The Story of a Just So Racist Nobel Laureate
On the face of it, it would appear that Rudyard Kipling’s most famous work is The Jungle Book (1894). It should be noted, though, that this book is likely the most well-known because of the Disney production in 1967, as well as this year’s 2016 production.
Kipling published many other poems, novels, and short story collections over the course of his lifetime. He was the ultimate product of the British Empire, as he was born in Bombay, educated in England, and spent much of his life traveling the British Empire. People often call him “The Poet of the Empire” — with positive and negative connotations. He even won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907. From a literary perspective, his works are very well-written. Nevertheless, they should be read with caution in modern times.
“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. […]”
— Rudyard Kipling, The White Man’s Burden: The United States and The Philippine Islands (1899)
The above is an excerpt from a poem which Kipling wrote at the time in which the Philippine — American war began. In it, he urges the United States to continue the European tradition of imperialism. In this sense, the “White Man’s Burden” is a burden which all white men must carry; it means that they must civilize what Europeans denoted as uncivilized savages. In his words, the latter are “half-devil and half-child”.
Of course, racism was not a concept at all in Kipling’s times. I would perhaps dare to call him “colonialist” or “imperialist” for his times. He was one of the British Empire’s strongest supporters, and this shows in his works. It should also be mentioned that he was close friends with Cecil Rhodes and spent quite a bit of time on the Rhodes’ Estate in South Africa. As such, while I don’t think that his works should be demonized in today’s world, I do believe they should be treated with caution. They should never be read without context.
The title of this blog post is a reference to Kipling’s short story collection, Just So Stories.
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