An essay on Lispeth

An essay on Lispeth

The story begins with a description of the environment. On just a few lines the narrator makes us aware of the both the surroundings and the social environment. The story is set in the Kotgarh Valley, and we are let into a community of farmers. The fields are put under with maize and opium poppies. We are introduced to an area far away from everything and an area where agriculture provides the basis of all life. The social environment is split up into two parts. On one side we have the hill people who are Hindu, and on the opposite we have the Mission who are Christian. Lispeth is born by Hindus, but after their staple food maize fails Lispeth is brought to the Mission, and she is baptized. In this way we learn how poor the area must be if the only way to secure one’s daughter’s life is to give her up.

After this introduction the plot commences. The story line is told straight forward, and the point of view is a 3rd person narrator. The first person narrator has a limited view, because he doesn’t know what goes on inside the different characters’ heads. Actually you can at times argue in favour of the point view being a 1st person narrator, because we from time to time have an “I” telling the story. The story is told by a 3rd person narrator describing the events from one character’s point of view.“,I do not know; but she grew very lovely. When a Hill-girl grows lovely, she is worth travelling fifty miles over bad ground to look upon.”(Lispeth: p.33 l.16-18) This author comment makes us wonder if Kipling maybe has experienced it himself. He has perhaps as a young man in India travelled 50 miles to see a Hindu girl whom he loved. The 1st person narrator gives credibility to the story by saying “I”. The story is told years and years later as if it has been told by Lispeth to the narrator.

Through the story the author comes with comments. The narrator is still speaking, but the comments create a small pause. “It takes a great deal of Christianity to wipe out uncivilized Eastern instincts, such as falling in love at first sight.”(Lispeth: p.35 l. 4-6) This passage is an author comment where the use of irony brings out the theme. By ridiculing Kipling amplifies. You could say that he makes them a laughing stock and ridicules this opinion.

The narrator writes a great deal about Lispeth. She is tall, has beautiful eyes and even though she is a Hindu she is fair-skinned, a wheatish complexion. She is even compared to a princess from a fairy tale and a roman goddess. We are also told that Lispeth reads every book in the house. She is brought up in the Chaplain’s house: A Christian house where she has been raised according to Christian values. She grows up as an English girl, but the problem of the story is that she is not an English girl. She is a pahari. Her foster parents want her to be a nurse which in no way is a bad job, but they do not want her to be a doctor. This shows us that they think that she is not as good as an English girl or as their own children. Lispeth is indeed a good girl but also a naive girl. She falls in love with the young Englishman who has no intention of staying for her. The story fails when Chaplain’s wife lies saying that the young Englishman will come back. The fact that she lies shows us that she is not a proper Christian, because as we know one of the Ten Commandments strictly say: “Thou shalt not lie.” Lispeth leaves and goes back to her own people because they lie towards her.

Actually the story is quite critical towards the church and Chaplain’s wife. In the end Chaplain’s wife states that Lispeth always at heart was an infidel throwing all responsibility for Lispeth’s leaving of her shoulders. The following author comment ridicules her and shows which opinion the author has of Chaplain’s wife: “Seeing she had been taken into the Church of England at the mature age of five weeks, this statement does not do credit to the Chaplain’s wife”.(Lispeth: p. 37 l. 27-29)

The author clearly has an opinion of his characters but of the theme. Through the story he discusses the theme of race. It is in no way the colour of skin, because we learn that Lispeth is fair skinned, but it is a perception of the mind. The theme of race is discussed in the terms of love. Can an Englishman and an Indian woman fall in love? In the short story Lispeth one can discuss if the love relationship really does take place. But the story in no way denies the fact that it is possible. In Kiplings short story Beyond the Pale an Englishman and an Indian girl have a love relationship, but society does not allow their relationship. As is it in Lispeth. Looking at the epigraph to Lispeth Christianity is also represented as cold and tangled. Already here we learn what decision Lispeth will make in the story. Not knowing what this epigraph means gives the reader a wish to seek the answer in the text. Her returning to her people is a sign of betrayal. She has been betrayed by the people she thought she could trust. The author’s message is that love beyond races could work, but both societies do not allow it.