| Abstract | Rudyard Kipling wrote his novel Kim in 1901, 23 years before E.M. Forster wrote his A Passage to India. The setting of both is during the British Raj. However, those 23 years of difference mean a different approach to the political and social situation of India. On the one hand, Kipling romanticises India’s political situation of the period while using his own positive sentiments towards India to depict the political and social situation in his novel. On the other hand, Forster depicted well the intricate relationships between the Empire and the natives during the British Raj after the First World War, highlighting underlying political tensions of that time. For their unique setting and political situation, both novels allow to delve into the exploration of mimicry which varied according to author’s representation of India. Mimicry is a nuanced process in which the colonized individual, through westernized education, imitates and adapts to cultural and linguistic backdrop of the colonizers creating in such manner a conflicted or dual identity. Kim’s Hurree Babu and A Passage to India’s Dr. Aziz are examples of such process. Throughout the novel, Hurree Babu prioritises his Anglicized version, except on one occasion in which he, in a drunken state, states his true feelings towards Britain. Unlike him, Dr. Aziz’s display of mimicry is somewhat more complex. Supporting Forster’s representation of India and rising tensions in the 1920s, his behaviour showcased similar traits. No matter how hard he tried to represent himself Anglicized and more similar to the British, he always struggled more with Indian identity than Hurree Babu ever did. However, characters’ display of mimicry not only resulted in their identity conflict, but also in a resistance to colonial power through the means of mockery which is represented as a result of the mimicry itself. On the one hand, mimicry serves to maintain colonial power and control so that colonized individuals remain engaging in social interactions yet, on the other hand, it can serve the purpose of undermining that same colonial power. |
