Kim—Multiplex Growth Under Freud’s Personality Structure

Rudyard Kipling is a famous British novelist.The novel Kim is his masterpiece.With this novel,Kipling won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907,becoming the first British winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.As Kipling is known as the “imperial advocate,” many scholars use post-colonial literature to interpret this work.Very few of them use psychoanalytic theory to study it,and people rarely systematically use Freud’s theory of personality structure to research it.This thesis uses Freud’s personality theory to study the three personality structures of the novel’s protagonist,Kim,namely the id,the ego,and the superego.By using Freud’s theory of personality structure,this thesis analyzes in detail Kim’s id,which was dominated by the principle of happiness in the small Indian city of Lahore,and the ego,which was constrained by a series of social rules after returning to white group life,and finally,the superego,which was realized under the guidance of the soul mate lama on the soul-washing path.In the end,the thesis draws a conclusion.By using Freud’s theory of personality structure,this paper analyzes the growth of Kim,the protagonist with multiple identities,and concludes that the positioning and shaping characteristics of Kim,the protagonist,indirectly express the author’s wish for the integration of the East and the West.As a result,it is of great significance to study the protagonist’s development.Studying Kim based on Freud’s personality structure is of far-reaching significance.This thesis presents an environment in which two cultures clash and blend,interprets the process of the boy from innocence to mental maturity,and helps readers understand the difficulties of children growing up in a multi-cultural environment.