Rudyard Kipling Group
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Posted by lit24 on Tuesday December 30, 2008 at 6:12 AMBest answer as selected by question asker.
"The Hyaenas" (1919) by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) reveals the horrifying and depressing state of affairs of the soldiers who died during the First World War. Since soldiers died in large numbers during World War I, it was not possible to give them a decent and complete burial. In the heat of the battle it was possible to bury the dead soldiers only in shallow graves.
In the evening, after the people who had buried the dead soldiers had left, the hyaenas dig up the shallow graves and pull out the corpses of the dead soldiers and feast on them with great delight.They drag the corpse out of the shallow grave knowing fully well that a dead soldier is easy and safe prey: "But a poor dead soldier of the King/Can never lift a hand." For just a moment before the hyaenas close in to eat the corpse, the face of the dead soldier is exposed again to God above and the "soulless" hyaenas. Kipling puns on the word "soulless": animals do not have souls, only human beings have souls; and it could also mean cruel and heartless.
Although the hyaenas are "soulless" and shamelessly eat the corpses of the dead soldiers, they are superior to human beings in one sense: they cannot and never will speak ill of the dead soldier. Only human beings can shamelessly slander the name of a soldier who died defending his country: "Nor do they defile the dead man's name/That is reserved for his kind." The implication is that men who speak ill of dead soldiers are more heartless than the hyaenas who eat the corpses of the dead soldiers.
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