Rudyard Kipling's 'The Mark Of The Beast'

Rudyard Kipling is a well known author of Indian descent that grew up in England for much of his life, according to the article titled “Rudyard Kipling: patriot or prophet?” written by a professor named Michael Timko. In Kipling’s works, his content largely is inspired by his and his sister’s poor experiences living in England (Timko). In addition, Kipling uses his poems, short stories, and novels to depict “the relationship between the British and India” (Timko). Now in “The Mark of the Beast” and in “The Return of Imray”, we see that the narrative is rooted in the belief of British superiority. There’s just an unstated rule that British men are at the top of the social ladder and anybody else is morally corrupt according to common stereotypes. This is the case with Indians in particular in Kipling’s stories. Indians are obviously regarded with bias throughout Kipling’s stories. In “The Mark of the Beast”, the narrator’s friend Strickland who is a reoccurring detective in several of Kipling’s works is described but the narrator as someone “who knows as much of natives of India as …show more content…
When he is drunk, he goes into an Indian temple and disrespects the statue of the deity Hanuman. Fleete and his companions think they have escaped doom, but Fleete apparently becomes less a human and more of an animal due to a curse that was put upon him. Fleete, thanks to Strickland, returns to his normal human self at the end, but unfortunately, readers are not given any indication that Fleete learned his lesson. He may not be bold enough to trespass upon holy territories again, but in his heart, does he really see those who practice different belief systems as him as legitimate human beings? Fleete is merely a representation of the many people of dominant society that do not respect nor care about other cultures, belief systems, or