Unit 5: Imperialism White Man’s Burden

“White Man’s Burden” Poem Look over the vocab sheet. In your notebook, answer: What do you think this reading will be about? Why? Which words did you already know? Which words did you struggle with? Choose three of those words and write a sentence using them correctly. PREDICT: How will this connect to our unit on Imperialism?

Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling 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. 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.

Rudyard Kipling After returning to England, he published "The White Man's Burden" in 1899, which appeared to be an appeal to the United States to assume the task of developing the Philippines, recently won in the Spanish-American War. Kipling also was regarded as a beloved children's book author. By the time of his death in 1936, he had come to be seen as the poet of British imperialism.

The Jungle Book: A boy’s rite of passage in the wild or a racist view of “natives?” Kipling has sometimes been accused of racism, perhaps because his stories are now viewed from a modern perspective. Some say his stories like The Jungle Book can be seen as anti-racist and a powerful plea for social acceptance of differences.

The White Man’s Burden: Excerpt Take up the White Man's burden-- Send forth the best ye breed-- Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild-- Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child.

The White Man’s Burden: Excerpt Take up the White Man's burden-- In patience to abide, To veil the threat of terror And check the show of pride; By open speech and simple, An hundred times made plain To seek another's profit, And work another's gain.

The White Man’s Burden: Excerpt Take up the White Man's burden-- The savage wars of peace-- Fill full the mouth of Famine And bid the sickness cease; And when your goal is nearest The end for others sought, Watch sloth and heathen Folly Bring all your hopes to nought.

“White Man’s Burden” Poem In your notebook/on a piece of paper: Imagine you are a citizen of a colonized country, how would you respond to the author, Rudyard Kipling?

The White Man’s Burden: Excerpt 1. Take up the White Man's burden-- Send forth the best ye breed-- Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild-- Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child. 2. Take up the White Man's burden-- In patience to abide, To veil the threat of terror And check the show of pride; By open speech and simple, An hundred times made plain To seek another's profit, And work another's gain. 3. Take up the White Man's burden-- The savage wars of peace-- Fill full the mouth of Famine And bid the sickness cease; And when your goal is nearest The end for others sought, Watch sloth and heathen Folly Bring all your hopes to nought.

Option #1: Kipling is totally racist. At face value it appears to be a command to white men to colonize and rule other nations for the benefit of those people (both the people and the duty may be seen as representing the "burden" of the title).

Option #2: Kipling believed Europeans were helping the rest of the world. An alternative interpretation is the philanthropic (moral, charitable) view that the rich have a moral duty and obligation to help "the poor" "better" themselves whether the poor want the help or not

Option #3: Kipling was anti-racist. Some commentators do not believe that this poem's simplistic racist views can be serious and point to Kipling's history of satirical (parody) writing, suggesting that "The White Man's Burden" is in fact meant to make fun of imperialist attitudes.

Rudyard Kipling: What do YOU think?