Kipling's Tomlinson
Sowing and Reaping
Kipling’s narrative poem, “Tomlinson,” consists of 60 rimed couplets, divided into two parts: the Tomlinson character before the gates of Heaven and then before the gates of Hell. It is noteworthy that his time spent before the gate of Heaven is much shorter (18 couplets) than before the gates of Hell (32 couplets.)
“Now Tomlinson gave up the ghost at his house in Berkeley Square”
When the character Tomlinson dies, “a Spirit c[o]me[s] to his bedside and carries him away, gripping him by the hair. He hears himself being swished through the Milky Way, until they arrive at the gate guarded by Peter.
Saint Peter asks Tomlinson to give account of himself as he behaved on Earth, specifically, what good he accomplished while alive. At this command, Tomlinson “grew white as the rain-washed bone,” and answered that he had a friend who was his priest and guide, who could testify to his good deeds.
He is admonished that what he “strove” to do would be duly noted, but he is not still conducting his life in his own neighborhood of Berkeley Square, he is standing at “Heaven’s Gate,” and he must account for his own activities: “For the race is run by one and one and never by two and two." This concept becomes the refrain of this drama. While on Earth, individuals may engage in endeavors with others, but each still remains accountable for his own part in the activity.
“Then Tomlinson looked up and down, and little gain was there”
So Tomlinson then begins to make the effort to speak for his good activities. He sets forth by reporting that he “read in a book” and then thought about what was said about “a Prince in Muscovy.” And Saint Peter mockingly accosts him with, “Ye have read, ye have heard, ye have thought," he said, "and the tale is yet to run: / "By the worth of the body that once ye had, give answer—what ha' ye done?"
Peter wants to know what Tomlinson has “done”—not what he has read about what others have thought. So Tomlinson then reports, "O this I have felt, and this I have guessed, and this I heard men say, / And this they wrote that another man wrote of a Carl in Norroway."
Again, Peter bitterly mocks this lame response and adds, "For none may reach by hired speech of neighbour, priest, and kin / Through borrowed deed to God's good meed that lies so fair within.” And then Peter sends him to “the Lord of Wrong,” because he can find no reason to admit Tomlinson through the gates of Heaven.
“The Spirit gripped him by the hair, and sun by sun they fell”
As Tomlinson tries to enter the gates of Hell, he is stopped by the Devil, who commands him, "Sit down, sit down upon the slag, and answer loud and high / The harm that ye did to the Sons of Men or ever you came to die." Again, Tomlinson claims that a former lover could testify to his cruelty on Earth, and the Devil’s reply parallels that of Saint Peter that each must answer for his own sin: "For the sin that ye do by two and two ye must pay for one by one!"
Just as the individual will be held accountable for his good deeds, he will also have to answer for his bad deeds. The Devil’s success at retrieving a full account from Tomlinson ends as unsuccessfully as Saint Peter’s had. Thus the Devil sends Tomlinson back to Earth: "Go, get ye back to the flesh again for the sake of Man's repute.”
Tomlinson was fit for neither Heaven nor Hell, so he had to go back to Earth to establish himself a stronger cache of virtue or sin. Both Saint Peter and the Devil wished him well.
Other Kipling articles:
- Kipling's “The Female of the Species”: She is Deadlier
- Kipling’s “Helen All Alone”: Confronting Temptation
Rudyard Kipling
|
More in Reading & Literature
Latest Articles