Polarity of post-colonial discourse: a comparative analysis of the poems “The White Man’s Burden” and “The Black Man’s Burden”

Abstract

The main objective of this article was to analyze two inter-textually constructed texts: “The White Man’s Burden” and “The Black Man’s Burden”. An attempt has been made to show the ambivalent portrayal of   colonizers and their colonies in which it technically states the polarized discourses that scholars have towards postcolonial literary theory in particular and post-colonial philosophy in general. While polarity of ideas is inevitable as life is an interactional process of individuals, it is believed that the very essence and fate of post-colonial literature and post-colonial philosophy at large remain contentious.  Some scholars are in favour of the conceptions and objectives advocated by postcolonial theory, whereas others posit against the point in focus. Both sides have their own justifications. Thus, the background, and the conceptual framework which indicates some conceptual descriptions on the idea in focus has been made. And then, a conclusion from the analysis of poems was made. As we can understand from the titles of the poems, “The White Man’s Burden” and “The Black Man’s Burden” where the first poem  leads readers to access the latter  in the form of parody. The opposition is  composed in verse level of the poems, and that is why the poems (though they might have different versions) have the same number of lines; the pattern of writing is composed by providing the parody of each /line, even in some cases, the opposition is  composed in word level of each line of verse.