Transformation of the Western Gaze: A Postcolonial Analysis of Rudyard Kipling and John Davies’ ‘Kim’

Abstract

Construction of the Orient by the 'West' in narrative imaginations involves numerous problematic distortions in its depictions. This ‘construction’ follows the view of the Orient through the ‘western gaze’, which establishes and further thrives on binaries and hegemonies between the Occident and the Orient, mainly through the processes of ‘exoticisation’ and ‘othering’. Kipling’s ‘Kim’ and Davies’ adaptation of the book can be seen to employ the ‘western gaze’ in different manners according to their respective affiliations with the colonial and postcolonial periods. This paper seeks to trace the transformation of this western gaze from the colonial to the Postcolonial period; from a book to a film, and explores how it brings about numerous consequences of the colonial period to the modern contemporary world.