THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN by Rudyard Kipling

Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke (1) your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel, (2)
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!


From this poem we can get an idea of the American (industrialized world) perspective of the nonindustrial world and their role in it. There feeling of needing to spread there “better” way of life. The poem stresses a very Eurocentric view of the world in which non European nations are seen as demonic and childlike and need the help of developed nations to improve their culture and station in life by making them more westernized. There is a strong message that the rich nations have an obligation to help the poor whether they want it or not.
Kipling suggests that there is no reward for caring the white man’s burden but that is not so.
It is important to look at this poem with a critical mind because what is said and what was done are very different. While some may truly have felt their duty to better the lives of those in the less developed nations many used the idea of spreading civilizations as justification for talking over lands and exploiting the people and resources for the betterment of the industrialized nation, not for the benefit of the “uncivilized.”
It is important to note how this feeling of superiority and needing to spread civilization was not felt by all in America or throughout the industrialized world. The term "The White Man's Burden” refers to the "burden" or “hardships" that was placed onto the Americans because they had a duty to spread their huge advancement and better way of living with the rest of the world. From Rudyard Kipling's point of view, the "white men" have a very strong ideological mindset and think they are better than anyone else.
#POST COLONIAL THEORY