24 pages • 48 minutes read
Rudyard KiplingThe Mark Of The Beast
Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 1890A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Essay Topics
“The Mark of the Beast” opens with an epigraph, a “Native Proverb” that reads: “Your Gods and my Gods—do you or I know which are the stronger?” Contrast the epigraph to the final line of the story. What does the narrator believe and how do his beliefs impact your understanding of the story?
The narrator declares that by torturing the Silver Man, he and Strickland “disgraced ourselves as Englishmen” (250). What does he mean? What is the narrator’s understanding of what it means to be an Englishman? Is his understanding the same as Strickland’s? As Fleete’s? Discuss.
There are no female characters in “The Mark of the Beast,” and Kipling only passingly refers to wives and Dr. Dumoise’s nurse. What does this omission say about imperialism?
Do you think the unnamed narrator represents Kipling himself? Compare and contrast the narrator’s beliefs to that of author Rudyard Kipling. How are they similar? How do they differ?
Do you think “The Mark of the Beast” is an example of pro-imperialist literature, or a criticism of the failings of colonialism, or both? Support your answer with evidence from the text.
Why is it meaningful that Fleete recovers but remembers nothing about what happened to him?
After the narrator and Strickland torture the Silver Man and Fleete recovers, Strickland goes to the temple to make reparations. Why do the temple priests assure Strickland that no white man ever touched Hanuman? Support your answer with evidence from the text.
Related Titles
By Rudyard Kipling
