Period 1
2-1-13
The White Man's Burden "The White Man's Burden" was written by an English poet named Rudyard KIpling. Kipling's poem mixed exhortation to empire with somber warnings of the costs involved, imperialists within the United States understood the phrase "white man's burden" as a characterization for imperialism that justified the policy as a noble enterprise. Kipling changed the text of "Burden" to reflect the subject of American colonization of the Philipines, recently won from Spain in the Spanish-America War. The poem consists of seven stanzas, following a regular rhyme scheme. At face value it appears to be a rhetorical command to white men to colonize and rule other nations for the benefit of those people. It has become emblematic both of Eurocentric Racism and of Western aspirations to dominate the developing world. A century after its publication, the poem still rouses strong emotions, and can be analyzed from a variety of perspectives The Poem "The White Man's Burden" by Rudyard Kipling shows the European attitudes towards imperialism were negative. They considered the work a burden and thought that the Africans were savages. Kipling first describes them as crazy, stupid devil people but then describes the Africans as a little dumb. From the start, Kipling makes it seem as if it's a huge burden on the Europeans but that it is also their duty to help the Africans out. It justifies their coming into Africa and taking over all of the African's lives. It is saying that certain people have fewer rights than others because they are less than human in that case. Later in the poem, Kipling goes on to say that the Africans not only are a little slow and savage, they are also ungrateful of the help that is being granted them. Within a historical context, the poem makes clear the prevalent attitudes that allowed colonialism to proceed. Although a belief in the "virtues of empire" was