Which Character in the story seems closest to a reflection of Kipling himself? What details about the character remind you of what you know about Kipling?

Kipling loved India,he embraced everything about it. I think the character of Strickland really showed a white outsider who, like Kipling, wanted to understand Indian culture and people,

"(Strickland) held the extraordinary theory that a Policeman in India should try to know as much about the natives as the natives themselves."

I only know Kipling by his famous writings. He seems to me a man enchanted with the mysteries of India and what many British felt was "native riff-raff".