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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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The ensuing comments by both Mulvaney and Ortheris echo the moral outrage that Kipling felt when he encountered public condemnation of members of the armed services, especially on the part of those who ostensibly espoused Christian values. "'Fwhy is ut?' said Mulvaney, bringing down his hand on his thigh with a crack. `In the name av God, fwhy is ut? I've seen ut, tu. They cheat an' they swindle an' they lie an' they slander, an' fifty things fifty times worse, but the last an' the worst by their reckonin' is to serve the Widdy honest" (221).

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Kipling's reason for developing at such length the characteristics of the chapel folk was probably not merely to justify Learoyd's bitterness toward them but also to emphasize just how out of place he was in their company. Learoyd among the Primitive Methodists is an incongruity that takes its place at the head of a host of incongruities, which give to "On Greenhow Hill" a distinctive and somewhat peculiar flavor.3 Contrasting sharply with Learoyd's odd fit with the chapel folk is his natural fit with Mulvaney and Ortheris. It is a matter of his having found his proper "place." When he joins his friends after having been with the "Mixed Pickles" group of sharpshooters, Mulvaney tells him, "You're well out av that fancy-firin' gang, Jock. Stay here" (208). "Here" is where he belongs, not just in the British army but specifically with Mulvaney and Ortheris. "Here" he has found his place, that which matches up with his true identity.4 Greenhow Hill was not his place. "I didn't belong to that countryside by rights," he says at the beginning of his narrative. "I went there because of a little difference at home" (211). Mulvaney knows that Learoyd was not "built for the Primitive Methodians" (216). He had to endure some intensely painful experiences before finding where he does belong, and that precisely is the import of Mulvaney's comment to him that "sure, folly's the only safe way to wisdom, for I've thried it" (213).

For John Learoyd, Greenhow Hill brought on both grief and challenge. It was there that he sustained his most painful loss and there that he fought a crucial battle to retain his selfhood. Overtly this conflict is over a dog, Learoyd's pet, Blast, but it is much more than that: it is a struggle for identity. The chapel folk vehemently object to both the dog and its name, which suggests violence in its background, since it was the only survivor of an explosion, and in behavior, since its "business," as Learoyd puts it, is "fightin' every dog he comed across" (217). To the good Primitive Methodists of the community, "Blast" is just too similar in sound to "blasphemy," and most of them insist that Learoyd give up the animal because it is "worldly and low." They tell the distressed Learoyd that he will be "shut out of heaven" if he keeps Blast (217). A few of them would allow him to retain his pet, but they want the dog to reform, and they wish its name changed to "Bless." For Liza's sake, Learoyd tries hard to be one of the chapel folk and to become a changed man, but he draws the line with Blast: he will neither part with the animal nor change its name even if it means giving up paradise. "If th' door [of heaven] isn't wide enough for th' pair on us," he says, "we'll stop outside, for we'll none be parted" (218).

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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