SOURCE: Sharma, S. T. “Kipling's India: A Study of Some Short Stories.” Literary Criterion 22, no. 4 (1987): 54-61.

In the following essay, Sharma explores Kipling's identification with India as expressed in the four short stories collected in The Day's Work: “The Maltese Cat,” “William the Conqueror,” “The Tomb of His Ancestors,” and “The Bridge Builders.”

The question of Kipling's identification with India becomes relevant in view of the fact that Kipling spent his apprentice years in India and emerged on the literary scene as a major Anglo-Indian writer. It is equally interesting because Kipling spent his early years in India accepting its pattern of life, and that too at a time when there was a general opinion that to adopt to Indian conditions was to conform to an inferior standard.

The life pattern of Kipling also indicates a constant displacement which forced him to commit himself to a new home...