The Mark Of The Beast

Kipling’s biographical details and the story’s historical context are relevant to understanding the colonialist viewpoint in “The Mark of the Beast.” Born in Bombay, India in 1865 to English parents, Kipling grew up during the British Raj, or the time period during which the British Empire ruled India. Known as the “jewel” in the English crown, India had great economic value for the Empire. Kipling believed that England had a moral imperative—the “white man’s burden,” he calls it in his 1899 poem of the same title—to civilize and improve the lives of its Indian subjects. Kipling’s imperialist beliefs were in keeping with the morality of the historical time, and his writing is typically understood as pro-colonialist. Kipling’s works were highly popular in Britain, which enabled England to see India through Kipling’s eyes. Despite his imperialist beliefs, Kipling appreciated the diversity to which he was exposed while living in India; he grew up wearing native clothing and speaking Hindustani. This short story reveals both his support and his criticism of British rule; in this story, Kipling highlights the imbalance of power and the disconnect that often exist between the colonizer and the colonized, or, in this case, the English and the Indians.

The narrator and Strickland are characterized as benevolent colonialists who are knowledgeable and accepting of Indian people and their beliefs. The narrator is critical of Fleete’s ignorance of Indian culture and values, and Strickland is also “unhappy” with Fleete’s drunken act of desecration. Fleete, in contrast, is the quintessential ignorant colonizer. Fleete acts from a position of superiority: He is the occupier, the colonizer, and so his norms must be the only norms. He is proud of his act of dominance, declaring how “fine” (242) the mark of his cigar looks on the image of the deity. Fleete, despite his status as a “superior” Englishman, is punished for his insult by arcane and terrifying native powers. Stripped of his humanity and Englishness, Fleete becomes subhuman and animalistic, a much lesser being than the Indian individuals he disregards so blatantly. By allowing Fleete to be punished and by showing that Fleete’s English gods lack the power to protect him from the wrath of the “Gods and Devils of Asia” (241), the narrator validates the power of the native religion and suggests that complete British rule is impossible.  

Despite their sympathy for native customs and their openness to different cultural practices from their own, the narrator and Strickland cannot allow a fellow Englishman to be overmastered by foreign powers. In saving Fleete, they harm the Silver Man by torturing him. In this way, they reestablish control, albeit at the cost of their moral superiority; the two Englishmen overpower one native man, which is not a demonstration of strength, but an exhibition of cowardice and brutality.

Kipling calls attention to the differences that exist between the English and the native people of the Indian culture. The wide cultural gap between the representatives of the two countries exposes the central conflict between colonizer and colonized as well as the Englishman’s fear of the unknowable, alien “other.” In this short story, Kipling suggests that this cultural gap is unresolvable; the British Empire cannot understand and subdue the native culture. Strickland’s inability to match the Indian people he encounters and to overpower their faith is a tacit acknowledgement of Kipling’s belief that India is too different from the English to be easily understood and too strong to dominate.

Kipling foreshadows the ultimate failure of British Imperialism in India when he writes about the subversive tendencies of the Indian people. While the Indian people ostensibly follow the colonizers’ rules, they commit micro-subversions. These gestures reveal that they have assimilated only as much as they need or want of the English culture while still maintaining their own culture and systems. They have mastered the language of the conqueror; for example, the narrator notes that the priest at the temple speaks “perfect English” in contrast to Fleete’s drunken slurring. By placating Strickland and by insisting that no white man ever touched Hanuman, the Indian believers stay within the protected confines of English law, while also satisfying their own needs by their own customs.

Notably, no significant female characters appear in “The Mark of the Beast” except for a nurse whom Fleete sees as someone with whom he can flirt. The narrator intimates that marriage is “bad” (242), and Strickland, who marries later, goes to church only because of his wife’s wishes. Women are reduced to sexual objects or individuals that constrain and domesticate male behavior. This focus on male protagonists and the resulting invisibility of women is another feature of imperialist writing as women can be understood as a colonized culture within themselves.