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The Moral Imperative of Imperial Expansion

Kipling’s poem frames the imperial expansion of white Western nations as a moral imperative. Central to this framing is the speaker’s emphasis on what they call “the White Man’s burden” (lines 1, 9, 17, 25, 33, 41, and 49). This burden refers to the role that Western imperial powers see themselves as playing in the liberation and development of non-Western nations. If this role may be accurately described as a burden, it’s because Western nations view the work of imperialism as essentially thankless and self-sacrificing. Despite laboring in the service of non-Western nations and their peoples, “the White Man” receives nothing but resentment and hatred in return. If this is the case, the speaker insists that it’s because colonized peoples are perversely attached to their wretched conditions of bondage and hence fail to understand the value of freedom. Thus, the only way to liberate them is to do so against their will, through what the speaker calls “savage wars of peace” (line 18). Although apparently contradictory, this phrase ultimately affirms the supposed moral superiority of the colonizer, who alone understands the value of liberation and must therefore remain firm in believing that the ends justify the means.

The Superiority of “the White Man”

If white Western nations have a moral imperative to expand their empires, it’s because they believe they are, as the speaker of Kipling’s poem argues, inherently superior to other nations. The speaker makes this claim most explicitly in the fifth stanza, where they caution “the White Man” that he must be prepared to accept “the blame of those ye better” (line 35). They argue that because the people of non-Western nations would prefer to remain in conditions of “bondage” (line 39), the white man must liberate them against their will. As the self-sacrificing liberator, the white man stands in a position of superiority to those he ushers into freedom. The speaker affirms this claim about the white man’s superiority elsewhere in the poem, when they refer disdainfully to the citizens of non-Western nations as “silent sullen peoples” (line 47) who are “half devil and half child” (line 8). Whereas non-white peoples are characterized by “Sloth and heathen Folly” (line 23), the white man sees himself, by contrast, as actively and selflessly committed to the moral uplift of others. In this way, the speaker strongly implies that “the White Man’s burden” is an inevitable result of so-called white superiority.

The Relationship between Imperialism and Masculinity

As suggested by the poem’s title, a major thematic concern in “The White Man’s Burden” is the relationship between imperialism and masculinity. Everywhere in the poem the speaker makes it clear that the imperial project is the responsibility of men. In particular, the repetition of the phrase “White Man’s burden” at the beginning of every stanza emphasizes the gendered dimension of imperialism. But it isn’t until the poem’s final stanza that the speaker most clearly connects the imperial project to masculinity (lines 49–56):

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

With these lines, the speaker explicitly associates the selfless work of “the White Man’s burden” with the setting aside of “childish days” and thus with the achievement of “manhood.” Taking on the “thankless” task of liberating others yields the “dear-bought wisdom” of maturity. Significantly, the link drawn here between imperial expansion and masculinity has everything to do with the concept of action. After all, it is the white man who actively self-elects to “take up” the burden of imperialism. The active masculinity of the colonizer thus stands in counterpoint to the implied femininity of the colonized—those “silent sullen peoples” (line 47) who are supposedly too passive to strive for their own freedom.

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