Sorrow and the redemptive role of fate: Kipling's "On Greenhow Hill"

Papers on Language and Literature, Winter 2003 by Dillingham, William B

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Th' recruiting sergeant were waitin' for me at th' corner public-house. "Yo've seen your sweetheart?" says he. "Yes, I've seen her," says I. "Well, we'll have a quart now, and you'll do your best to forget her," says he, bein' one o' them smart, bustlin' chaps. "Ay, sergeant," says I. "Forget her." And I've been forgettin' her ever since. (23).

Thus the emotional impact of "On Greenhow Hill" derives not only from the touching story itself that Learoyd tells-the account of how when he was quite young he lost the person that he loved most dearly in the world-but also from the dramatic depiction of how intensely he has continued to suffer from that loss even up to the moment that he talks of it.

The symbol of his loss is Greenhow Hill itself. It appears "before my eyes" (213), he says, when he hears certain tunes that Liza Roantree used to sing, and when Greenhow Hill is before his eyes, his grief returns. Anything he sees that reminds him of Greenhow Hill triggers anew his bereavement. He finds a "bare sub-Himalayan spur" near where he and his companions are waiting for the appearance of the deserter to be "strangely like" Greenhow Hill (209-10). The power of that image of the hill to move both Learoyd's heart and his usually reticent tongue is suggested by Mulvaney's statement just before his friend begins to tell his story that "it takes an earthquake or a bullet graze to fetch aught out av you" (209). Once he is embarked upon his painful journey into the past, Learoyd appears at times almost unaware of his audience. Indeed, he seems "speaking more to himself than his fellows" (209). The intensity of his sorrow is indicated by his tendency to shut out all else as he begins "thinkin' o' what had happened" (209). Even when Mulvaney or Ortheris interrupt with comments, "Learoyd went calmly on, with a steady eye like an ox chewing the cud" (213). At such moments, he is on Greenhow Hill, reliving that painful time, and his narrative is marked by a melancholy tone that serves to underscore his present sadness. When the common people of Sussex in "They" (1904), another of Kipling's stories of bereavement, "walk in the wood," they are in mourning; when Learoyd is "on Greenhow Hill," he is doing likewise. The title of this extraordinary story thus points to its primary subject of recurrent bereavement, for being on Greenhow Hill means being in a state of grief.

"On Greenhow Hill" is not only an analysis of a specific aspect of grief-its torturing persistence over time-but is also a psychological study in which Kipling shows how personal characteristics of the bereaved intensify the sorrow. In his mourning, Learoyd is deeply troubled by a sense of shame, by a gnawing suspicion that he has not acted altogether honorably. Some people appear not to have much capacity for shame, but Kipling takes some pains to show that Learoyd is not of this sort. That he is given to shame is first indicated when he joins Mulvaney and Ortheris in their watch for the deserter. Having allowed himself to be grazed accidentally by a bullet fired by a fellow British soldier, he shows up "looking ashamed of himself' (207). Then when he begins to recount how Liza told him about her father's finding him in a ditch, drunken and unconscious, he admits: "' Oa!'sez I; an' I she t my eyes, for I felt ashamed o' mysen" (212). Later he is shamed when he comes back after borrowing money from Liza and using it for drink. Just looking at Liza and hearing her speak convince him that he needs to reform: "I was fair ,shamed o' mysen," he says, "an' so I become what they call a changed character" (215).

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Sorrow and the redemptive role of fate: Kipling's "On Greenhow Hill"

Papers on Language and Literature, Winter 2003 by Dillingham, William B

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