Student Question
How do colonial subjects repay their masters in "The White Man's Burden?"
Quick answer:
In "The White Man's Burden," colonial subjects repay their imperial masters through resentment and destruction. Kipling suggests that despite efforts to "civilize" them, the subjects will ruin the achievements of their colonizers due to ignorance and laziness. They will also hate and blame their masters for attempting to improve their lives, leading to a lack of gratitude. This reflects the poem's theme that imperialism is a thankless and burdensome endeavor for the colonizers.
According to Rudyard Kipling in his pro-imperialism poem “The White Man’s Burden,” the colonial subjects of imperial powers repay their “masters” by hating and resenting them and by destroying all of the things the masters are trying to create. Some of this they do on purpose, but other things they do because they are ignorant.
The first place we see the imperial masters being repaid poorly is in Stanza 3. There, Kipling says that when the masters have just about accomplished their goals, they will
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.
In other words, they are being repaid by having everything they work for get destroyed. The subjects are so lazy and foolish that they destroy the masters’ work.
The other place where we see the masters being poorly repaid is in the 5th Stanza. There, Kipling tells us that the subjects will hate their...
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masters for trying to improve their lives and make them more civilized. He says that the masters will get
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard—
The reason for this is that they are trying to improve their subjects. The problem is that their subjects do not want to be improved and civilized. Instead, they will complain, saying
Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"
In other words, the subjects like being ignorant and uncivilized and will hate and resent those who try to change them.
In these ways, Kipling is saying that the imperial masters will be repaid poorly by their colonial subjects.
References
How do colonial subjects repay their masters in Kipling's "The White Man's Burden"?
One of the major themes of “The White Man’s Burden” is the idea that the white people go out and have to work hard to civilize the non-white people without any gratitude and often without much success. This is how the colonial subjects repay their masters. They repay them by resenting them instead of appreciating what they do. They also repay them by destroying (even if they do not do so on purpose) the things that the masters are trying to achieve.
One of these ways that the subjects repay their masters is found in the third stanza. There, Kipling tells us that all the work that the white people do will end up being for nothing. They will work hard to try to end famine and war, but it will not work. The reason for this is because the subject people will ruin what the masters are trying to accomplish. Kipling tells his white audience that
when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.
In other words, he is saying, the subject people will repay their masters by spoiling everything they have been working for. The subjects are lazy and foolish and they will therefore ruin all the good work the whites are doing.
The second way in which the subjects repay their masters is found in the fifth stanza. There, Kipling warns the white audience that their subjects will not appreciate their efforts. The white people will try to pull the subjects “(Ah, slowly!) toward the light.” This means that they will try to civilize their subjects even though that is difficult and it takes a long time. However, the subjects will not be grateful. Instead, they will resent the efforts of their masters. As Kipling says, they will hate and blame their masters and ask
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"
From these two stanzas, we can see how the subject people will repay their masters. They will repay them by ruining (even if they do not mean to) all the things the whites are trying to do. They will also repay the masters by hating and resenting them. This is part of why, Kipling says, imperialism is such a burden on the white people.
References
How do colonial subjects repay their masters, according to Kipling in "The White Man's Burden"?
In this poem, Kipling is advising the United States about the likely consequences of their colonization of the Philippines. He is encouraging them to become an imperial power but is also warning them about the pitfalls inherent in doing so.
One of the pitfalls is that the "new-caught sullen people" will not appreciate what the imperial power has done. The colonized people will hate the colonizers. This can be seen most clearly in the lines in which Kipling says that the reward of the imperial power is
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
Kipling also implies that the colonized people will repay their colonizers by destroying what the colonizers are trying to accomplish. The Americans will work hard to improve (in this case) the Filipinos but will get nothing for it. They will think they are finally achieving their goals, but then they wil have to
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.
Kipling is warning, then, that imperialism is a thankless thing. He is saying that the efforts of the Americans will tend to be destroyed by the people who they colonize. In addition, those people will never thank them for what they do and will instead hate them.
One can argue that Kipling's prophecy came true in the early 1990s when rising Filipino nationalism and anti-US feeling caused the Filipino government to eject US forces from bases in the Philippines.