The White Man's Burden by Rudyard Kipling
Kipling’s Poem Represents a Transition From Victorian to Modern Eras
Oct 22, 2009
Rudyard Kipling’s poem, "The White Man’s Burden" contains elements that are both typical of the Victorian era and yet depart from it in several important ways. Throughout his poem, elements of the vigorous Victorian work ethic more common to an earlier time within the Victorian era can be seen, while at the same time a representation of the dissatisfaction and weariness of the waning of the era is also very present.
Rudyard Kipling and Victorian Sensibilities
Kipling is frequently represented as a spokesman for the late Victorian British empire; "The White Man’s Burden" in particular has been looked at as a typical representation of the perception of the sometimes ponderous necessity of British imperial rule and both its value as a result of the Victorian work ethic and yet also a heavy claim to bear.
In the first stanza alone, the contrast between typically Victorian views of imperial industriousness and the weight of that industrious behavior can already be seen. “Send for the best ye breed –/Go bind your sons to exile/To serve your captives’ need,” he writes in the beginning of the poem; the best sons of England are being sent forth to do the work of the empire, and yet at the same time they are being sent to serve the needs people they are overseeing.
Late Victorian Traits
Evidence of quintessential Victorian traits like exchange can be found throughout "The White Man’s Burden" alongside the late Victorian sense of fatigue with the rigor of their own industry. Through imperialism and industriousness, the British Empire was able to reign over an immense portion of the world; the exchanges that took place were primarily in favor of the British, and yet there is a sense of dissatisfaction with the way things looked in "The White Man’s Burden."
The native residents of British colonies are described as slothful, “sullen peoples” and represented as ungrateful. Despite the use the empire made of the natives’ labor and their countries, Kipling expresses a frustration with the apparent attitude of the natives, since the British were required by the titular white man’s burden to “Fill full the mouth of Famine/And bid the sickness cease.”
"The White Man’s Burden" and the Approach of the Modern Era
Kipling’s description of the native people under British imperial rule represent a distance from many later Victorian arguments about race and empire; in the last stanza, his repeated lament about the burden of the white man to be judged not by the grudging natives, he repeats an argument that was around 60 years old.
Even as he reflects older Victorian views, however, that same weariness with the constant work of the Victorian era represents a movement towards a more modern sensibility and a departure from the traditional writing of his day.
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