The White Man's Burden Essay

The White Man’s Burden Imagine letting superiority take over one’s attitude. Imagine the longing for power beginning to make one arrogant in which they become over powering. In Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “The White Man’s Burden”, the country of England is described as the leader in which they act as if they are morally responsible for assisting the less fortunate. The Philippines is being targeted in this poem as the white man’s burden. Kipling uses intense, well developed rhetoric in order to motivate the people of England to help the thriving country of the Philippines. Every literary work has a purpose in which the author wants to display to the reader. In the 1800’s, England was known for their imperialization of unpromising countries. The

Alliteration is used by Kipling in lines five and six when he states, “to wait in heavy harness, on fluttered folk” The heavy harness refers to England’s imperial rule as if the countries are being weighed down by their overbearing power. The people of the cultures are being offered no chance to voice their beliefs nor continue to follow their values under imperialism. Kipling next alliterates “the silent, sullen peoples who will weigh [their] gods and [them]” ( 47-48). The people of the imperialized cultures are once again being shown as having their cultures silenced. As imperialism begins to shape the religions of the lost cultures, the idea of the Gods weighing down on the English is quite ironic since they are forcing people to rid their ideas of who God is. Finally, Kipling uses repetition with the phrase, “the white man’s burden.” in order to remind the reader that the white man taking over a foreign country is a burden to them, not the people who are being forced to follow new laws in which they do not necessarily agree with. The repetition of the phrase constantly reiterates to the reader the message of the poem, which displays that imperialism the moral responsibility of the white man. Kipling inspires the readers to take on the burden and continue the journey of imperialism even if it may require huge amounts of attention. Rudyard Kipling’s,