'Strangers In The White Man's Burden'

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In the poem, “The White Man’s Burden”, by Rudyard Kipling, there are many attributes tied to the theme “stranger in the village”. Strangers who came into a new land were often initially seen as dangerous. Kipling portrayed this early on in his poem by depicting these people as “half devil and half child” (Kipling 8). These people were so used to what they defined as “normal” that they saw anyone else as another form of life. Kipling also depicted how the natives were horrified and needed to “veil the threat of terror” (Kipling 11). They were so used to their idea of a society that the slightest change would send them into a panic. In The Tempest by William Shakespeare, the witch did everything in her power to terrorize the men on the ship just to prevent them from joining her and her daughter on their island. …show more content…

More often than not, these traits were related to race or social status. Kipling took this to the extreme by compelling his people to “blame of those ye better, the hate of those ye guard” (Kipling 35-36). He was explaining how they were so much as hated for their differences. He also told his followers to “ye dare not stoop to less- nor call too loud on freedom to cloak your weariness” (Kipling 42-44). He was encouraging them to not be ashamed of who they are. In “A Small Place” by Jamaica Kincaid, the native of the village despised the tourists because they were in a much higher social class and did not have to live in the same conditions that she

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