Question

Take up the white man's burden– have done with childish days– the lightly proffered [offered] laurel, the easy, ungrudged [unresentful] praise. comes now, to search your manhood through all the thankless years cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom, the judgment of your peers! —"the white man's burden," rudyard kipling what can be inferred about kipling’s point of view.

Based on this stanza from "The White Man's Burden" by Rudyard Kipling, what can be inferred about Kipling’s point of view?
A. He opposed imperialism because it is a burden on industrialized nations.
B. He opposed imperialism because it makes industrialized nations too powerful.
C. He supported imperialism because it is the duty of industrialized nations.
D. He supported imperialism because it helps industrialized nations gain wealth.

Answer 1

Kipling's poem, "The White Man's Burden," suggests his support for imperialism based on the perceived duty of industrialized nations to civilize others, not for economic gain. The correct option is C.

Step-by-step explanation:

Based on the stanza from The White Man's Burden by Rudyard Kipling, we can infer that Kipling’s viewpoint supports imperialism. This is clear from his notion that it is the moral duty and manhood test of industrialized nations to civilize and govern those they consider less developed. Kipling saw the act of imperialism as a sacrificial and thankless task that brought little material reward to the colonizers but was necessary for the moral and civilizational advancement of the colonized. This reflects a very paternalistic and ethnocentric perspective, where Kipling believed in the superiority of Western civilizations and their obligation to govern others.

During the era Kipling wrote the poem, imperialism was often justified by the idea that it was a civilizing mission, under which European powers and the United States considered themselves to have a responsibility to develop and modernize other parts of the world—reminiscent of what they described as the "White Man's Burden". The poem, however, does not overtly express a motivation for imperialism based on economic gains, rather focusing on the ideological and duty-bound reasonings.

Furthermore, historian Cecil Rhodes, influenced by imperialism, saw the British race as supreme and their dominance around the world as beneficial for humanity. This concept of racial superiority and the associated duty to civilize others directly align with the sentiment expressed by Kipling in his poem.