Blyton and Kipling’s racism
MINE was a very English kind of school in India where I grew up absolutely loving Enid Blyton’s Famous Five and Secret Seven stories, as well as Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. When the five – Julian, Dick, Anne and Georgina (George) and their dog Timmy – embark on their exciting adventures on Kirrin Island, I was there, too. In my imagination.
And when the Seeonee Hills were bathed in moonlight in The Jungle Book, my heart beat for Mowgli, as Raksha, the mother wolf, kept him and her cubs safe from Shere Khan, the evil tiger determined to snatch the “man cub” for his tiffin.
At the time I wasn’t aware of the racist lines in Blyton nor the imperialist in Kipling’s character.
Now I learn that English Heritage, which puts up blue plaques to commemorate important figures, is revising its online biographies. The plaques will not be removed or altered but in Blyton’s case the online text, headed “Racism in Blyton’s work”, says: “Blyton’s work has been criticised during her lifetime and after for its racism, xenophobia and lack of literary merit. A 1966 Guardian article noted the racism of The Little Black Doll (1966), in which the doll of the title, Sambo, is only accepted by his owner once his ‘ugly black face’ is washed ‘clean’ by rain. In 1960, the publisher Macmillan refused to publish her story The Mystery That Never Was for what it called its ‘faint but unattractive touch of old-fashioned xenophobia’. The book, however, was later published by William Collins.
“In 2016, Blyton was rejected by the Royal Mint for commemoration on a 50p coin because, the advisory committee minutes record, she was ‘a racist, sexist, homophobe and not a very well-regarded writer’. Others have argued that while these charges can’t be dismissed, her work still played a vital role in encouraging a generation of children to read.”
With Kipling, there is a section, “Imperialism and War”, which says: “Today, Kipling’s political views, expressed through his then popular writings, have been widely criticised for their racist and imperialist sentiments. Kipling believed in British superiority over the people of colonised nations and he became known as the ‘Poet of the Empire’. Works such as The White Man’s Burden (1899), with its offensive description of ‘new-caught, sullen peoples, half devil and half child’, sought to portray imperialism as a mission of civilisation.”
I am now more aware. However, innocent love, freely given when I was a child, cannot be taken away. Nor would I want to.