What was the "white man's burden" according to Kipling?

In order to understand the meaning of Rudyard Kipling’s poem "The White Man’s Burden," it is important to understand the time frame in which this was written. The United States had just won a war with Spain and had gained control over several of Spain’s former colonies. The United States now had an opportunity to become an imperial power. This poem advocated that the United States should assume this responsibility.

The poem suggested that imperialistic countries had an obligation to show people they believed were inferior how to run a government, how to run a country, and how to live. These imperialistic countries, whose population was mainly white, needed to assume the responsibility of showing different groups of supposedly inferior people the right way to live. This was not going to be an easy job and might be met with resistance from the people these imperialistic nations were trying to "civilize." However, Kipling believed the United States needed to assume this responsibility.

What was the "white man's burden" according to Kipling?

The white man's burden, in Kipling's view, is the duty of governing and imposing civilization on the savage "new-caught, sullen peoples" of the world, whether they like it or not. The fact that they generally do not like it, as Kipling acknowledges in the poem, renders the task more burdensome, but no less necessary.

Empire-builders such as Kipling tended to view the British Empire, and the smaller but burgeoning colonial project of America, as natural successors to the Roman Empire, even referring to the "Pax Britannica" as having brought peace to conquered nations in the same way as the Pax Romana of Augustus. Although most historians now see nineteenth-century imperialism as a primarily commercial endeavor, essentially an excuse to plunder the wealth and use the labor of conquered countries, Kipling portrays it as an essentially altruistic project. He goes so far as to compare the Western imperialists to Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt, while the slaves are reluctant to be delivered from bondage.

Empire-building, according to Kipling, is a difficult, dangerous task. Only "the best ye breed" are equal to the challenge. In addition to this burden of hard work, they must bear the secondary burden of ingratitude and uncooperativeness from those they are trying to help. Only other empire-builders will appreciate the sacrifices they have made to civilize the world.

Why does Kipling suggest in "The White Man's Burden" that it's important for the "white man" to take up this burden?

Similar to most imperialists of the time, Rudyard Kipling believed that colonial ventures were noble and just. Kipling was a proponent of the British Empire and firmly believed that white Europeans were civilizing and improving the world through their imperial conquests. Kipling viewed imperialism as a righteous cause and felt that European nations were acting altruistically. According to Kipling, the white man had the enormous responsibility to spread civilization throughout the world without receiving any personal benefits or rewards for their work. Kipling likens this enormous responsibility to a burden that weighs heavily upon European nations.

Kipling completely disregards the exploitative, violent nature of imperial conquests as well as the annihilation of traditional, foreign cultures and views colonial endeavors as charitable and benevolent. He writes that white men should ". . . seek another's profit, And work another's gain" and "toil of serf and sweeper" throughout their imperial conquests. Kipling elaborates on the various hardships white men will face and emphasizes the burden they must endure. He is essentially saying that white men will not benefit at all from their "service" but will be a beacon of light throughout the world and earn the respect of their fellow European nations. According to Kipling, it is important for white men to take up this "burden" in order to civilize the world, spread European culture, and positively influence other European nations to do the same.

Why does Kipling suggest in "The White Man's Burden" that it's important for the "white man" to take up this burden?

In “The White Man’s Burden,” Rudyard Kipling emphasizes over and over that the white man is taking up his burden to help other people. However, there is a reason why it is important, from the white man’s point of view, to do so. The country that takes up the white man’s burden will earn the respect of the other important countries in the world.

When the white man goes out and takes up his burden, he is clearly (in Kipling’s opinion) not getting any tangible benefits from it. We are told that he has to “wait in heavy harness” on his subjects.  He has to “seek another’s profit/and work another’s gain.  He is making ports that he “will not enter” and roads that he “will not tread.” All his work is being done to help other people.

However, the white man is getting some benefit out of this.  What he is getting is a place among the important and respected countries of the world. A country that could and would go out and take an empire is clearly an important country.  It has the power to conquer others. It also has the patience and (in Kipling’s mind) the altruistic sense to go out and work long and hard to help civilize other people.  Such a country is taking an “adult” role in the world.  It is working hard to help improve other people, just as a parent works hard to improve their children.  Because of this, Kipling says at the end of the poem, the country that takes up the white man’s burden will earn “the judgment of your peers!”  In other words, the other important countries of the world will look at it and will recognize that it is a great country just like them. This, according to Kipling, is the main benefit that the white man gets from taking up his burden.

What does the title "The White Man's Burden" by Rudyard Kipling mean?

This poem was written in the wake of Spain ceding the Philippines to the United States as a colony. The title refers to the "burden" white people take on when they colonize countries largely populated by darker skinned people.

This poem, clearly racist, has become notorious as a statement of the ruling class point-of-view on colonialism. From the perspective of the victorious colonizers, they are bringing "civilization" to "primitive" people. Kipling is decrying the fact that the colonized don't appreciate the many gifts the colonizers have to offer or the sacrifices they are making to bring civilization to the natives. He instead characterizes the native people of colonized countries as childlike and animalistic, with a sullen, violent, and hateful attitude toward their colonizers. As the word "burden" indicates, Kipling makes the overlords into the victims of colonization—but victims who bear the torture of colonizing other countries with nobility and stoicism.

Kipling slides over the fact that the colonizers did vastly more taking than giving, and that some might characterize the taking as akin to looting. He also ignores the fact that in most colonized countries, the colonizers were not invited and not wanted. The Philippines, for example, wanted freedom and independence, not a new overlord in the form of the United States. Most native people also were not terribly interested in the "civilization" that the West had to offer, being perfectly happy with their own cultures. One might argue, from the perspective of the colonized, that anger is an appropriate response to invaders sweeping in, taking over your country, robbing you of your resources, telling you that you are ignorant savages, and forcing you to adopt a culture you don't want. Kipling apparently didn't look at it from this point of view.

What does the title "The White Man's Burden" by Rudyard Kipling mean?

The title of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The White Man’s Burden” refers to the idea that white people took a burden upon themselves when they took empires.  It refers to the idea that the imperial powers acted selflessly to improve the lives of ungrateful colonial subjects.

In this poem, Kipling emphasizes that imperialism is hard on the imperial powers.  He says that the imperial power has to send out its best people to “wait in heavy harness” on its subjects.  He says that these representatives of the imperial power have to work hard to try to help the people they have conquered.  They have to do their best to improve the people’s lives even though the people will hate and resent them.  This, to Kipling, is why having an empire is a burden.

The “white man’s burden,” then, is the burden that white people assume when they take an empire.  It is the burden of working hard for the benefit of other people who do not appreciate what the white people are doing for them.

What metaphors are used in "The White Man's Burden"?

Metaphors are comparisons that do not use the words "like" or "as." In a poem that has become famous for expressing some of the worst ideas about colonization, Kipling uses the following metaphors:

The poem compares native people in colonized territories to "half devil[s]" and "half-child[ren]." The speaker also compares the work of colonizing to the "toil" of "serf" and "sweeper," as if the white colonial overlords are waiting hand and foot on the natives.

At the end of the poem, the narrator compares the complaints of the natives to the complaints the Israelites made to God after they were liberated from captivity in Egypt and led to the Promised Land. This metaphor, which is also a Biblical allusion, compares the white colonizers to no less than God almighty and the natives to ingrates who don't want the "liberation" the white man offers.

Unquestionably, the poem's metaphors reinforce the idea that the colonizers suffered nobly for the benefit of 'half humans' who had no appreciation of the invaders' sacrifices.

What metaphors are used in "The White Man's Burden"?

"The White Man's Burden" has been criticized since its publication both for its condescending and ultimately dehumanizing view of seemingly all non-white peoples, and for its supposed lack of sophistication. The poem values realism and clarity, but there are several examples of metaphors in the text.

In the first stanza of the poem, Kipling uses the harness as a metaphor for service:

Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--

Later in the poem he uses "light" as a metaphor for civilization and "night" and "bondage" as metaphors for "savagery."

The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Perhaps the most important metaphor in the poem, however, is not as obvious as these. Throughout the poem, imperialism is cast as a "burden," as in the title, but also in terms of "struggle" and "toil." It is an ordeal that will benefit them even if the recipients of western imperial "benevolence" do not appreciate it.

What was Kipling's objective in publishing "The White Man's Burden"?

To understand why Kipling wrote this poem, we should look at its full title: "The White Man's Burden: The United States and the Philippine Islands." Using the second part of this title, it becomes clear that Kipling directed this poem to the United States who, in 1899 (the time of publication), were involved in a war with the Philippines. The reasons for this war originate in events from the previous year when the United States defeated the Spanish and purchased from them a number of islands, including the Philippines. But this small nation had no intention of becoming a U.S. colony and, in February 1899, declared war on the United States. (Please see the reference links provided for more information).

Kipling thus intended that his poem would inspire and encourage the Americans to overcome the people of the Philippines. He wanted them to realise that empire-building was a challenging endeavour that involved hard work and sacrifice. This sentiment is echoed throughout the poem, particularly in the fourth stanza:

Go make them with your living,

Go mark them with your dead.

What does stanza 5 reveal about Kipling's view on the "white man's burden"?

In the fifth stanza, as elsewhere in the poem, Kipling is trying to convince his American audience just how difficult the colonial project often is. As an Englishman, Kipling is speaking with the benefit of experience, as the British had been successfully running their empire for centuries. And one of the things that Kipling appears to have learned from the British experience is that colonialism is a thankless task.

As very much a man of his time and race, Kipling believes that, on the whole, colonialism is beneficial to what he regards as the "lesser" races, bringing them the benefits of Western civilization. Yet in the fifth stanza, Kipling laments what he perceives as the ingratitude of indigenous peoples for all the effort that the white man has put in to make them more civilized:

Take up the White Man's burden—
And reap his old reward,
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard—

Instead of being grateful for colonial rule, as Kipling clearly thinks they ought to be, the natives are deeply resentful, hating their colonial overlords. There's no acknowledgment by Kipling, here or anywhere else in the poem, that indigenous peoples wanted to govern their own affairs, free from the control of Western powers.

Explain Kipling's portrayal of "the white man's burden" as a necessary, though thankless, undertaking.

"The White Man's Burden" is a poem written by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in 1899 and was inspired by the Phillippine-American War, which took place from 1899–1902. The statement in the question is correct: Kipling does indeed portray "the white man's burden" as a thankless undertaking, so it might definitely feel odd that he urges to reader to continue to take it up regardless. In order to help you understand why he does this, is is first of all important for me to explain the social background within which this poem was written.

The poem is a typical example of colonial writing. White people at this time felt that they were superior to the people of the countries they conquered, particularly when they conquered and colonialized countries where the inhabitants were not white and had not yet found Christianity. People at the time felt that it was their duty to bring civilization and culture to those whom they perceived to be uncivilized. This is what Kipling refers to as the "white man's burden" in the poem: the perceived need to bring education and civilization to the indigenous people of the colonies.

However, as he tells us in this poem, this attempt at Westernizing the native people was not always met with welcome and could sometimes even lead to hardship for the white men, who were trying to change the lives of the natives according to Western standards. However, as people at the time ultimately believed that it was their responsibility to bring Western and Christian values to those who had not yet experienced these, they thought that they were ultimately following God's will in trying to help the natives to follow a Christian and civilized life.

Therefore, Kipling and his fellow people felt that it was not an option to stop doing it. They were so convinced that they were doing the right thing and felt that not doing it would be tantamount to sin and might even lead to God's wrath later on. This is why, despite the hardship, Kipling urges the white man in his poem to keep on going with his task of bringing Western culture and Christianity to the native people in the colonies.

What is the meaning of Rudyard Kipling's "The White Man's Burden"?

This was a poem that Rudyard Kipling wrote as a way of "welcoming" the United States to the club of imperial nations.  He is warning them about what their experience will be as an imperial power.

The main point of the poem is that imperial powers face a thankless task.  Kipling argues that the people who go out to imperialize will have a difficult task.  They will need to "wait in heavy harness," meaning that they will have to work very hard.  But even though they work, it will seem to be for nothing.  The people of the imperialized countries will be so inferior that they will ruin everything the imperializers have done.  As Kipling says, the imperializers will

Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

In addition, they will be unappreciated.  The people will not bless them for what they are doing but will instead hate them.  What they will get for their efforts is

The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--

Thus, the meaning of this poem is that it is hard to be an imperial power.  Kipling is saying that imperial powers have to work hard for people who will not appreciate it and will ruin what they have been trying to achieve.

In the poem "The White Man's Burden" by Rudyard Kipling, what is the actual "burden" that white men are plagued with?

We can look at this poem and your question in two ways. From Kipling's point of view, the White Man is plagued with the responsibility to "civilize" other peoples and then receive scorn for that. The other races, in this view, are but savage children and those of European races have the responsibility to save them from themselves. Kipling writes that it will be hard work. Many will suffer and die in order to accomplish it and be criticized by others for their effort. However, he sees it as the duty of the white race to share their ways, even if by force, with the people who he saw as ignorant and wanting of civilized influence.

Another way to view this poem and your question is from a more distant perspective. White Men, like Kipling, appear to be burdened with a grandiose sense of self-righteousness. Feelings of racial superiority are very much a condition which the imperialists of Kipling's time were plagued with. These notions compelled many to travel to distant lands and practically and literally enslave other races in the name of civilization. This imperializing view was in many ways a plague. While it did lead to massive economic benefits for the imperialists, it also resulted in a great loss of life and toil for the imperialists themselves. Kipling even acknowledges that by attempting to serve other races, they will "mark them with your dead!"

In the poem "The White Man's Burden" by Rudyard Kipling, what is the actual "burden" that white men are plagued with?

In this poem, which is extremely racist by modern standards, the "burden" the white man is plagued with is the task of caring for native people in lands that the white men have colonized. This task, it is implied, takes a particular nobility of spirit and an ethic of self-sacrifice because the natives are so "ungrateful."

The narrator, who is addressing the white colonizers, characterizes the colonized populations as inferior, writing of them as:

Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child

The burdens the white men then have to carry include the "threat of terror," working without complaint for the colonized people's gain and profit, and experiencing one's hopes dashed by the sloth and foolishness of the people one is trying to help. The colonizers also must bear the burden of being blamed and hated by those to whom they feel they are superior.

The poem shows no awareness that native people might rightfully resent the colonizers for coming into their country. The colonizers impose their culture on the native population while exploiting their resources and then expect them to be grateful when the white men take it upon themselves to "raise" the native people from the position of inferiority they've been subjected to as a result of colonialism.

In the poem "The White Man's Burden" by Rudyard Kipling, what is the actual "burden" that white men are plagued with?

According to the poem, the actual burden that white people are plagued with is the non-white people that they have conquered and the need to care for these non-white, inferior peoples.

What Kipling is saying is that when a white country colonizes, it has all these people who are "half devil and half child."  It must, therefore, care for the those people the same way that a parent must care for its children.

Parenting clearly involves sacrifice and so, says Kipling, does colonization.  White people will have to go out to all these primitive places where they have to do without civilized comforts and work hard (in "heavy harness") to take care of all these inferior people who need to be helped because they are not advanced enough to take care of themselves.

In the poem by Rudyard Kipling, "The White Man's Burden," why does he feel Europeans should colonize?

As the title of the poem suggests, Kipling believed it was the "burden," or duty, of white men, who he saw as culturally, technologically, and racially superior, to bring the "blessings" of civilization to non-whites around the world. He is specifically referring to the debate in the United States over whether that nation should annex the Philippines, recently taken from Spain in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. Kipling urges the United States to take up its place among the great nations of the world by sending its young people, the "best ye breed," to the Philippines to "fill full the mouth of Famine/and bid the sickness cease" and build "ports ye shall not enter/and roads ye shall not tread."

Kipling believed that the Filipino people themselves, who he described in racialized terms as "half devil and half child," were incapable of understanding how these things would benefit them. The bringers of civilization would earn the "blame of those ye better/the hate of those ye guard." But it was worth it, he thought, because it would also earn the United States the respect of its peers--taking up the "white man's burden" was a way to, as mentioned above, to take its place among the powerful nations of the world.