“The White Man's Burden” (1899)
Born in British India in 1865, Rudyard Kipling was educated in England before returning to India in 1882, where his father was a museum director and authority on Indian arts and crafts. Thus Kipling was thoroughly immersed in Indian culture: by 1890 he had published in English about 80 stories and ballads previously unknown outside India. As a result of financial misfortune, from 1892-96 he and his wife, the daughter of an American publisher, lived in Vermont, where he wrote the two Jungle Books. After returning to England, he published "The White Man's Burden" in 1899, an appeal to the United States to assume the task of developing the Philippines, recently won in the Spanish-American War. As a writer, Kipling perhaps lived too long: by the time of his death in 1936, he had come to be reviled as the poet of British imperialism, though being regarded as a beloved children's book author. Today he might yet gain appreciation as a transmitter of Indian culture to the West.
What is it today's reader finds so repugnant about Kipling's poem? If you were a citizen of a colonized territory, how would you respond to Kipling?
Take up the White Man's burden--Go mark them with your living,
Send forth the best ye breed--And mark them with your dead.
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;Take up the White Man's burden--
To wait in heavy harness,And reap his old reward:
On fluttered folk and wild--The blame of those ye better,
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,The hate of those ye guard--
Half-devil and half-child.The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
Take up the White Man's burden--"Why brought he us from bondage,
In patience to abide,Our loved Egyptian night?"
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;Take up the White Man's burden--
By open speech and simple,Ye dare not stoop to less--
An hundred times made plainNor call too loud on Freedom
To seek another's profit,To cloke (1) your weariness;
And work another's gain.By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
Take up the White Man's burden--The silent, sullen peoples
The savage wars of peace--Shall weigh your gods and you.
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;Take up the White Man's burden--
And when your goal is nearestHave done with childish days--
The end for others sought,The lightly proferred laurel, (2)
Watch sloth and heathen FollyThe easy, ungrudged praise.
Bring all your hopes to nought.Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Take up the White Man's burden--Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
No tawdry rule of kings,The judgment of your peers!
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.(1) Cloak, cover.
The ports ye shall not enter,(2) Since the days of Classical Greece, a laurel wreath has
The roads ye shall not tread,been a symbolic victory prize.
1. What is “The White Man’s Burden” according to Kipling?
2. Find textual evidence of how the poem portrays non-white people.
3. Find tone words that show the narrator’s attitude towards colonialism.
4. How does this attitude compare with that of the narrator in Things Fall Apart?
5. How are Europeans’ views of Africans and the Africans’ views of whites represented in the novel?
“Gunga Din” (1892), Rudyard Kipling
You may talk o' gin and beer'Ere's a beggar with a bullet through 'is spleen;
When you're quartered safe out 'ere,'E's chawin' up the ground,
An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it;An' 'e's kickin' all around:
But when it comes to slaughterFor Gawd's sake git the water, Gunga Din!"
You will do your work on water,
An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it.'E carried me away
Now in Injia's sunny clime,To where a dooli lay,
Where I used to spend my timeAn' a bullet come an' drilled the beggar clean.
A-servin' of 'Er Majesty the Queen,'E put me safe inside,
Of all them blackfaced crewAn' just before 'e died,
The finest man I knew"I 'ope you liked your drink", sez Gunga Din.
Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din.So I'll meet 'im later on
He was "Din! Din! Din!At the place where 'e is gone --
You limpin' lump o' brick-dust, Gunga Din!Where it's always double drill and no canteen;
Hi! slippery "hitherao"!'E'll be squattin' on the coals
Water, get it! "Panee lao"! [Bring water swiftly.]Givin' drink to poor damned souls,
You squidgy-nosed old idol, Gunga Din."An' I'll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din!
Yes, Din! Din! Din!
The uniform 'e woreYou Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!
Was nothin' much before,Though I've belted you and flayed you,
An' rather less than 'arf o' that be'ind,By the livin' Gawd that made you,
For a piece o' twisty ragYou're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!
An' a goatskin water-bag
Was all the field-equipment 'e could find.
When the sweatin' troop-train lay
In a sidin' through the day,
Where the 'eat would make your bloomin' eyebrows crawl,
We shouted "Harry By!" [Mr. Atkins's equivalent for "O brother."]
Till our throats were bricky-dry,
Then we wopped 'im 'cause 'e couldn't serve us all.
It was "Din! Din! Din!
You 'eathen, where the mischief 'ave you been?
You put some "juldee" in it [Be quick.]
Or I'll "marrow" you this minute [Hit you.]
If you don't fill up my helmet, Gunga Din!"
'E would dot an' carry one
Till the longest day was done;
An' 'e didn't seem to know the use o' fear.
If we charged or broke or cut,
You could bet your bloomin' nut,
'E'd be waitin' fifty paces right flank rear.
With 'is "mussick" on 'is back, [Water-skin.]
'E would skip with our attack,
An' watch us till the bugles made "Retire",
An' for all 'is dirty 'ide
'E was white, clear white, inside
When 'e went to tend the wounded under fire!
It was "Din! Din! Din!"
With the bullets kickin' dust-spots on the green.
When the cartridges ran out,
You could hear the front-files shout,
"Hi! ammunition-mules an' Gunga Din!"
I shan't forgit the night
When I dropped be'ind the fight
With a bullet where my belt-plate should 'a' been.
I was chokin' mad with thirst,
An' the man that spied me first
Was our good old grinnin', gruntin' Gunga Din.
'E lifted up my 'ead,
An' he plugged me where I bled,
An' 'e guv me 'arf-a-pint o' water-green:
It was crawlin' and it stunk,
But of all the drinks I've drunk,
I'm gratefullest to one from Gunga Din.
It was "Din! Din! Din!