Rudyard Kipling: poet & imperialist

Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist. Most of his work was inspired by India because it was where he was born. One of his most famous works known as, “The Man Who Would Be King?” was published in 1888. In this novella, Kipling writes about two British adventures who aspire to become kings of Kafiristan to portray his perception of the British Empire. Rudyard Kipling was an imperialist who respected the British Empire. Kipling being born in India gave him a second perspective of seeing both India’s government and Britain's government. Clearly, from the way Kipling presents his story, he…the British Empire. Throughout the novella, he incorporates figurative language, diction, and irony to convey his attitude toward the British Empire to the readers. Analyzing his voice, word choice and sentence fluency allow the reader to understand his perspective and opinion.

To start off, Kipling expressed his own thoughts with the reader in “The Man Who Would Be King?”, by using his voice to portray India as a subject to Britain's colonial rule. Kipling supported the British Empire’s right to maintain India’s government. However, he believed that Englishmen were selfish and that they all believed they were better than everyone else. He cannot stand their ignorance and superiority over other men. Two men in the novel named Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnehan show their disloyalty and ungratefulness when they willingly shred their identities as Englishmen to look for a better opportunity to become kings of Kafiristan. Kipling shared his beliefs through his characters Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnehan. One of the men, Carnehan, says, “Therefore, such as it is, we will let it alone, and go away to some other place, where a man isn’t crowded and can come to his own. We are not little men, and there is nothing that we are afraid of except Drink, and we have signed a Contract on that. Therefore, we are going away to be Kings”. Dravot and Carnehan see themselves better than India, so they go out looking for a better country to manage. Kipling portrays how the upper-class citizens of the British Empire did not care for the poor, but for the benefit of themselves.

To add on, Kipling applies the use of strong word choice by including specific words that encourage the reader to draw conclusions on his message. To easily convey his attitude, he connects realistic and imaginary events from British India, then incorporates them into the story. The proper word choice influences the reader to create an interpretation of new ideas. Kipling says, “But the Empires and the Kings continue to divert themselves as selfishly as before”. The word choice of “selfishly” reveals his emotions towards the British Empire because he believes they are egotistical and self-serving. This choice of figurative language shows his belief that the Empire wants to force their ideas and culture on those areas for more control, instead of colonizing those countries without benefit for themselves. Also, Kipling presents the actions of the British Empire through his characters by using them as extended metaphors. Carnehan represents an aspect of the British Empire by using similar guidelines and rules as the British. On the other hand, Dravot does not strictly believe in rules and chooses things himself while the narrator follows rules and helps people in need.

Furthermore, Kipling maintains the use of sentence fluency throughout his story. Word patterns within the text create a rhythm and flow of the language. From a reader’s perspective, his writing is easily understood because of the proper selection of words in the sentence structure. Many sentence structures vary from short, long, simple, and complex. Kipling writes, “There are no cushions in the intermediate class, and the population are either Intermediate, which is Eurasian, or native, which for a long night journey is nasty; or Loafer, which is amusing though intoxicated”. Through this text, Kipling uses repetition of the word “which” to make it easier to follow and give the sentence rhythm. The whole story itself is well crafted for the reader to easily understand Kipling’s attitude.