by John McGivering)
|notes on the text|
The 'I' is a dramatic character. He is often in what we know was Kipling’s situation; he presents, at times, certain recognisable aspects of his character; at other times, perhaps, the figure which he wished to cut, and occasionally a slightly parodied or belittled version of him. He is not therefore to be carelessly identified with Kipling. He is the link between the characters and the reader; he is not an autobiographer, and, with very few exceptions, the tale is not about him.We believe Kipling allowed himself some licence in what is obviously a work of fiction which Lionel Johnson, in Kipling, the Critical Heritage (Ed. R.L.Green) regards as one of the 'powerful stories of the horrible, without any mixture of mystery and impossibility'.
…. I suggest that you look for Kipling’s delightfully cynical turns of phrase and that you contemplate the ludicrous behaviour of the young man at the beginning, as well as his comically earnest reactions to the perhaps alarming, but improbable, situations in which he finds himself. There are also Mr. Wardle and the villagers to add to the fun….See also KJ 142/2 where a survivor of the 1914-18 War briefly comments on the story:
It is most unlikely that anybody with Kipling’s experience of India would enter such an area alone and on foot in the knowledge that there was a sounder of pig in the vicinity.
[See the note to Page 366, line 4].