If Group

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literarychild
literarychild
Student
Graduate School

Why does Rudyard Kipling call "disaster" and "triumph" impostors in his poem "If"?

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Posted by literarychild on Sunday August 26, 2007 at 7:45 AM and tagged with if, language.

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  1. jamie-wheeler Teacher
    College - Sophomore

    eNotes Editor

    My thinking is that the speaker wants us to view life as a continuum, marked by peaks and valleys that may or may not be seminal events in our lives.  If we can resist becoming too self-assured by our successess nor too defeated by disasters, we can live more contentedly.

    I am reminded by of the quote by Golda Meir, "Don't be so humble; you're not that great."

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/if

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    Posted by jamie-wheeler on Sunday August 26, 2007 at 9:24 AM


  2. sagetrieb Teacher
    Doctorate

    Enotes provides a fine overview of the poem:  “If” is a didactic poem, a work meant to give instruction. In this case, “If” serves as an instruction in several specific traits of a good leader. Kipling offers this instruction not through listing specific characteristics, but by providing concrete illustrations of the complex actions a man should or should not take which would reflect these characteristics.”  It is interesting that he personifies both “Disaster” and “Triumph,” and capitalizes the words to call attention to this.  Kipling also personifies “Will” toward the end of the poem.  Significantly, something might look like disaster but not be so, or might look like triumph but might be something else (such as defeat). For these reasons, they—the experiences of disaster and triumph—might be “imposters,” not really what they appear to be.  “Will,” however, is unmistakably that; it cannot seem to be anything other than what it really is.

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    Posted by sagetrieb on Sunday August 26, 2007 at 6:21 PM