The Impossibilities of Imperialism in Kipling’s “At the End of the Passage”  

Editorial Team: Trevor Costa, Chloe Holloway, Alexis Locke

Additional editorial support by Dr. Heidi L. Pennington

         Rudyard Kipling’s narrative “At the End of the Passage” (1890) unfolds in the oppressive heat of colonial India, where four British men—Hummil, a civil engineer worn down by overwork; Spurstow, a pragmatic doctor; and their peers Mottram and Lowndes gather every Sunday at Hummil’s bungalow to play whist. Amid the suffocating isolation, Hummil begins to suffer from terrifying visions and relentless insomnia. He confides in Spurstow, who suspects his breakdown stems from exhaustion and solitude, yet no remedy seems to help. As the nightmares intensify, Hummil grows increasingly fearful of sleep. A week later, Hummil dies suddenly, leaving his companions horrified. In an attempt to uncover what Hummil experienced in his final moments, they persuade Spurstow to use a camera to try and capture his cause of death through his horrified eyes. Though reluctant, the doctor develops the plate in secret. What it reveals is so horrifying that he destroys it immediately. The exact nature of Hummil’s vision remains unknown, deepening the story’s eerie atmosphere. Kipling closes with a chilling sense of dread, underscoring the psychological fragility of men isolated in the harsh conditions of Empire.

         “At the End of the Passage” utilizes a third-person heterodiegetic narrator to depict the gradual psychological deterioration of the four men working as agents of Empire in the British Raj, which operated to secure political control, economic exploitation, and strategic dominance over the Indian subcontinent. It was both a system of governance and a way to consolidate imperial power after the Indian Rebellion of 1857 (Encyclopedia Britannica). Through oppressive environments, supernatural suggestion, and the breakdown of Hummil, Kipling exposes the contradictions of imperial ideology. While the narrative voice often imitates Empire’s claim to rational mastery, its gaps, uncertainties, and tonal fractures expose the logical shortcomings of colonial control. Kipling’s stories thus reveal an empire that cannot fully know, govern, or contain the world it claims to dominate. The story reveals Empire’s dependence on vulnerable individuals and highlights the limits of British authority in the colonial environment. Kipling’s portrayal of the Raj is thus both loyal to imperial structures and deeply aware of their fragility. Peter Morey argues that while Kipling has long been read as a champion of imperial Orientalism, his fiction coincidently contains deep internal contradictions that expose the instability of colonial authority (Morey 7). Through narrative ambiguity, irony, and depictions of psychological and epistemological breakdown, Kipling’s stories reveal the limits of British knowledge and control in India. Morey positions Kipling not as a simple imperial propagandist, but a writer whose work subtly undermines the very ideological structures it appears to support.

          In Kipling’s narrative, Hummil is haunted by his loyalty to the imperial British Raj, his death a result of his inability to reconcile the inherent contradictions that imperialist powers instill in its own agents to keep them submissive. The four main characters, all white men who are colonial agents in India, as well as the narrator, assimilate to the dominating ideology of the Raj which denotes that the white population had a duty to manage and educate "uncivilized" nations (Brantlinger 203). The Raj accomplished this through a new ideological framework which based its foundations in empirical observation through the five senses, and centralized the evolution of technology as a sign of their superiority (Cadwallader 22; 23-24). The increasing unreliability of Hummil’s senses as he experiences worsening nightmares and visions represents his struggle with his faith in imperial authority in the face of his own hardship, misery, and lack of agency.

            In 1898 Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem titled “The White Man’s Burden” supporting white supremacy, imperialism, and racism. He sent this poem to Theodore Roosevelt to encourage American expansion into the Philippines, sensing a kinship with American political figures and their desire for colonial domination in “lesser” nations (Brantlinger 211). However, through utilizing an ideological framework which understood native populations as inherently inferior, it created an impossible mission for colonial agents to carry out, thus in fact forming the very “burden” that (supposedly) white men had to undertake with little possibility for success (Brantlinger 212-213). Kipling’s own work tended to frame colonial agents in foreign lands as agents of a heroic self-sacrifice for the greater good of their empire (Morey 110). In order for this framework to prevail even as its own subjects perished in their missions, imperialism constructed the ultimate reward of cultivating a knowledge that was invaluable, refined, and selective—a knowledge that could only be granted to those who suffered (Kucich 52). Not only did this path to supreme knowledge include a willful suffering, but also an unshakeable adherence to the empire’s ideals and an empirical system of understanding through the tools of observation and technology.

            Though Kipling may have been an insistent supporter of imperialism and a true believer in the reality of the “white man’s burden,” his narratives fail to convince readers that the conquest was worth the violence and bloodshed it required (Scannel 415; Brantlinger 209). In “At the End of the Passage” Hummil’s death outlines a particular way in which the Raj fails its own subjects, despite being the relatively privileged group that was granted limited imperial authority over the native population. When the four men discuss the questionable, “accidental” death of Hummil’s coworker, Jevins, Hummil only exclaims ruefully, “‘I’ve got to do a lot of his overseeing work in addition to my own. I’m the only person that suffers. Jevins is out of it,– by pure accident, of course, but out of it.’” (Kipling). Despite facing a death which may have been a suicide under the pressure of the Raj’s expectations, Hummil only views this as another burden for him to shoulder, making his life that much more difficult. However, under the increasing strain of Hummil’s duties, Spurstow, the doctor of the group, tries to reign Hummil back in through the aid of medicine and science. “‘Take TWO pills,’ said Spurstow; ‘that’s tortured liver.’” (Kipling).

            Once the other men have left, Spurstow remains with Hummil for the night to further observe his physical and mental state. It is then that Hummil confesses, “I tell you I’m nearly mad. I don’t know what I say half my time. For three weeks I’ve had to think and spell out every word that has come through my lips before I dared say it … I can’t see things correctly now, and I’ve lost my sense of touch. My skin aches–my skin aches!” (Kipling). Hummil seems to be losing connection with his own senses, which is legible metaphorically as his increasing doubts about the legitimacy of the Raj and his purpose as a colonial agent. Indeed, he begins to lose connection with the empirical framework of knowledge and truth (Kucich 39). If Hummil is unable to have faith in Empire, then he must be rejected from it, a notion which strikes fear and panic in the man, reducing him to “the fright of a child” (Kipling) who has little understanding of the world around him without the ideology of Empire there to guide him forward. As miserable as these men may be, Empire is all they know, and gives them a sense of control, purpose, and understanding.

            After Hummil’s death, Spurstow cannot part with his belief that technology and his wide knowledge of medical science can logically explain what killed Hummil. Though he expresses some doubt of its capabilities, “‘Tisn’t in medical science … things in a dead man’s eye” (Kipling) Spurstow nonetheless tries to use a camera to capture Hummil’s cause of death-by-fright through irrefutable proof (Cadwallader 25). Yet what Spurstow sees shakes him to his core, and he destroys all evidence of what he saw. Technology itself has also undermined the framework of imperialism, yet the truth is discarded by Spurstow, who prefers to continue living his life in ignorance. “‘It was impossible, of course. You needn’t look, Mottram. I’ve torn up the films. There was nothing there. It was impossible.’” (Kipling). Thus, the men go back to their work as colonial agents—lest they be ruined under the weight of their own doubt as Hummil was—and stick to what they are used to, a story that empire feeds them, instead of the actual and much more complicated truth.

         This literary exhibit includes two main features—the Gallery and the Map—both of which serve multiple purposes. The primary function of these, however, is context. In the Gallery, there is a collection of images based on specific story elements or annotations made by the editorial team. They appear in order of the chronology of the narrative. These images are useful in providing historical context to the reader, since this narrative takes place in the British Raj of the late 19th century. Furthermore, the Gallery is important because it reflects our understanding of the narrative as the editorial team, given that our own experiences affect the image selection. As for the map, historical context is further expanded here in regards to specific locations, geographical visualizations, and the individual characters’ positions and origins. A major theme of this narrative is the way in which the British Empire looms over the main four protagonists despite their distance from its physical center. It highlights how empire is a concept, an idea, beyond being a physical ruling power, which controls everyone who is under it.

        Navigating these two parts of the exhibit is made easier through the annotation tagging system. When reading the annotations, there are one or more tags at the bottom of each one. Some of them might just say Gallery or Map, to connect to the other features of the exhibit for reference while reading. Other tags include the following. First, Narration, which highlights annotations or commentary on narrative voice, framing of characters or events, and the metatextual adoption of imperial ideology. Second, Imperial Assumptions, which focuses on the ideological framework that Empire survived on and perpetuated through colonialism, especially through racist or xenophobic notions. Martyr-Mindset is a tag that highlights instances of the men being miserable or suffering as colonial agents yet also feeling a responsibility toward empire and its mission. Lastly, How-To-Know focuses on the Empirical framework of knowledge and truth which empire relied on—their understanding of the world based in the five senses, observation, and technology. The ultimate goal for these tags is to not only categorize the annotations themselves, but also allow readers to follow along with the main argument alongside contextual and researched evidence.

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