"Beyond the Pale"

(notes edited
by John McGivering)



notes on the text
[June 10 2003]


Publication

The story first appeared in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and was included in the many subsequent editions of that collection. It was also published in Papyrus in 1909 under the title of “Bisesa”.

The Story

A beautiful young Indian woman, Bisesa, has been widowed very young, and longs for a lover. An Englishman, Trejago, who is knowledgeable about things Indian, wanders into the gully where she sits behind a barred window, and has a flirtatious exchange with her. One thing leads to another, and they secretly become passionate lovers. After an idyllic month he is attentive to an Englishwoman, with no serious intent, but Bisesa hears of it and tells him to go. He is desperate to see her, but the next time she answers his knock at the window, it is only to thrust out the stumps of her amputated hands in the moonlight. From behind her a knife stabs into Trejago's groin, and the grating is slammed shut. There has been tragedy, and he has lost her. He has paid heavily for stepping beyond the limits of his own people.

Critical Comments

Kingsley Amis (Rudyard Kipling p.48) describes this as 'one of the most terrible stories in the language', and J M S Tompkins (The Art of Rudyard Kipling p. 233) places it in 'this region of grotesque and tragic illusion and grotesque and tragic reality' which also includes the later story "Mary Postgate". Tompkins notes that the horror of "Beyond the Pale" is enhanced by the matter-of-fact narration. Cornell observes that, for Trejago, Bisesa and the world she represents are worth the terrible risks, and comments that the stab in the groin is reminiscent of the punishment of Abelard, the mediaeval monk who was castrated after his liaison with Heloise.

This is one of a number of stories in which Europeans get involved in the lives of Indians, including "Without Benefit of Clergy" in Life's Handicap, which also ends tragically, the more light-hearted "On The City Wall" about the enchanting courtesan Lalun, "In the House of Suddhoo", and "To be Filed for Reference".