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This undergraduate thesis explores the delivery of imperialism in Rudyard Kipling's poem 'The White Man's Burden' through the use of symbol and imagery. The document also includes a statement of originality and acknowledgments.
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Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters
By ASRI DAMARA Student Number: 144214140
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Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters
By ASRI DAMARA Student Number: 144214140
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I certify that this undergraduate thesis contains no material which has been
previously submitted for the award of any other degree at any university, and that,
to the best of my knowledge, this undergraduate thesis contains no material
previously written by any other person except where due reference is made in the
text of the undergraduate thesis.
Yogyakarta, July 18, 2021
Asri Damara
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TITLE PAGE ......................................................................................................... i APPROVAL PAGE ............................................. Error! Bookmark not defined. ACCEPTANCE PAGE ........................................ Error! Bookmark not defined. STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY .................................................................... v LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH .. vi ................................................................................................... vii DEDICATION PAGE ........................................................................................ viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................... ix TABLE OF CONTENTS ...................................................................................... x ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................... xi ABSTRAK ............................................................................................................. xii
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................ 1 A. Background of the Study ................................................................................ 1 B. Problem Formulation ...................................................................................... 4 C. Objectives of the Study ................................................................................... 5 D. Definition of Terms ........................................................................................ 5
CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE .................................................... 8 A. Review of Related Studies.............................................................................. 8 B. Review of Related Theories.......................................................................... 12
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY .................................................................. 23 A. Object of the Study ....................................................................................... 23 B. Approach of the Study .................................................................................. 25 C. Method of the Study ..................................................................................... 28
CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS ............................................................................... 30 A. Imperialism in Rudyard Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden” .................. 30 B. Symbol and Imagery as the intrinsic elements of “ The White Man’s Burden” to deliver imperialism ..................................................................... 40
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION .......................................................................... 45
REFERENCES .................................................................................................... 47 APPENDICES ..................................................................................................... 49 Appendix 1 : The White Man's Burden ............................................................. 49 Appendix 2 : Biography of Rudyard Kipling .................................................... 51
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DAMARA, ASRI. (2021). Revealing Imperialism through Symbol and Imagery Found in Rudyard Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden”. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Universitas Sanata Dharma.
Colonization era has presented throughout history and still existed until late nineteenth century. The purpose of colonization developed with the times, not only to conquer a new country but also to civilize the native people. Civilization happened because it was related with imperialism. Imperialism can be stated as a value, policy or as a doctrine. Imperialism can be found in a history book but it could be written in a form of a poem. It can be seen in the content of a poem. This study analyzed imperialism in a poem entitled “The White Man’s Burden” which is written by Rudyard Kipling. Hence, this study has a purpose to answer two problems. The first is how imperialism is delivered in Rudyard Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden” and the second is how symbol and imagery deliver imperialism in Rudyard Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden”. In order to answer the two problems, this study applies the library research method. The main data that is used is a poem entitled “The White Man’s Burden” by Rudyard Kipling. Furthermore, there are three theories and one review that are applied in this study. The three theories are how to understand poetry, theory of symbol, and theory of imagery. Next, the review is about review of imperialism. This study applies new criticism as approach of the study. Based on the analysis, there are two findings in this study. The first result is imperialism is described differently in each stanza. In the first stanza, the description is about what the white men should do to the native people in the new island in order to bear the duty or the responsibility. The second stanza, it is about the white men have to work for the native people’s profit and gain. The third stanza is about a warning to the white men during their service in the new island. The fourth is about the way of how the white men see the duty or the responsibility. The fifth stanza is about the way the native people react to the service of the white men. The sixth stanza is about the warning to the white men. They have to hide their pain during their service. The seventh stanza is about the other warning to the white men who bear the duty or the responsibility. They have to leave behind their childhood to become a manhood. It has to be done in order to bear the duty or the responsibility. Imperialism is used as the ideology or value for encouraging the white men to take up their responsibility during the acquisition and civilization in the new island. The second result is three symbols and three imageries which can be found in the poem. Those are white man, burden, and Half-devil and Half-child. Next, the imageries that can be found are Kinesthetic Imagery, Visual Imagery, and Organic Imagery.
Keywords : The White Man’s Burden, Imperialism, Symbol, Imagery.
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A. Background of the Study
Colonization era has presented throughout history and it is the time when
people from one country would either discover some new and empty territories or
establish settlements in the countries of less advanced races. The country would
conquer the territory and civilize the native people. In sixteenth century, a great
irruption of European explored and took place other continents following the
discovery of the great ocean routes to India and the Americas. They colonized the
other continents with imperialism policy. (Atiyah, 1954, pp.8-9).
Colonization era still existed until late nineteenth century and the purpose
of colonization developed with the times, not only to conquer the new countries but
also to civilize the native people. It is because European belief that they were
superior ethnic group rather than other ethnic groups. They belief that their culture,
science, technology and their life style are more advanced rather than other ethnic
groups. On the other side, they believed that other ethnic groups are less advanced.
It is because other ethnic groups different from them in many ways.
This belief is known with a term called ethnocentrism. As stated in
www.interserveusa.org, ethnocentrism is a belief that an ethnic group is superior
and the others will be stamped as inferior. In oppressive conditions, ethnocentrism
enables inferior groups to follow the superior group’s culture over extended periods
of time known as colonialization era. The downside of ethnocentrism is that it
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causes people from superior ethnic group to look down on those who are from other
ethnic groups.
Moreover, colonization happened because it was related with imperialism
policy or it can be called as doctrine of imperialism based on the book entitled
Doctrines of Imperialism by A.P. Thornton. As stated in the following citation,
Thornton explains imperialism is
“less a fact than a thought. At its heart it is the image of dominance, of power asserted; and power is neither used nor witnessed without emotion. The colonizer who triumphed over nature and circumstance takes his place in the national story as a hero of his time; but the imperialist, forever using others for ends of his own, has bequeathed to his posterity the controversies that pursued him through life. Imperialism is therefore more often the name of the emotion that reacts to a series of events than a definition of the events themselves” (Thornton, 1965, pp. 2-3).
In addition, there are three doctrines of imperialism mentioned in the book. They
are The Doctrine of Power, The Doctrine of Profit, and The Doctrine of Civilization.
Those doctrines used by European man until the last colonization era and it had
spread in U.S.
Rudyard Kipling, a British writer, wrote his poems and stories set in India
during the period of British imperial rule. Of all his poems, he wrote a poem which
was originally entitled “The White Man’s Burden: The United States and the
Philippine Islands ". Lately, the poem is mostly known as “ The White Man’s
Burden ”. In 1898, Rudyard Kipling wrote the poem during U.S.’s war declaration
toward Spain. The war between U.S. and Spain was to free Cuba from Spain, though
that was not how the Cubans saw it. The peace negotiations led U.S. to be awarded
with Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.
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ethnic group who want to civilize native people in the Philippines and to invade the
land that they colonized. The purpose of civilization is to impose the white people’s
culture to the native people because they believed that their culture was better than
the culture of the native people.
Symbol is one of intrinsic elements in poetry. It is an object that represents
a certain idea. It is used in order to create certain imagination and invite the reader’s
engagement and comprehension about something that a poet wants to said. In
addition, symbol is used in order to clue the readers toward imperialism that is
implicitly described in the poem.
Another intrinsic element is imagery. Imagery relates to the word image.
According to Abrams & Harpham (2012) an image is a picture made out of words
and it is used “to signify all the objects and qualities of sense perception referred to
in a poem” (p. 169). Imagery also is classified into several types. There are Visual
Imagery, Auditory Imagery, Tactile Imagery, Thermal Imagery, Olfactory Imagery,
Gustatory Imagery, and Kinesthetic Imagery.
By analyzing the poem through the two intrinsic elements, the study uses
new criticism approach to analyze the poem. The study uses library research as the
method which involve the poem as the primary sources and the secondary sources
comes from theory books and some relatable academic journals.
B. Problem Formulation
Based on the background of the study explained above, the writer has
formulated two questions as follows:
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Burden”?
to deliver imperialism in Rudyard Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden”?
C. Objectives of the Study
According to the problem formulations as stated above, there are two
objectives of this study. The first, the study aims to describe how imperialism is
delivered in Rudyard Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden ”. The second, the study
aims to find out symbol and imagery, as the intrinsic elements, functioning the tools
to deliver imperialism in Rudyard Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden”.
D. Definition of Terms
In this definition of terms, there are three terms which will be explained in
order to reduce misinterpretation, which are:
1. Imperialism
According to Nadel and Curtis (1970), imperialism is the expansion of
sovereignty or control by one government, nation or society over another together
with the ideas justifying or opposing this proses. The expansion can be done by
whether direct or indirect also political or economy. Furthermore, the main point
from all forms of imperialism is the belief that adhere to the imperial agent or nation
in an inherent right. This belief based on moral superiority and material might, it is
to enforce its pre-eminent values and techniques on the inferior indigenous nation
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from a multiplicity of images” (Abrams & Harpham, 2012, p. 169). In other words,
imagery is a vivid form of description that appeal through the poem readers’ senses.
On the other side, according to Madden (2002) “an image is a mental picture
prompted by words”. The images that appeals to the readers’ senses from concrete
language (p. 62).
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A. Review of Related Studies
In the review of related studies, the writer uses one research and one
academic article that is related to this study. The first is a research conducted by
Indah Lestari from English Language Education Department at STKIP PGRI West
Sumatera in 2019. The title of the research is An Analysis of Imageries on the
Rudyard Kipling's Poem. In this research, she analyzed imageries found in two
poems written by Rudyard Kipling. Those are “The White Man’s Burden” and
“Mandalay”. The purpose of this research is to analyze the types of imageries and
their function in the two poems.
She used two theories to analyze the imagery in the two poems. The first is
the theory of imagery based on Edgar Robert’s theory in 1995 in order to determine
the types of imagery. According to the theory, there are six types of imagery which
are visual imagery, auditory imagery, kinesthetic imagery, tactile imagery,
gustatory imagery, and olfactory imagery. The result of this research is there are
four types of imagery found in the two Kipling’s poem entitled “The White Man’s
Burden” and “Mandalay”. Those are visual imagery, auditory imagery, kinesthetic
imagery, and olfactory imagery. Specifically, visual imagery is the most frequent
imagery appeared in the two poems. However, tactile imagery and gustatory
imagery cannot be found in the two poems. The second is theory of the function of
imagery referred to Hassanudin (2012). Based on the theory, the function of
