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{{
[[File:Rudyard Kipling from John Palmer.jpg|thumb|400px]]
{{quote|''If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue''
''Or walk with kings, nor lose the common touch''
''If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you''
''If all men count with you, but none too much''
''If you can fill the unforgiving minute''
''With sixty seconds worth of distance run''
''Yours is the Earth, and everything that's in it''
''And, which is more, you'll be a man, my son.''|'''If...'''}}
English writer and Nobel prize winner, born in India. These days Kipling is perhaps best known as the creator of Mowgli, star of ''[[The Jungle Book (
Many of Kipling's works, including ''[[The Jungle Book (Literature)|The Jungle Book]]'', are set in British India, and popularised most of the associated tropes. His other works include some early [[Science Fiction]], while his literary style, particularly indirect exposition, was a significant influence on Campbell, [[Bertolt Brecht (Creator)|Bertolt Brecht]] and [[Robert A. Heinlein]].▼
▲Many of Kipling's works, including ''[[The Jungle Book (
'''Kipling's stories include:'''
* ''[[The Man Who Would Be King]]''
* ''[[The Jungle Book (
* ''Stalky & Co.'', [[Boarding School]]
* ''[[Kim]]'', novel capping Kipling's India stories.
* ''Puck of Pook's Hill'' and the sequel, ''Rewards and Fairies''.
* "With the Night Mail" and "As Easy as ABC," SF involving [[Cool Airship|Cool Airships]] run by the [[Fun
* The ''[[
'''Poems include:'''
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* "The Thousandth Man"
* "Recessional"
* "[[The Three
He lost a son in [[World War
{{quote|If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied. |''Epitaphs of the War'', "Common Form"}}
Poems from Kipling, sometimes set to music, are popular references in any military fiction or [[Sci Fi]]. His work (as well as that of Tennyson) received a recent boost in public attention after they were quoted by former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich (ironically enough considering his quote about Chicago that appears on [[The Windy City]] trope page).
----
▲* [[Just So Story]]
* [[More Deadly Than the Male]] ("The Female of the Species" poem)
*
----
* ''[[The Jungle Book (
* ''[[
* ''[[Kim]]''
----
* [[Affectionate Parody]]: The ''Just So Stories'' is this for various different oral traditions (hence all the repetition), most obviously ''The Butterfly That Stamped'', which is a parody of the Koranic style ("Now listen and attend!")
* [[Alas, Poor Yorick]]
** Including a rather... [[Crowning Moment of Funny|unconventional]] scene in ''The Ballad of Boh Da Thone''.
* [[Alternate Character Interpretation]]: A common trick [[In-Universe|of Kipling's]] was to follow up a short story with a poem looking at it from the point of view of a secondary character or villain. The results can be startlingly different -- compare 'The Knife and the Naked Chalk' to 'The Song of the Men's Side'.
* [[Author Tract]]. Be grateful for the common workers and soldiers that hold the empire together, not least the soldiers who, just before Kipling's time had been looked down upon by middle-class British.
{{quote|
''But it's savior of his country when the guns begin to shoot'' }}
* [[Awful Truth]]
* [[Badass Creed]]: For Indian postmen in "The Overland Mail" (at night, ''in the jungle'', '''''uphill'''''):
{{quote|
Has the rain wrecked the road? He must climb by the cliff.
Does the tempest cry halt? What are tempests to him?
The service admits not a "but" or
While the breath's in his mouth, he must bear without fail,
In the Name of the Empress, the Overland Mail. }}
** For [[Manly Men Can Hunt|predators]] in [[The Jungle
{{quote|
''The herds are shut in byre and hut, for loosed til dawn are we''
''Now is the hour of power and pride. Talon and tush and claw.''
''Come hear the call, good hunting all, that keep the Jungle Law.'' }}
* [[Bad Cop, Incompetent Cop]]: Not much, but... one meets [[Cool and Unusual Punishment]] in ''Steam Tactics''.
* [[Bad Liar]]: The weather in "Danny Deever" is -- odd.
* [[Beast of Battle]]: ''Parade Song of the Camp Animals''
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* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: Parodied mercilessly in the ''Just So Stories'', specifically ''How The Whale Got His Throat'', in which we are reminded practically every paragraph not to forget that the protagonist wears suspenders (braces). In the end these do play a part in the story (he ties a grate in place with them in the whale's throat) but this is [[Anticlimax|hilariously minor]] compared to the leadup.
* [[City of Spies]]: Lahore in [[Kim]]
* [[Creator Breakdown]]: Kipling was an ardent imperialist. Then his only son died in [[World War
** Not to mention:
{{quote|
''Therefore I lied to please the mob.''
''Now all my lies are proved untrue''
''And I must face the men I slew.''
''[[Heel Realization|What tale shall serve me here among
''
* [[Culture Clash]]: Several of his short stories are jokes about this.
* [[Defictionalization]]: Some of the dialect of [[Brits With Battleships|the British Army]] was actually made up by Kipling. Originally it was a device to give the atmosphere of how soldiers talked without using the words [[Moral Guardians|soldiers actually used]]. In [[World War I]] a lot of boys entered the army brought up on Kipling and imported the dialect they thought was "soldierly".
* [[Dialogue]]: Kipling is noted for his dialogue tricks.
**His imitation of soldier slang is almost a constructed language, and many a gentle-bred boy came to fight in Fr ance thinking soldiers [[Defictionalization|really talked like that.]] Naturally he [[Moral Guardians|couldn't give]] the real thing.
**Indian languages tend to be rendered in [[Purple Prose|King James English]] to give a scent of "otherness" and romance.
* [[Discussed Trope|Discussed Tropes]]: Lots of. E.g.
** [[Demonization]]
{{quote|
'Oom you are paid to kill? }}
*
* [[Dying Moment of Awesome]]/[[Heroic Sacrifice]]: "Giffen's Debt." A disgraced ex-officer realizes the (poorly-constructed) dam is about to give way, and rides to warn the people of the valley to get to high ground. Precisely how many he saves isn't made clear, but enough that twenty-five dead is considered a very small loss of life. '''He''' doesn't make it to safety, because he's too busy warning others. The survivors honor him as "an incarnation of the local god" thereafter.
* [[Elephants Child]]
* [[Exact Words]]: Both "A Smuggler's Song" and "The Shut-Eye Sentry" are about people being warned to look the other way at certain moments, so they'll be able to [[From a Certain Point of View|truthfully]] say afterwards that they didn't '''''see''''' any sign of wrongdoing.
* [[Framing Device]]: Kipling makes extensive and careful use of framing devices in his short stories and narrative verse, sometimes doubly framing stories (a story within a story within a story).
* [[Friend to All Living Things]]
* [[Funny Foreigner]]: Played with in nearly every way possible.
**Often enough the ''English'' are the funny foreigners.
**Kipling had a reporter's attitude toward people and "superior", "inferior", and/or "equal" were just theories to him and often not that important of theories. The most important way of categorizing people was "colorful" as far as he was concerned. He did have prejudices against Germans and Russians which [[Your Mileage May Vary|sometimes seems]] to go beyond political or ideological rivalry.
* [[God Guise]]
* [[Greedy Jew]]: Subverted in ''The Treasure and the Law''. Jews are indeed greedy for wealth [[Not So Different|but then]] gentiles are greedy for power. And the Jewish narrator sacrifices his greed to help bring about justice in England.
* [[Heterosexual Life Partners]]: The gist of [http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-thousandth-man "The Thousandth Man".]
* [[Hurricane of Puns]]: The poem "Brown Bess" describes the history of the musket that was standard for British troops for over a century. Kipling plays on the fact that lots of words and phrases referring to killing are also used to speak of being beautiful or making people fall in love with you, and writes as if this musket was actually a sexy woman:
{{Quote|At Blenheim and Ramillies fops would confess
They were pierced to the heart by the charms of Brown Bess.}}
** Also, the word "rout" can apply either to panicked retreat or to a fashionable party, so he says Brown Bess was responsible for many successful routs.
* [[I Have This Friend]]: In "Gloriana," the woman who tells the story implies she was a lady-in-waiting at the court of [[The Virgin Queen|Elizabeth I]]. But when speaking of Elizabeth's actions, she several times slips and says "I" did thus-and-such.
* [[Knight in Sour Armor]]: The protagonist of ''Tommy''. Also a [[Deadpan Snarker]].
* [[Lawful Neutral]]: Some of his political opinions come across as this.
* [[Local Hangout]]: ''Ballad of the King's Jest'' is told between two caravaners hanging out at the local bazaar in Peshawar.
* [[Locked Out of the Loop]]: "Marklake Witches" plays with the trope by having it narrated by the character who's locked out of the loop -- and who, at the close of the story, still hasn't realised there's a secret being kept from her, let alone learned what it is. Recognising that her various moments of bemusement are connected, and figuring out the nature of the connection, is left as an exercise for the reader, and if achieved alters [[Rudyard Kipling/Tear Jerker|the tone of the story significantly]].
* [[Malaproper]]: The narrator of ''Just So Stories'', with such famous ones as "'satiable curtiosity" (for 'insatiable curiosity').
* [[Mama Bear]]
* [[Manly Men Can Hunt]]: ''Captains Courageous'' and ''The Jungle Book''
{{quote|
* [[Merchant City]]: Peshawar in ''The Ballad of the King's Jest''
* [[Mighty Whitey]]: Sometimes. Mostly they get to meet white guys who aren't.
*
* [[Obstructive Bureaucrat]]: Kipling poured over these enough of acid to dissolve a battleship or two. From ''Pagett, M.P.'' to ''Mesopotamia'' and ''Stellenbosh'' to ''The Lesson'':
{{quote|
[[Hit and Run Tactics|That horses are quicker than men afoot]], since two and two make four;
And horses have four legs, and men have two legs, and two into four goes twice,
And nothing over except our lesson--and very cheap at the price. }}
{{quote|[[World War I|They shall not return to us, the resolute, the young]],
The eager and whole-hearted whom we gave:
But the men who [[We Have Reserves|left them thriftily to die in their own dung]],
Shall they come with years and honour to the grave?}}
* [[Not So Different]]: Zig-zagged. Sometimes he described Europeans as just another tribe, sometimes as superior. Perhaps the summation was that he in fact thought Europeans ''were'' another tribe (and thus shouldn't make too much heavy weather) but that, by chance they happened to be a tribe that had a lot to teach other tribes.
** Also Kipling was a good character writer and had a great fascination for how other people lived. His characters seem like real people that happen to be following the customs of their respective tribe/caste/whatever and not merely extensions of stereotypes.
** ''The Roman Centurion's Song'' is about a Roman Centurion pleading not to be sent home to Rome, as he has lived among the 'primitives' of Britain so long that he has gone native. Kipling was making the obvious comparison of how many British soldiers felt after living in India, and pointing out that once upon a time it was the Britons that were the subject of colonial ambitions by a 'more civilised' power and were viewed as savages by their colonial masters.
* [[The Paragon]]: "Kitchener's School" claims the English in general are this:
{{quote|That the magic whereby they work their magic--wherefrom their fortunes spring--
May be that they show all peoples their magic and ask no price in return.}}
* [[POV Sequel]]: Several, including ''The Pirates in England'' vs. ''A Pict Song''.
* [[The Raj]]: The setting for most of his works. Kipling is largely responsible for spreading awareness of [[The Raj]] as a literary setting outside the former British Empire, and popularising it within the Empire.
* [[Rated "M" for Manly]]: His poem simply entitled "''If--''" is about as good a summary as you can get for what it takes to be a virtuous and well-adjusted manly man. Also a good account of what it takes to be a [[Knight in Shining Armour]] in the modern world.
* [[Reality Is Unrealistic]]: Invoked in ''Light That Failed''. ''The Return ''.
* [[Recycled in Space]]: some sci fi is affected by Kipling.
* [[Reptiles Are Abhorrent]]: Played straight in "Rikki Tikki Tavi."
* [[Retired Badass]]: Col. Dabney:
{{quote|
* [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]]: Invoked in ''Ballad of East and West'' when a British subaltern surrounded by Pathans warns the Pathan chieftain that his tribe will be ravaged by the British Army if he is killed.
** Also invoked in the short story "Wee Willie Winkie" about a six-year-old boy, son of a British regimental commander, facing down some other Pathans. One of them warns his comrades:
* [[Running Gag]]: The ''Just So Stories'' has lots, most obviously "you must never forget the suspenders".▼
{{Quote|"He is the heart's heart of those white troops.... [I]f he be taken, the regiment will break loose and gut the valley ... and we shall not escape. That regiment are devils ... and if we touch this child they will fire and rape and plunder for a month, till nothing remains.... I say that this child is their God, and that they will spare none of us, nor our women, if we harm him."}}
* [[Screw This I'm Outta Here]]: ''Wilful-Missing''▼
▲* [[Running Gag]]: The ''Just So Stories''
▲* [[Screw This, I'm Outta Here]]: ''Wilful-Missing''
* [[Second Boer War]]
* [[Self
* [[Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness]]: "That is the way all Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakes always talk."
* [[Settings]]: Kipling is best at this. His characters are quite good, and his plots are serviceable. However it is his ability to describe settings that really made him.
* [[Silent Running Mode]]: They call it ''The Trade''.
* [[Star
* [[Stiff Upper Lip]]: "If..." is one of the [[Trope Codifier|trope codifiers]].
* [[Street Urchin]] : Kim
* [[Tall, Dark and Snarky|Tall Dark And]] <s>Snarky</s> ''Stalky''
* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: A lot of characters, e.g. Pagett, M.P.:
{{quote|
Came on a four months' visit, to "study the East," in November,
[[Cool and Unusual Punishment|And I got him to sign an agreement vowing to stay till September.]]
...[The summer temperature hits one hundred twenty] That was an end of the business. Pagett, the perjured, fled
With a practical, working knowledge of "Solar Myths" in his head. }}
* [[Trickster]]: Several, including ''Stalky'' (''Stalky'' in Land & Sea Tales, ''Stalky & Co.'', ''A Deal in Cotton'' in Actions and Reactions, ''The Honours of War'' in A Diversity of Creatures), who fought anything unpleasant in [[Boarding School]] with tricks and little provocations. And won.
{{quote|
'''M'Turk:''' No explanation. Deprived of tea. Public disgrace before the house. It's dam' serious. }}
* [[Troperiffic]]: "[http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/three_decker.html The Three-Decker]" is a defense of the Troperific three-volume novel.
* [[True Art]]: [[In-Universe|''In the Neolithic Age'']] elaborately mocked [[Flame War|flamewars]] over styles.
** [[Lighter and Softer]]: ''The Light that Failed'':
{{quote|
** [[Executive Meddling]]: ''The Light that Failed'', the same incident.
{{quote|
* [[True Companions]]: ''The Galley-Slave'' is about the brotherhood between a crew of galley slaves.
{{quote|
* [[Unreliable Narrator]]: "The Gardener" has an omniscient [[Narrator]], but when he starts talking about what "every one in the village knew", you have to pay close attention to what he's actually saying.
* [[Unusual Euphemism]]: <s>Deserters</s> ''Wilful-Missing''.
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* [[The Vamp]]: [http://www.online-literature.com/donne/921/ "The Vampire"]
{{Nobel Prize in Literature}}
{{reflist}}
[[Category:World War
[[Category:Print Long Runners]]
[[Category:Authors]]
[[Category:Rudyard Kipling]]▼
[[Category:Creator]]
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