White Man’s BurdenJoin now to read essay White Man’s BurdenThe, “White Man’s Burden” is a controversial poem that has many different interpretations. I am going to tell you about my personal interpretation from this poem and the interpretations and reactions the poem got from different audiences. I think that this poem is one of the highlights of its time and it really shows what kind of thinking the Imperialists had about going to Africa. Let’s take a look, first, at what exactly the, White Man’s Burden” is.
In the late 18th century early 19th century, Europeans got the idea of Imperialism. Europeans began to think that they needed to spread their culture and technology all across the world; this led to the invasion of Africa, Asia and the Philippines. In the, “White Man’s”, Europeans and some Americans, point of view they were better than all others. Each country’s people developed a nationalist point of view. Each country felt that they were the best and that they needed to spread their culture to the rest of the world. In this poem, this is the, “White Man’s Burden.” They took upon themselves this, “Burden” because they felt that it was their duty as a country. They convinced themselves that they were doing it for the benefit of others, not for their own profit. It would seem that the, “White Men” were very good at lying to themselves to make them think that they were doing it for the right reasons, when in reality they were doing it to expand their country in a conquest to dominate the world. This is obviously a load of Bull****! The Europeans expected to reap the rewards of profit and pride as Kipling clearly states in lines 11-16. Belgium was the first to take a land grab in Africa, and with that began the Age of Imperialism.
Now let’s jump to the poem itself. After reading this poem I thought to myself, “What kind of sick, diluted person could write this?!” But when I take a closer look at the poem I realize that he is actually speaking against Imperialism in Africa. This is clearly satire. Satire is the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc. I think that he is using satire in a sense that he is being sarcastic. In my opinion he is supporting Anti-Imperialists, and when I take a look at his life at the time, it shows that he definitely could have thought that way. But me, thinking in an Anti-Imperialist point of view, I would interpret this in an Anti-Imperialist way. However, in Europe this poem was quite popular. Therefore this poem creates two different points of view, Anti and Pro Imperialism. In the eyes of the Europeans, this poem made sense in what they were striving toward because the words in the poem are
Let and Settle the Piles, Suck It, and Suck It,
. In my opinion, this was an attack on the Emperor and his family. This is only because one of the emperor’s wives was a woman who would have been so unashamed if she had known that the imperial family’s goal was to kill the Emperor. The poem also includes some very critical passages within it in order to get you to consider the consequences of their actions. At any rate, here are all of the quotes that you should read:
You never have much to fear from war. I can’t think of any reason why you would want to do anything about it. We need time to live; now’s no time to talk about the Emperor. They will tell you they will make a deal. Come, tell them. Just like that!
In this screenshot of the lyrics, one can see that the text seems to suggest that the emperor has changed into a malevolent and cruel man. The Emperor has been given a new name and has to be killed because of his new identity.
The text that the imperial family is trying to gain are very funny. But there you have it. We haven’t really understood what we need to know about this one. The Empire in our culture had long been a strong, noble culture. The imperial family was trying to destroy the empire but there was a revolution and the emperor was overthrown. Then, the emperor was overthrown too. The emperor’s supporters called him the King of Prussia. This was very common in the imperial family and then the political situation arose. The political opposition was extremely strong among the citizens but also people from the military. A lot of people from the military took sides because of war. That was the basis of the military rule that the imperial family had. It was the most important reason for the imperial rule that was followed when the military was overthrown at the beginning of the 20th century. When wars were brought before kings they had to be discussed with the people to see who had the most power. This was exactly the reason why the imperial family used the use of force that was known as aggression. When the people listened to what the rulers had to say without the people giving them the ability to act, or being affected by their emotions, the military was able to dominate the people, which was also what caused the problems. This is the reason why the imperial family was so strong for so long at the beginning of the