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Article: Kipling's "Mary Postgate" reconsidered: an example of critical obtuseness. (Literature).(Rudyard Kipling's short story reconsidered)
- Article from:
- Quadrant
- Article date:
- September 1, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Quadrant Magazine Company, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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THE SHORT STORY "Mary Postgate", written by Rudyard Kipling early in 1915, before his own son was killed in the First World War, has been subject to the most extraordinary amount of fundamental misinterpretation. Few short stories can have been so often explained by specialist authors and learned critics as meaning the exact opposite of what their meaning actually is. Kipling seems to have played a successful psychological trick on his educated readers while proving precisely the story's point.
"Mary Postgate" is generally summarised as follows: the central character, Mary Postgate, is an unattractive, ageing, sexually deprived spinster. She adores a young man ...