Rights, Duty, and Kipling

Few famous poets, novelists and short story writers have felt the scorn of time more than Rudyard Kipling. He is reviled for his moral failures and for being the “poet of Empire”.

There's more than a grain of truth in these complaints, but Kipling (who was, after all, a Nobel Prize winner) was the poet of profession more than of Empire. His stories are about gaining entry into the various exclusive clubs of professionalism, and soldiers, sailors, railway workers, and journalists go through initiation after initiation.

Now rights and duties are clearly flip sides of the same coin. The right to life simply states that other people have a duty not to kill you. The right to liberty means others have a duty not to imprison or enslave you.

We like to think of “rights' as something WE have, but they are really something other people have: a duty to respect our so-called rights.

What does this have to do with Kipling? Kipling repeatedly scorns “rights”, and emphasizes duty/ I think that this – more than his affiliation with the Raj – that confuses and disappoints modern readers.

In “Private Honor” Ortheris gets in a fist fight with an officer who hit him.

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‘It was your right to get him cashiered if you chose,’ I insisted.

‘My right!’ Ortheris answered with deep scorn. ‘My right! I ain’t a recruity to go whinin’ about my rights to this an’ my rights to that, just as if I couldn’t look after myself. My rights! ’Strewth A’mighty! I’m a man.’

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In the poem ”That Day” about a military disaster a verse near the end reads:

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We was rotten ’fore we started—we was never disciplined;
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We made it out a favour if an order was obeyed.

Yes, every little drummer ’ad ’is rights an’ wrongs to mind,

So we had to pay for teachin’—an’ we paid!

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For Kipling, emphasizing “rights' is for whiners, emphasizing duty – duty for which one must be trained and prepared – is for men (no apologies to the women, of course).

This is not brand new – it is an important facet of chivalry. But in literature, before Kipling, professional life was limited to battles and adventures. Kipling brought us into the barracks and the City Rooms. Even Mowgli must be initiated into the Law of the Jungle, and the duties of the Pack.

“Rights”, says Kipling, are for whiny recruits who need to be taught a lesson. Duty. Perhaps it is a lesson modern readers don't want to learn.

Even in the children's book Reward and Fairies the constant refrain of the historical characters they meet is "I had no choice. What else could I have done?"

Perhaps another reason for Kipling's declining reputation is the popularity of "If". How many school children have memorized and recited this jingoistic poem? Kipling was talented (even his most severe critics must admit that he could write). So "If" is well done, for what it is. But Kipling is essentially a story-teller, and "If" fails to give the reader access to his talent. Some of the same sentiments are expressed in his story poems, like "The Ballad of East and West", and those poems are (in my opinion) far superior.

My high school teachers were also in love with "O Captain, My Captain", Walt Whitman's jingoistic tribute to the assasinated Abraham Lincoln. It wasn't until I read Whitman's better poetry as an adult that I learned how good his poetry is.

I loved The Jungle Book. I liked Kim. I like If, but I am not too sure about his poetry. I read Rikki Tikki Tavi about a year and was taken aback with its violence. I remembered the cartoon fondly from childhood, but on re-reading it seemed like a gangster moving into another crime family's territory and wiping them out. I remember hearing The Cat That Walked by Himself quoted on an episode of the animated Batman series, and thinking it rather good. The poem If was voted Britain's favourite poem some years back, but I don't know how it would do these days.

Geez, Kev! What's with the anti-violence? First you can't stand Frank Gresham because he horse-whipped the cad who jilted his sister, and now you dislike Rikki-Tikki-Tavi because he saved a family of humans from king cobras. Get with the Kipling program! Didn't Mowgli wipe out all those dholes? Were you rooting for Nag and Nagina?

I think "If" is a favorite poem of people who don't really love poetry (which, admittedly, probably constitutes a majority).

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Originally Posted by Ecurb

Geez, Kev! What's with the anti-violence? First you can't stand Frank Gresham because he horse-whipped the cad who jilted his sister, and now you dislike Rikki-Tikki-Tavi because he saved a family of humans from king cobras. Get with the Kipling program! Didn't Mowgli wipe out all those dholes? Were you rooting for Nag and Nagina?

I think "If" is a favorite poem of people who don't really love poetry (which, admittedly, probably constitutes a majority).

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I thought it was rather Old Testament the way Rikki went after Nag and Nagina. He destroyed all their eggs too. He killed another, still poisonous, but less harmful snake. He's an out-and-out killer. He enjoys it.

I looked at the list which 'If' topped. To me it looked like most of the top poems were those people learnt at school. I could not see Chicken Town by John Cooper Clark anywhere.