The Mark Of The Beast

“The Mark of the Beast” opens with an epigraph, a “Native Proverb” that reads: “Your Gods and my Gods—do you or I know which are the stronger?” Contrast the epigraph to the final line of the story. What does the narrator believe and how do his beliefs impact your understanding of the story? 

The narrator declares that by torturing the Silver Man, he and Strickland “disgraced ourselves as Englishmen” (250). What does he mean? What is the narrator’s understanding of what it means to be an Englishman? Is his understanding the same as Strickland’s? As Fleete’s? Discuss.

There are no female characters in “The Mark of the Beast,” and Kipling only passingly refers to wives and Dr. Dumoise’s nurse. What does this omission say about imperialism?