"The White Man's Burden" is a poem written by a highly acclaimed poet Rudyard Kipling. However, the content and the message of the poem is controversial and highly divisive, especially when looked upon through modern perspective. The poem calls for the people of white race to take upon the burden of spreading civilization throughout the world. This is constantly enforced by the use of refrain "Take up the White Man's burden" in the beginning of every stanza. The speaker calls upon the "white men" to fulfill their natural calling by toiling for people that are nothing like them; to "civilize" them.
Kipling firmly believes that this is the part of the greatest sacrifice the white race must make for the betterment of all humankind. The work that needs to be done will not be easy, hence he asks for the best men to assume this mammoth task. He stresses the sacrifice element by calling upon the mothers to send their sons into exile where they will have to serve the needs of their captives. This creates a contradiction as the white men, as rulers will actually be serving the needs of the one's they have conquered. The speaker then attempts to describe t he other people as sullen and wild. They are like "half devil" and "half child" meaning they will be hard to tame but they are also ignorant as a child, who cannot discern their own good.
Given the difficulty of the task, the men need to be profoundly patient, they will need to feign nicety to cover their threat and pride to lure the people. They will need to dumb down their speech to facilitate better comprehension to make clear that they toil for other's betterment and not for their own gain and selfish wants. He further introduces contradictions as he urges white people to wage savage wars of peace, again for the sake of others. He says that especially when the goal is near, the heathen will resist and perhaps foil your plan at the very last and crucial moment. Emphasizing the hardship, the speaker elaborates that this task will not be rewarding in a traditional sense. For instance, a king that gains glory and honor but this task will exclusively consist of toil with little to no material gain. The white man must not expect to enter a state with any trace of civilization like ports or roads. These must be built by the white men themselves with their blood and sweat.
Despite all of this the people they have improved and protected will not thank them but despise them. The people, the white men have "enlightened " will yearn to falter back to their previous state of ignorance and barbarism. However, the speaker expects no less from the white men than this noble sacrifice and reiterates to carry on this path. He urges the white men to rise above the trifles and fickle glory and take up the real man's task, the thankless task of spreading the "civilization" and enlighten the savage people.
This poem is highly reflective of the time period it was composed. Kipling was prominent in the nineteenth century, the golden years of European imperialism. The British had many colonies in regions such as Africa, India, South America and other parts of the world. Similarly, countries like France, Spain and Portugal had colonies as well. "The White Man's Burden" particularly refers to the Caucasian men of that time period and tries to not only explain but justify their actions by presenting it as a sacrifice.
He unceasingly highlights that this act is a willing sacrifice on the part of white people. For instance he compares this task to serving your servants as "To serve your captive's needs"(l.4) and the reason for this task has no personal gain by particularly emphasizing "To seek another's profit/And work another's gain"(ll.15-16). Similarly, in lines 31 and 32, he urges that the work might demand the sacrifice of health and very lives of these men. He makes it clear that this is the burden one must carry by belonging to a superior race. Kipling also uses metaphor to describe the nature of the task to be the "toil of serf and sweeper" rather than the rule of kings.
Kipling leaves no stone unturned in portraying the white men as the emblem of altruism as well as the undeniable victims. This he does by stating that the nature of work is thankless and the people will further scorn them rather than thanking them. He tries to elevate the "noble character" of white men by contrasting it with the others whom he perceives to be ungrateful and forever prone to savagery. Kipling uses various metaphors to present the inferior men as he sees them. For instance he says they are half devil and half child. The "devil" symbolizes the barbaric nature and wild lifestyle. However, "half-child" is unusual as a child normally represents innocence and purity. Although Kipling uses it to profess that they are childlike in so much as they are ignorant and gullible. In a similar fashion, he describes these people using words like 'sloth', 'heathen' etc to accentuate their viciousness.
Hence, the poem reeks of racism and is a product of its time. Kipling clearly thinks that the white men are performing a moral task by colonizing the nations. There are several religious undertones which are utilized to justify the atrocities of colonialism primarily by painting the colonialists as altruistic social workers with no ulterior motives. This notion can be easily refuted by the numerous accounts of unspeakable heinous acts committed by the self professed "civilized people" in their colonies. For instance, in "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad, he depicts the hypocrisy of colonialists who exploit the people and resources of foreign land in the name of spreading civilization.
The form of this poem is somewhat traditional in a sense that it has a regular rhyme pattern and flows without breaks. It resembles a political speech as the speaker assumes a commanding tone by saying "Take up the White Man's burden". This phrase also acts as a refrain by its repetition at the start of each stanza, prioritizing this necessity of the action. The poem has a fixed rhyme scheme as a second line of each stanza rhymes with the alternating line and the last line rhymes with the previous alternated line. The rhyme scheme can be noted as: ABCBDEFE. The consist of seven stanzas totaling 56 lines and each stanza consisting of 8 lines making it an octave.
Even though the poet has used end rhymes, he has also made use of internal rhymes especially when he is giving specific instructions to white men on how to conduct themselves and drive home the core message. For instance "ports-roads", "make-mark", "blame-hate". Similarly, Kipling uses repetition in various instances like "another's". Kipling also uses alliteration for similar purposes to focus on important bits such as "Half devil and half child", "To veil the threat of terror", "By open speech and simple", "Fill full the mouth of Famine". As for the meter, Kipling sorts for iambic trimeter with an extra unstressed syllable at the end for the most part. This further facilitates the commanding and dictatorial tone of the poem.
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