White Man's Burden by Rudyard Kipling

At first we were confused as to whether Kipling was for or against imperialism. But once we really got into the reading we could see that he was an imperialist. Throughout, there is a pattern of the poet describing what good imperialism does and then following with the fact that the people don't want any part of what the larger force is trying to do for them. He makes them seem like ungrateful bums who don't appreciate what good has been brought to them. In a way his whole point seems to be to persuade the people of Britain to continue imperializing nations. But, it doesn't seem very convincing: it's a difficult, thankless job that you aren't going to enjoy. He doesn't make it sound very enticing. However, I was pretty excited to actually be able to figure out what each stanza was saying!