Rudyard Kipling's Fiction

Reads Kipling's fiction through the lens of French feminism to reinstate the abjected maternal feminine in his art. This study provides an entirely new reading of Kipling's fiction using the feminist psychoanalytic methodology of Julia Kristeva and Helene Cixous, focusing particularly on ideas of the abjected maternal feminine. It examines Kipling's ambivalent relationship to the India of his childhood and the 'loss' of his mother figures. In doing so, it peels back the layers of masculine bravado that continues to characterize Kipling's fiction to reveal a valorized 'feminine' space. From readings of the 1888 story 'Baa Baa, Black Sheep' through The Jungle Book and Stalky & Co., Kim, The Day's Work, Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies, Lizzy Welby demonstrates that Kipling created ways of rediscovering a symbolised feminine landscape as a restorative space, which was part of his 'psychic mapping'. It demonstrates a steady development through Kipling's long and extensive writing career. It provides insights into the man and his art as well as providing a new way of reading Kipling.
It references a considerable range of scholarly and biographical work on Kipling, historical and cultural studies of 19th century India. It offers close reading of passages from Kipling's fiction, showing how a feminised landscape is violated by (masculine) technological developments.