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How does Kipling depict the native populations of colonized areas in "The White Man's Burden"?

In "The White Man's Burden," Kipling depicts the native population in a uniformly negative way. In the first stanza, for example, Kipling suggests that these people are "half devil and half child," which emphasizes their cultural inferiority and religious differences. This is also reinforced in the final stanza when Kipling calls them "heathen."


In the next stanza, Kipling switches his focus and looks at the personal characteristics of the colonized people. They are excessively proud...

In "The White Man's Burden," Kipling depicts the native population in a uniformly negative way. In the first stanza, for example, Kipling suggests that these people are "half devil and half child," which emphasizes their cultural inferiority and religious differences. This is also reinforced in the final stanza when Kipling calls them "heathen."


In the next stanza, Kipling switches his focus and looks at the personal characteristics of the colonized people. They are excessively proud ("to check the show of pride") and have a propensity to violence ("to veil the threat of terror"). In addition, Kipling says that the colonized people are less intelligent than the imperialists through his suggestion that they need "open" and "simple" speech in order to understand.


Finally, Kipling stereotypes colonized people as being disease-ridden and suffering from famine:



Fill full the mouth of famine


And bid the sickness cease.



In other words, the colonized people need imperialism to save them from this life of suffering and sin. 

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