the Douglas County Courthouse in downtown Omaha. It followed more than 20 race riots that occurred in major industrial cities and certain rural areas of the United States during the Red Summer of 1919.
"Tiger! Tiger!" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. A direct sequel to "Mowgli's Brothers", it was published in magazines in 1893–94 before appearing as the third story in The Jungle Book (1894), following "Kaa's Hunting". The title is derived from William Blake's poem "The Tyger".
"The White Man's Burden" (1899), by Rudyard Kipling, is a poem about the Philippine–American War (1899–1902) that exhorts the United States to assume colonial control of the Filipino people and their country. Originally written to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, the jingoistic poem was replaced with the sombre "Recessional" (1897), also a Kipling poem about empire.
Sahib or Saheb is an Arabic title meaning 'companion'. It was historically used for the first caliph Abu Bakr in the Quran.
Dr. Khan Sahib, mistakenly named as Khan Abdul Jabbar Khan, was a pioneer in the Indian Independence Movement and later, a Pakistani politician. He was the elder brother of the Pashtun activist Abdul Ghaffar Khan, both of whom opposed the partition of India. Upon independence, he pledged his allegiance to Pakistan and later served as the First Chief Minister of West Pakistan.
Charles Robin Allen was a British freelance writer and popular historian from London. His British parents were both born in India.
Plain Tales from the Hills is the first collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling. Out of its 40 stories, "eight-and-twenty", according to Kipling's Preface, were initially published in the Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore, Punjab, British India between November 1886 and June 1887. "The remaining tales are, more or less, new."
"Miss Youghal's Sais" is a short story in Rudyard Kipling's collection Plain Tales from the Hills (1888). It is the first appearance in book form of the fictional character Strickland.
In Black and White is a collection of eight short stories by Rudyard Kipling which was first published in a booklet of 108 pages as no. 3 of A H Wheeler & Co.’s Indian Railway Library in 1888. It was subsequently published in a book along with nos 1 and 2, Soldiers Three (1888) and The Story of the Gadsbys, as Soldiers Three (1899). The characters about whom the stories are concerned are native Indians, rather than the British for writing about whom Kipling may be better known; four of the stories are narrated by the Indians, and four by an observant wise English journalist. The stories are:
"The Other Man" is a short story by the British writer Rudyard Kipling, first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on 13 November 1886, in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and in subsequent editions of that collection.
"Lispeth" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on 29 November 1886; its first appearance in book form was in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and it later appeared in subsequent editions of that collection. The tale is an interesting example of Kipling's attitudes to different races and cultures, which is less simple than many accounts of his beliefs allow.
"Yoked with an Unbeliever" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on December 7, 1886, and in book form in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888. It also appears in subsequent editions of that collection.
The Rudyard Kipling story "Kidnapped" was first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on March 21, 1887, in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills (1888), and in subsequent editions of that collection. outline Kipling starts by announcing, "We [British] are a high-caste and enlightened race", but suggesting that arranged marriages are preferable to Western notions of love matches. "The Hindu notion - which is the Continental notion, which is the aboriginal notion - is sound", he writes. The story that follows is designed to illustrate this.
"In the House of Suddhoo" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. The story was published in the Civil and Military Gazette on April 30, 1886 under the title "Section 420, I.P.C.". Its first appearance in book form was in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888. It was the third of the stories that appear in that collection to be written
"Toomai of the Elephants" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling about a young elephant-handler. It was first published in the December 1893 issue of St. Nicholas magazine and reprinted in the collection of Kipling short stories, The Jungle Book (1894). The character Petersen Sahib is thought to be modelled on India-born English naturalist George P. Sanderson (1848–1892).
The Rudyard Kipling story "The Broken-Link Handicap" was first published in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and in subsequent editions of that collection.
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