Kali in the Western Imagination

Kali show up in Western poetry, novels, popular novels, and movies.  In the poetry, women poets like May Sarton, Lucille Clifton, and Merlin Stone appropriate Kali’s image to make their own political points.  In Shusaku Endo’s Deep River (which I am counting as “Western” because of Endo’s Christian background), Kali emerges as both a symbol of “Mother India,” as well as a mirror-image for an alienated woman contemplating her own “hard-hearted” nature.  In popular literature (from horror to detective to young adult novels) and movies, Kali is almost always associated with the violent, death-dealing images described by British colonials and missionaries.