White Man's Burden

This ad for soap is encouraging whites to teach members of other races cleanliness, just another interpretation of "white man's burden". In "White Man's Burden" Kipling's view of other every nationality other than European is inferior and in some ways childlike and because of so the Europeans take it upon themselves to save these people and teach them their western ways. This is simply defined as imperialism which means exposing one nation to another's practicing and forcing them to live this way under their rule. In lines 1-8 the entire plot of the poem can be interpreted, take on the task to help these savage people who don't know any better because it is was God wants and so it is your duty as whites."Take up the White Man's burden--Send forth the best ye breed--Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild-- Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child"

The Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre both can easily be tied into of the theme of "White Man's Burden" because both novels contain one important character Bertha or Antoinette. Bertha in Jane Eyre was depicted as a lunatic from the imperialized colony of Jamaica who Rochester just so happened to have taken as his wife. To seal his own fate he married a wealthy merchants step daughter and took it upon himself to change her but telling her what to wear, how to smell, and even changing her name to Bertha. What right did he have to do so? In the Wide Sargasso Sea we get Antoinette's side of the story when the emancipation was passed and because of the color of her skin she was hated by both blacks and whites. Her step father Mason took it upon himself to put her away in a convent until she was of age and her step brother arranged a marriage for her to man who she did not know or love just to get her off his hands. Every aspect of her life seemed like a business deal which i suppose was because she was like property than a person since she was creole and not white.