Rudyard Kipling and Imperialism

Rudyard Kipling and Imperialism

Born on December 30, 1865 in Bombay, India, this date marks the place and time in which the basis for my writings lie. As a child I suffered from some unhappy and mistreated circumstances, yet like any other child, I still possessed a dream. I had endless hopes to pursue a military career. In the meantime I entered the United Services College in North Devon to broaden this dream; however, due to poor eyesight and mediocre academic results, my hopes ceased. It is at this point in my life in which I will begin my writing career and hope to succeed as a British author and poet.

In returning to India, I worked as a journalist in Lahore for the Civil and Military Gazete and as an assistant editor and overseas correspondent in Allahabad for the Pioneer. While in India for seven years, I began to write about the place itself and the Anglo-Indian society which presided over it. My first volume of peotry, Departmental Ditties, and several volumes of short stories were set in and concerned with the India that I had come to know and love so much. In 1892 after I married Caroline Starr Balestier, I moved to Vermont which was located in the United States where I was extremely productive in composing many poems with a lively, swinging rhythm. These tracts included Barrack Room Ballads, Many Inventions, The Jungle Book, The Second Jungle Book, The Seven Seas, and The Day's Work. In the midst of all this progress, I decided to move back to England due to some conflict with my in-law family. At this point, I was an established Imperial Novelist working on writing "The White Man's Burden." Well, this seems to be the point in which I currently exist; we are caught up on my life as of now. My ideas for "The White Man's Burden," are presently from the high point in western imperialism and war, and every power is looking to build a colonial empire. In my opinion the British Empire has a responsibility: to maintain stability, order, and peace amongst the heathen, to relieve famine, provide medical assistance, to abolish slavery, to construct the physical and psychological groundwork for civilization, and to protect the mother country. It is the duty of Great Britain to carry the white man's burden by civilizing and improving the lives of the colonial peoples. I want to continue in saying that my intentions of this writing