Kim as a Heroic Spy and Verloc as an Ironic Spy: Reading Rudyard Kipling's Kim and Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent

Abstract

Respectively from Kipling's Kim and Conrad's The Secret Agent, the present research work has taken Kim and Verloc, for its analysis. Kipling has presented Kim as the heroic character from the white origin whereas Conrad has taken Verloc as the ironic spy. The present study attempts to analyze the writers' motif behind the selection of these characters as the heroic spy and ironic spy, respectively in Kim and The Secret Agent. And it contends that these writers have stood in the pro-colonial position by projecting such characters. Conrad's pro-colonial position has been clear through his ironic treatment to the central character. Kipling's frequent valorization of Kim is the latent orientalism. Conrad's Ironic mode of narration is to denounce the anarchists as there lies discrepant gap between their representation of themselves as true revolutionists and their inner reality which is dark and demonic.