A brief description of Rudyard Kipling's portrayal of women in his short story collection "Plain Tales from the Hills"

1. Victorian Era WomEn
The picture
Kipling paints…
Aditi Verma – 0302985
Andrew Goh - 0304490

2. Rudyard Kipling
• English poem, short-story writer, and novelist of
the Victorian Era.
• Born in Bombay Presidency of India (now known
as Mumbai) on 30 December, 1865.
• Famous for The Jungle Book, Kim, and Plain Tales
from the Hills among many others.
• Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907; the
first English-language writer to receive the prize,
and its youngest recipient.

3. Introduction
• Portrayal of women in literature – broad and
exploratory subject.
• Some portrayed as meek, some as strong,
some carefree, while some restricted.
• We have written a literary analysis on the
portrayal of women in British India by Kipling,
in his short story collection Plain Tales from
the Hills, published in 1888.

4. Our analysis
1. The Other Man
2. Lispeth
3. Three and – an extra
4. Cupid’s Arrows
5. Miss Youghal’s Sais
6. Rescue of Pluffles

5. Literature Review
Main points of report’s lit review:
•Kipling’s female characters were likely influenced by the women in
his life, i.e. his mother, his wife and a the wife of a ‘Captain Holloway’
who ran the boarding school he went to (1871-1877) that frequently
beat him.
•Miroslava Kovářová of Masaryk University, Brno has described
Kipling’s women as ‘multi-dimensional and multi-faceted’, showing
that they are not victims of particular men but of a particular political
and ideological system both men and women are subjected to.

6. • However, he has also states that Kipling’s portrayal of female
characters is ‘restricted and limited’, describing women like
Mrs. Hauksbee and Mrs. Reiver as ‘shallow and promiscuous.’
• Kipling however, portrays women differently than other
authors, for example Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot)
portrayed her female characters as as wealthy, beautiful,
pious, stylish, and somewhat shallow, showing the deficiency
of a woman's place in society by restricting her characters to
their boundaries.
• Besides that, another author named Thomas Hardy portrayed
his female characters as helpless victims, and has depicted an
overall lesser value of women, as can be examined in two of
his most renowned works, Return of the Native and Tess of
the d’Urbervilles.

7. Miss Gaurey (The Other Man)
•Miss Gaurey is a woman who forcibly married to a man named
Colonel Scheriederling implied to be many years her senior
despite being in love with another man at the time. After falling
ill, Miss Gaurey — who was considered ordinary from the start
— became ugly, and her husband ignored her from then on,
choosing to go back to the ‘lairs of his bachelorhood’ instead.
•Miss Gaurey is a standard example of women during those
times; more often than not, they were forced into marriages for
the family’s sake. Besides that, Scheriederling’s treatment of her
is somewhat abusive, reflecting on how men thought of their
wives back then – subservient, mindless and expected to
tolerate all form of abuse, mental or physical.

8. • Miss Gaurey differs from the standard Victorian era female
character in that instead of being highly emotional and prone
to tears; Miss Gaurey did not shed a single tear during the
entire story. In example, she did not weep during her forced
marriage to Scheriederling, unlike her mother who used it to
gain sympathy.
• Another example would be when despite her obvious surprise
at meeting her old flame, who is referenced to as The Other
Man in the story, she did not weep after the initial shock. This
implies that Miss Gaurey was rather strong emotionally for a
woman of her time. Besides that, Rudyard Kipling wrote of
her as being ugly, but also a survivor – he wrote that men like
Scheriederling did not marry women who died easily, lending
credence to her trait as a survivor.

9. Mrs. Bremmil (Three and – An Extra)
•Mrs. Bremmil is a married woman who finds her marriage in
jeopardy after the death of her newborn child, as a woman
named Mrs. Hauksbee attempts to steal her husband away. At
first, it seemed that Mrs. Bremmil was too meek to do anything
about it.
•However her meekness was a feint – having told her husband
that she would be having dinner with the Longmores, she
proceeded to show up at the ball he attended with Mrs.
Hauksbee after her dinner, turning the heads of all the men
present. Eventually her husband decided to ask her for a dance,
which she teasingly rejected, but in the end accepted. In the
end, Mrs. Bremmil managed to wrest her husband back from
Mrs. Hauksbee, earning the latter’s begrudging respect.

10. • Kipling portrays Mrs. Bremmil in an entirely different manner
from characters like Miss Gaurey; where the latter is more a
character that endures suffering without complaint, Mrs.
Bremmil is more proactive – she saw a rival trying to snatch
her husband away and fought back.
• Also Mrs. Bremmil was a strong woman, as evidenced by her
ability to get over her child’s death and focus on her husband.
Mrs. Bremmil is also rather witty and intelligent, as can be
seen with the methods she used in getting her husband back,
as well as Mrs. Hauksbee’s remark about her: ‘The silliest
woman can manage a clever man; but it needs a very clever
woman to manage a fool.’

11. Miss Youghal (Miss Youghal’s Sais)
•In the story, Miss Youghal is the daughter of a presumably high-
class family who falls for British policeman named Strickland,
who had in a sense, ‘went native’ in order to blend in with the
natives in British India. When Strickland told Miss Youghal’s
parents, her mother claimed that she would not throw her
daughter into the ‘worst paid Department in the Empire’, while
her father said that he distrusted Strickland’s ways and works,
and wished that Strickland would stop contacting his daughter.
Strickland then disguised himself as a sais and endeared himself
to Mrs. Youghal, all while continuing his love affair with Miss
Youghal.
•Eventually though, the flirting of suitors got to him, and when
an old General did so, he lost his composure, revealing himself.
However, the old general decided to help the couple, and
eventually the two managed to get married, with the
understanding that Strickland would stop ‘going native’.

12. • Despite her implied similarities with the typical Victorian era
female character (well-off, shallow), she did show a streak of
defiance in conducting her affair with Strickland when he
disguised himself, and her similarity to girls of that age could
represent an inability to break the social norms that were
prevalent during those times; in other words, Miss Youghal
reflects the inability of women to make their own choices
back then.
• This could suggest that Miss Youghal’s Sais was a story aimed
at the upper class families – and one mocking their separation
of class, as the ending of the story has Miss Youghal, a well-
placed young lady marrying a policeman who has, to her
parents’ point of view, adopted the mannerism and culture of
uneducated savages.

13. Lispeth
Lispeth is a story of a beautiful Hill-girl who is baptized when she
was a baby. Her parents pass away in a bout of cholera and she
grows up with the Chaplain and his wife.
She almost considers herself as an English woman, until she falls
in love with an Englishman who doesn’t return her love but
strings her along, lying to her that he will return to marry her, but
he never does. The Chaplain’s wife also knows this but supports
the lie.
When Lispeth finds out, she feels betrayed and leaves the English,
returning to her native people, becoming a savage woman and
marrying a wood cutter who beats her.

14. Brief Character Analysis
Lispeth undergoes a great transformation from a sophisticated,
calm, almost English-like woman to a rude and savage hill woman
after the betrayal.
She is weak in the sense that she easily falls in love with a ‘stranger’
at first sight, and is naïve and believes the Englishman as well as the
Chaplain’s wife’s words.
She is strong in the sense that she stands up for herself once she
realizes the truth, and leaves her old comfortable life.
Thus, We find Lispeth to be a complex character, painted as both
strong and weak, who gains both admiration and sympathy from the
readers, as certainly intended by Kipling.

15. Kitty Beighton
Kitty is the protagonist of the story Cupid’s Arrows. She is the
best female archer in the town, and is quite pretty. A wealthy
but ugly Commissioner wishes to marry her, and her parents
approve, but she loves another man.
The Commissioner organizes an archery contest for women in
which Kitty had to compete, where the winner will receive a
diamond bracelet – and if she wins it, by taking the bracelet she
signifies her acceptance to marry him.
However, she chooses to do things her own way and
deliberately loses the contest, although in a manner that shows
she did so purposefully, and instead leaves with the man she
loves.

16. Brief Character Analysis
Kitty is portrayed as a tough, clever, and mischievous character from
the beginning. She is opinionated, bold, and proud.
The young lady is described as radical in her ways as she rebels against
the Victorian values practiced on a large scale by her contemporaries
by brazenly refusing to bow down to society and standing up for her
love.
We can say that Kipling strays away from the norm and provides a rare
perspective on literary women in this story.
He emphasizes the uniqueness of Kitty Beighton’s character as
opposed to how other authors portrayed their heroines in that period,
by focusing on her audacious and shrewd nature, which is very
prominent throughout the story, and is the most perceptible towards
the end.

17. Mrs. Hauksbee
She is the protagonist of the story The Rescue of Pluffles. In the
story, Pluffles is a callow subaltern and “trusts his own
judgment.” He becomes attached to Mrs. Reiver, a woman who
treats him like a slave and charges money for it too.
Mrs. Hauksbee and Mrs. Reiver hate each other, and when Mrs.
Hauksbee comes to know about Pluffles’ attachment to her, she
uses her clever and manipulative mind to win Pluffles over.
She then gets him married to his fiancé whom he had left in
England, thus winning the “war” against Mrs. Reiver, and also
doing some good to both Pluffles and his fiancé.

18. Brief Character Analysis
Mrs. Hauksbee, being one of the recurring characters in Kipling’s
stories, exemplifies many of the characteristic features of his
idiosyncratic writing.
She seems to possess both negativity and positivity. Kipling
shows her as an experienced and quick-witted woman who has
more than twenty-three sides to her.
She is a multifaceted character, managing to exhibit goodwill
along with some hostility. Kipling has carved her character as one
whose motivations are neither simple nor clear cut.
He has painted her in a way that was rarely seen in Victorian era
literature.

19.  Kipling preferred to portray his women in ways
that were usually not found in the literature of his
era.
 The picture he paints of his female characters is
unique, diverse, and entertaining, with a touch of
reality – the reality of women in the Victorian
time.