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Chapter One Historical Background in Colonial India and The Postcolonial Theory  

1.1 Historical Background in Colonial India 
The  period  in  Kim  was  between  the  eighteen  eighties  and  the  eighteen  nineties, which was the glorious age of Colonial India. It could be evaluated from the evidence in the novel of the old soldier who “told tales of the Mutiny and young captains thirty years in their graves, till Kim dropped off to sleep” (Kipling, Kim 50). We assume that the  Mutiny  of  1857-1858  happened  thirty  years  before  the  events  in  Kim,  and  the protagonist  Kim  would  have  been  thirteen  in  1888  and  seventeen  in  1892  when  the novel  approached  to  the  ending.  This  span  of  time  generally  agreed  with  the  period from 1882 to 1889 when Kipling lived his young life in colonial India. It was reasoned that the India portrayed in the novel Kim was the India Kipling lived in when he was a newspaper  reporter  for  the  Civil  and  Military  Gazette  in  Lahore  and  the  Pioneer  in Allahabad.  The  India  portrayed  in  Kim  was  the  India  observed  from  the  view  of ordinary  people  who  were  villagers,  soldiers  and  naughty  boys  instead  of  from  the perspective  of  some  few  sahibs  and  officials  who  often  appeared  in  history  books. There were some exceptions of a few British who trained Kim to be a member of the “Great  Game”  for  the  British  Empire.  At  its  height,  the  British  Indian  Empire  had  a population  of  two  hundred  and  fifty-six  million  with  the  coverage  of  the  whole subcontinent and included what were now India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Almost two thirds  of  the  Empire  was  ruled  by  an  official  system  led  by  fewer  than  two  thousand Britishers who supervised the work of about forty thousand Indian officers and clerks. The  rest  consisted  of  native  states  ruled  by  Indian  princes  under  British  supervision. Some of the above states, such as Kashmir and Mysore, were as large as England and some were very small. It was mentioned that the native states appeared in the novel of Kim-the maharani who made friends with Kim and the Lama was the widow of a small state ruler in the Kulu Valley.
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1.2 The Postcolonial Theory
The  postcolonial  theory  consists  of  many  relevant  cultural  and  political  theories and  critical  methods.  The  postcolonial  theory  could  be  described  very  briefly  as  a theoretical  discourse  which  emerges  from  situations  that  foll本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。