The Motifs of Water and Death in Rudyard Kipling's and Joseph Conrad's Short Stories

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism Volume 7 | Issue 2 Article 7 9-1-2014 The Motifs of Water and Death in Rudyard Kipling's and Joseph Conrad's Short Stories Shane Peterson Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/criterion BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Peterson, Shane (2014) "The Motifs of Water and Death in Rudyard Kipling's and Joseph Conrad's Short Stories," Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism: Vol. 7 : Iss. 2 , Article 7. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/criterion/vol7/iss2/7 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the All Journals at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact , . The Motifs of Water and Death in Rudyard Kipling's and Joseph Conrad's Short Stories Shane Peterson Aside from the similarity of themes on European imperialism, Rudyard Kipling’s “Without Benefit of Clergy” and Joseph Conrad’s “The Lagoon” have similar motifs of life and death as shown through the natural surroundings of India and Southeast Asia. In both of these short stories, the descriptions of water in the monsoon and in the lagoon show how nature almost mourns for the deaths of the two female characters, Ameera and Diamelen. Kipling views water as bringing death because it is full of noise, fury, and sickness. Conrad’s descriptions of the river and the lagoon convey a sense of silence and immobility, reflecting the illusions of love and life that Arsat strives to attain. In either case, both authors seem to suggest that Nature is the true master of the Eastern provinces—rather than the British colonists, the local natives, or anyone in between—as shown in its manifestations of water, which give life and instill death simultaneously. Conrad and Kipling had a large breadth of understanding of the water features and imperialist cultures in their respective settings of Southeast Asia and Fall 2014 India. Conrad gained some significant maritime experience from his travels with French ships that led him across the Atlantic, into Africa, and around the Far East (Watts). The symbol of water in the ocean or rivers becomes a major theme in some of his fiction. In Kipling’s case, he worked as a journalist in native India, particularly in the province of Lahore. He held this position for several years, which allowed him to “move freely among the different levels of Lahore society,” including the British military officials and the local Indians (Pinney). He also witnessed the rainy seasons throughout the year and how they affected the two different groups. For the British, times of flooding and famine were nothing but a loss of profits; for the Indians, they could bring either seasons of plenty and abundance or seasons of starvation and disease. These experiences of both authors may have helped them understand Nature’s prevalence over colonial power and influenced the narratives of these short stories as well as their natural settings and primary characters who stand above the colonized land and its inhabitants. As part of the trope of white rulers in exotic foreign lands, both of these authors narrate their stories through the perspectives of two imperial white men who witness the beginning of the fall of colonialism. According to Kaori Nagai, both authors write their narratives from the viewpoints of white men who rule over the local natives in a way that “provokes awe and respect among the inhabitants,” so that the natives see each one of them as “a protector, a champion, and sometimes a god” (90). In “The Lagoon,” Arsat addresses the white man as “Tuan,” a Malaysian term for a European lord that means “sir” or “mister” (“Tuan”). Similarly, Ameera often calls Holden her “whole life” and even her “god” (Kipling 1740). In both cases, these white men live out a real-life fantasy of a white ruler over the natives, which Pinney describes as “pleasant” at first because their rule “is not forced but spontaneously accepted: the natives immediately see in the hero qualities far superior to theirs, and . . . follow his orders as the Law” (Nagai 90). Despite their respect and command over the native population, these characters “become the sole witness to the collapse of the fantasy” when someone they are close to either passes away or suffers a severe loss in correlation to a natural event like a monsoon or the rising sunrise over a lagoon (90). In essence, Nature destroys this illusion of power. Before these natural events occur, Kipling and Conrad display the natural settings of India and Southeast Asia as being more silent with only slight suggestions of a coming catastrophe. In “Without Benefit of Clergy,” before the outbreak of cholera that would ultimately kill Ameera, the powers of Nature 37 Criterion “had allowed…four years of plenty wherein men fed well and the crops were certain” (Kipling 1737). Despite this abundance of food and life that the supernatural powers of nature provide, Kipling describes it as more of a calm before a storm through his images of “the blossom of the blood-red dhak tree that had flowered untimely for a sign of what was coming” (1737). This sign of the dhak tree as “blood-red” easily signifies a coming death on a national or individual scale. Its early blossoming also indicates that harder times are approaching, both for the British colonists and the local Indians, in which the land would respond after a season of plenty with a season of famine, disease, pestilence, and flood on a Biblical scale. Holden even overhears the Deputy Commissioner at the club state that “Nature’s going to audit her accounts with a big red pencil this summer” (1738). Indeed, a “red and heavy” audit comes when Kipling personifies the land itself as being “very sick and needed a little breathing-space ere the torrent of cheap life should flood it anew” (1739). At that point, the seasonal rains disturb the peace that puts the protagonist Holden at ease, making him feel like everything in his life is still within his control. This is similar but slightly different in Conrad’s “The Lagoon,” in which the land is predominately more silent and pensive until a white ruler’s coming correlates with an impending death. As Tuan travels upstream, the jungle stands “motionless and silent” on both banks of the river as if it had “been bewitched into an immobility perfect and final” (59). This silence is almost lifeless because the water itself appears frozen and immobile as if Tuan had entered “a land from which the very memory of motion for ever departed” (59). This silence and stillness does not break until the coming of the white man’s canoe, the oars churning up the water “with a confused murmur” and causing it to gurgle out loud in “the short-lived disturbance of its own making” (59). Conrad describes the land as silent and motionless to show how the coming of the white man (...truncated)