Kipling’s use of syntax and tone reveals a sympathetic and considerate approach to interracial relationships as a means of discarding imperialistic dogmatism. The majority of the story occurs within Holden and Ameera’s home in which Kipling employs poetic and romantic diction which lends itself to “sense of artificiality [that] often surfaces whenever they speak of the eternality of their love and the permanence of their happiness” (Dillingham 68). However, this artificiality is not a genuine flaw in the work, but indicative of the artificiality, or rather, unsustainability of Holden and Ameera’s relationship. Holden deviates from any imperialistic language within the house and speaks poetically: “‘I have seen fire-balloons by the hundred. …show more content…
Tota is the fusion of two races, similarly to how Kipling viewed himself as a fusion of two cultures, and it is Tota who first encounters death: “the delight of that life was too perfect to endure. Therefore it was taken away as many things are taken away in India – suddenly and without warning” (1735). Certainly this is a reference back to Kipling’s childhood and his lament of leaving but he himself says that childhood idealism and perfection cannot last in light of biological maturation and the societal expectations that follow. As Wilson relays: “this idyll, unhallowed and fleeting, is something that the artist in Kipling has felt, and put down for its sweetness and pathos” (105). In one regard, Kipling equates himself to Tota, in that Tota lost the beauty of childhood, but Kipling more readily relates to Holden in that he survives and must grieve. The death of Tota is but the first step in the metaphorical maturation of Holden; the succeeding sense of emotional loss is described in physical terms: “the first shock of a bullet is no more than a brisk pinch. The wrecked body does not send in its protests to the soul till ten or fifteen seconds later” (1736). This is to say that while Tota’s death hurts Holden, more pain is inevitably to come. Holden spends his grief in an adult way: “the ever-present pain of loss drove him into his work, and the work repaid him by filling up his mind for eight or nine hours a day” (1737). In depicting this, Kipling does two things. He establishes a relationship between maturation and grief, and makes the point that work is not all life has to offer, but a step down from happiness. While grief forces a sort of maturation, as it introduces the painful realities of life, maturation forces grief of the ideal world now