The man who wanted to be king (narration)
The man who wanted to be king is a short story published in 1888 by the then 22-year-old Rudyard Kipling . The story set in today's Pakistan and Afghanistan was recreated in 1947 as a radio play, in comics and various parodies. A film adaptation from 1975 comes from the director John Huston .
content
The narrator, a press editor in Lahore (as in real life Kipling himself), is visited by British adventurers Carnehan and Dravot. Both failed in an attempt to blackmail the local ruler with possible press reports, in which the narrator was not uninvolved. The two former members of the army, like the narrator (and in real life Kipling himself) a Freemason , now intend to ingratiate themselves with one of the local warlords in Afghanistan's Kafiristan with 20 Martini-Henry rifles and to take over such rule themselves in the long run . The narrator owes them a favor and provides them with all sorts of travel needs.
The two disguise themselves as Muslims and leave on a trek. Two years later, Carnehan arrives in Lahore completely torn and tells of his adventure and the initially successful imposture: The pagan Nuristani , who are considered the descendants of Alexander the Great in Kafiristan, accidentally recognized the two as gods at first: an arrow had hit Dravot, but got stuck in his cartridge belt. In addition, the Nuristani practiced a form of Masonic ritual that the adventurers were also familiar with and thus were able to identify themselves to the high priest of the tribe as high-ranking descendants of the Macedonian. The two formed a militia force with a local tribal leader and founded a kingdom under Dravot's leadership. The dizziness was noticed when the increasingly megalomaniac Dravot tried to marry the native Roxanne. When he tried to kiss her, she bit his face with blood out of fear, revealing his vulnerability and his humanity. The Nuristani fell Dravot from a bridge into an abyss and subjected Carnehan to a kind of crucifixion, which Carnehan survived and was released.
Carnehan underpins the truth of the story with the mummified, crowned head of his partner who has brought with him. The day after that, Carnehan dies of sunstroke, the head remains missing.
background
Kipling's short story, published in 1888, was inspired by adventurers like James Brooke and especially Josiah Harlan and is set in Kafiristan after the Second Anglo-Afghan War ended in 1880 . The European appearance and the special religious position of the Nuristani , on the basis of which the reference to Alexander was established, correspond to the facts.
The scary ending possibly alludes to the whereabouts of the head of the geologist Adolf Schlagintweit .
The narrative has the most and most detailed allusions to Freemasonry of any of Kipling's tales. Kipling uses various legendary aspects of Masonic symbolism. At his lodge inauguration, he was more than amused that some traced the origins of Freemasonry back to the Hebrew kings, and wrote history on it at the age of 22. To Kipling, the lodge and the relationship between the brothers meant a lot. History also shows how easily sustainable personal contacts and contracts about it are possible.
The dream of the two adventurers to pursue nation-building fails, according to Larry J. Kreitzer, the story can still be regarded as a biblical allegory of the formation of the Kingdom of Israel as well as a parody of colonialism itself. The adventurer's temporary superiority is not a question of weapons, but rather of recognition by the colonized, and the various secret societies play an important role in this. Kipling himself had entered at a time when the Freemasons in India were already beginning to accept Indian members.
Kipling processed his own experiences as a journalist in Lahore as well as from travel reports from Afghanistan. He himself had been present as a correspondent in Peshavar in 1885 at a meeting between the viceroy and Abdur Rahman Khan .
The story appeared as part of the so-called Railway Series , paperbacks that were sold at Indian train station bookstores for one rupee. Volume 5, The Phantom Rickshaw and other Eerie Tales , also contained other stories from Kipling.
reception
According to Kreitzer, Kipling's story was hardly an issue for literary criticism for decades. The story was praised as one of the best ever by Arthur Conan Doyle , HG Wells and JM Barrie , among others . However, it received little attention from the classical criticism and was only brought out of oblivion when it was made into a film by John Huston in 1975. Kreitzer attributes this to Kipling's critical, but constant commitment to British imperialism as well as the detailed description of Masonic rituals. Both the absurd ritual and the associated absurd symbolism, such as the worldview, which is perceived as crude and outdated, would have deterred critics from delving into the story. After all, Paul Fussell had dealt intensively with the biblical, especially Old Testament, symbolism in The Man Who Wanted to Be King . There is a lot of biblical content, from aspects of the Passion story to the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, in symbolism and individual aspects of the story.
Nora Crook wrote about the only woman in the otherwise male-dominated tale, Roxanne, who was chosen to be the king's wife.
Trivia
- John Huston wanted to film the material several times, in the 1950s with Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable , then with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas in the leading roles. When Huston approached Robert Redford and Paul Newman , Newman suggested the British Sean Connery and Michael Caine as a more suitable cast, which Huston felt as a stroke of genius and so also implemented; Christopher Plummer took on the role of Kipling.
- In HG Wells ' When the Sleeper Awakes there is a recording with "oi Man huwdbi Kin". The Sleeper remembers this as one of the best stories in the world.
- The episode The Storyteller of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine series is largely based on the short story.
- The main characters appear in the steampunk comic Scarlet Traces .
- In his controversial non-fiction book The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism, psychologist J. Michael Bailey alludes to Kipling's original like a variety of other English-language headlines and titles.
- Daniel Dravot is mentioned in Kim Newman's Anno Dracula .
- The rock and metal bands Dio and Iron Maiden ( The Final Frontier ) recorded songs called The Man Who Would be King . Pete Doherty and Carl Barât , known as Kipling readers , also released a song called The Man Who Would be King with their band The Libertines .
literature
- Rudyard Kipling : The man who wanted to be king (Original title: The Man Who Would Be King ). With illustrations by Heiner Rothfuchs . Bertelsmann Lesering, Gütersloh 1961, 125 pp.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g Larry J. Kreitzer: The Son of God Goes Forth to War: Biblical Imagery in Rudyard Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King. In: Martin O'Kane (Ed.): Borders, boundaries and the Bible. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2002
- ^ Robert Middleton, Huw Thomas: Tajikistan & The High Pamirs: A Companion and Guide. Odyssey, 2008, ISBN 962-217-773-5 .
- ^ Marie Mulvey Roberts: British poets and secret societies. Taylor & Francis, 1986, 181 pages
- ^ Neil K. Moran: Kipling and Afghanistan: a study of the young author as journalist writing on the Afghan Border Crisis of 1884-1885.
- ^ HG Wells: The Sleeper Awakes. Edited by Patrick Parringer. Penguin Classics, 2005. p. 56.