The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin

1887 short story by Rudyard Kipling

"The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on April 28, 1887, and first in book form in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and in subsequent editions of that collection.

Aurelian McGoggin is a young man fresh out to India. He is much influenced by the ideas of Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer. These names, along with the attitudes expressed by the narrator of the story, are sufficient to stamp McGoggin as that most undesirable type in the days of the Raj, an 'intellectual': in the story, he is mocked for his 'theories' and his "Creed". This appears mostly to consist in denying the existence of souls, and of God. (In one of Kipling's characteristically double-edged ways of looking ironically at the world he writes, after discoursing on the chain of command in British India: "If the Empress be not responsible to her Maker - if there is no Maker for her to be responsible to - the entire system of Our administration must be wrong; which is manifestly impossible.")

McGoggin becomes intolerable to the men who have been in India longer than he has. "christened him the 'Blastoderm', and throw cushions at him in the Club: His superior says that "for a clever boy, Aurelian was a very big idiot." He works well, and hard - too hard, for he suffers an attack of aphasia - a mental breakdown, which deprives him speech. The Doctor prescribes him three months rest. The experience cows McGoggin: he is frightened of what he has learnt about himself, and what he does not understand about his own mind and memory. The upshot is that "the Club had rest when he returned".

This story is one where Kipling tries to make sense of the whole Indian experience, or at least portray it to those living in the United Kingdom ("Home"), and betrays an anti-intellectual pose as the bluff common-sensical man. At the same time, he shows real sympathy for the man who "was afraid - horribly afraid".

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin

All quotations in this article have been taken from the Uniform Edition of Plain Tales from the Hills published by Macmillan & Co., Limited in London in 1899. The text is that of the third edition (1890), and the author of the article has used his own copy of the 1923 reprint. The Kipling Society's website has further comment, including page-by-page notes.

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Rudyard Kipling

Novels|

* The Light That Failed (1891)
* The Naulahka: A Story of West and East (co-author, Wolcott Balestier, 1892)
* Captains Courageous (1896)
* Kim (1901)

Collections|

* Plain Tales from the Hills (1888)
* Soldiers Three (1888)
* The Story of the Gadsbys (1888)
* In Black and White (1888)
* The Phantom 'Rickshaw and Other Tales (1888)
* Under the Deodars (1888)
* Wee Willie Winkie and Other Child Stories (1888)
* From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches, Letters of Travel (1889)
* Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, poetry)
* Many Inventions (1893)
* The Jungle Book (1894)
* "Mowgli's Brothers"
* "Kaa's Hunting"
* "Tiger! Tiger!"
* "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi"
* The Second Jungle Book (1895)
* "Letting in the Jungle"
* "Red Dog"
* All the Mowgli Stories (c. 1895)
* The Seven Seas (1896, poetry)
* The Day's Work (1898)
* Stalky & Co. (1899)
* Just So Stories (1902)
* The Five Nations (1903, poetry)
* Puck of Pook's Hill (1906)
* Rewards and Fairies (1910)
* The Fringes of the Fleet (1915, non-fiction)
* Debits and Credits (1926)
* Limits and Renewals (1932)
* Rudyard Kipling's Verse: Definitive Edition (1940)
* A Choice of Kipling's Verse (by T. S. Eliot, 1941)

Poems|

* "The Absent-Minded Beggar"
* "The Ballad of the 'Clampherdown'"
* "The Ballad of East and West"
* "The Beginnings"
* "The Bell Buoy"
* "The Betrothed"
* "Big Steamers"
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* "Cold Iron"
* "Dane-geld"
* "Danny Deever"
* "A Death-Bed"
* "The Female of the Species"
* "Fuzzy-Wuzzy"
* "Gentleman ranker"
* "The Gods of the Copybook Headings"
* "Gunga Din"
* "Hymn Before Action"
* "If—"
* "In the Neolithic Age"
* "The King's Pilgrimage"
* "The Last of the Light Brigade"
* "The Lowestoft Boat"
* "Mandalay"
* "The Mary Gloster"
* "McAndrew's Hymn"
* "My Boy Jack"
* "Recessional"
* "A Song in Storm"
* "The Sons of Martha"
* "Submarines"
* "The Sweepers"
* "Tommy"
* "Ubique"
* "The White Man's Burden"

Short stories|

* ".007"
* "The Arrest of Lieutenant Golightly"
* "Baa Baa, Black Sheep"
* "Bread upon the Waters"
* "The Broken-Link Handicap"
* "The Butterfly that Stamped"
* "Consequences"
* "The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin"
* "Cupid's Arrows"
* "The Devil and the Deep Sea"
* "The Drums of the Fore and Aft"
* "Fairy-Kist"
* "False Dawn"
* "A Germ-Destroyer"
* "His Chance in Life"
* "His Wedded Wife"
* "In the House of Suddhoo"
* "Kidnapped"
* "Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris"
* "Lispeth"
* "The Man Who Would Be King"
* "A Matter of Fact"
* "Miss Youghal's Sais"
* "The Mother Hive"
* "The Other Man"
* "The Rescue of Pluffles"
* "The Ship that Found Herself"
* "The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo"
* "The Taking of Lungtungpen"
* "Three and – an Extra"
* "The Three Musketeers"
* "Thrown Away"
* "Toomai of the Elephants"
* "Watches of the Night"
* "Wireless"
* "Yoked with an Unbeliever"

Related|

* Bibliography
* Bateman's (house)
* Indian Railway Library
* Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer
* Iron Ring
* Law of the jungle
* Aerial Board of Control
* My Boy Jack (1997 play)
* Rudyard Kipling: A Remembrance Tale (2006 documentary)
* My Boy Jack (2007 film)

Family|

* Caroline Starr Balestier Kipling (wife)
* Elsie Bambridge (daughter)
* John Kipling (son)
* John Lockwood Kipling (father)
* MacDonald sisters (mother's family)
* Stanley Baldwin (cousin)
* Georgiana Burne-Jones (aunt)
* Edward Burne-Jones (uncle)
* Philip Burne-Jones (cousin)
* Edward Poynter (uncle)
* Alfred Baldwin (uncle)

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