A Post-Colonial Decoding Of Lispeth’s Cultural Identity In Kipling’s Lispeth

Lispeth is one of Kipling’s famous works. Kipling was born in India, whose works are originated from India-the place where he was born. These works have presented a picture of India in the colonial period. Kipling is thus considered as a professional writer serving for the British imperialist, and his colonial writings of the colonized India have become the research focus of the scholars.However, this thesis holds a different view in this respect. This thesis adopts the close-reading method to read Kipling’s Lispeth. Based on the post-colonial cultural identity theories, this thesis, with cultural identity as the entry point, tries to explore the cultural identity of the heroine Lispeth and make a post-colonial decoding of it. In Lipseth, the heroine is adopted by an English missionary; her cultural identity is rootlessly floating between the Indian cultural identity and British cultural identity, where she is trapped. How to seek a balance between these two cultural identities is all what the fiction Lispeth tries to demonstrate. The construction of Lispeth’s cultural identity reflects Kipling’s deep thoughts on his own identity Puzzled and hesitated, he was not fully devoted to the imperial Great Britain with his whole heart; on the contrary, he loved India. This is reflected by the eventual positioning of Lispeth’s cultural identity in the fiction. In the fiction, the heroine finally abandoned her British cultural identity and returned to the Indian cultural identity.Kipling’s Lispeth revealed Kipling’s affection for India. By close reading Lispeth, we find that Kipling is not totally an imperial writer, but the study hopes to provide a new perspective for the studies on Kipling and evaluate Kipling justly.