The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #160996   Message #3821891
Posted By: Jeri
21-Nov-16 - 01:00 PM
Thread Name: Gunga Din. Racist or just of its time?
Subject: RE: Gunga Din. Racist or just of it's time?
There's a level of understanding that involves something more than literal translation. I hear Kipling ridiculing the common beliefs of the time that non-white English folks are superior. The voices in the poem express that, while everything Kipling, and the first-person in the poem shows how wrong they are.

The poem IS "of its time" but the racist element is what it's calling out as ignorant and wrong.