Question

What do Rudyard Kipling's works reveal about his political views?


A) He favored colonization by the British.
B) He was against British imperialism.
C) He thought the British were unfair to the Indians.
D) He thought the colonies were a burden to the British.
E) He predicted that Britain would lose its colonies.

Answer 1

I believe the answer to be A. He favored colonization by the British. Kipling's works were harshly criticized for the politics in his literature. He supported the notion of the "white man's burden," in his work. He believed colonizing was a countries duty, or the "white man's burden" as Kipling puts it, to tame native populations.

Answer 2

The correct answer is the letter "A) He favored colonization by the British".

This can be seen in "The White Man's Burden" which is Kipling's shortest work. But those seven stanzas made the poem emblematic and most criticized to this day.  

The poem's message was simple enough: Kipling justified colonization not by the search for and exploitation of natural resources, but rather as a necessity to bring "civilization" to the most "backward" places on the planet.  

For him, european languages, Christian religion, techniques, education, medicine and even notions of hygiene should be taken to the "savages," that is, the non-whites. This was the "burden", the difficult and weighty mission of the "civilized" white man to the "sad people, half child, half demon".