In every country, sweat and tears have been shed to protect and preserve the long-established culture and beliefs of the people. However, when countries are in dire need of support they easily succumb to superior countries in the hopes of progress. When this happens, the imperialist seizes control of the vulnerable country, tearing apart their culture and taking away all their profitable goods. This policy of a powerful nation dominating the politics, economy, and society of a weaker nation is known as imperialism. The expansion of this policy began in Western Asia and China, but it later spread to the Mediterranean and the Middle East, leading to the Age of Imperialism from 1870 to 1914 when countries were motivated to take over other countries …show more content…
In the short poem “The White Man’s Burden”, the author Rudyard Kipling describes how the British intervene into other countries for the sole purpose of increasing their own economy. In the poem, the British are shown to feel that it is their moral obligation “To seek another’s profit, And work another’s gain” (Kipling, 11. 15-16). This stanza shows the British taking advantage over the countries whom they are supposedly “helping”. Instead of assisting other countries, Britain takes control of the specific factories in each country that can increase Britain’s economy when its good are exported back to Britain. Similarly, in the novel Nectar in a Sieve, Markandaya shows how a British tannery in an Indian village made lots of money for the British back home. According to Rukmani, “It was a great sprawling growth, this tannery. It grew and flourished and spread” (Markandaya 47). The tannery greatly influenced the local Indians living there and it acted as a great way to make loads of money from the Indians. Soon, the British working in the tannery were able to get Indians to work at the factory and this allowed them to make high-profit margins as they were selling their products for high amounts while paying their Indian workers minimally. Both the poem and the novel show imperialists dominating other countries’ economy and taking over their jobs. “The White Man’s Burden” poem shows how imperialists benefit from the work that others have done. This ties in with the evidence from the novel because the British tannery owner did not do any work; he just made money off the work that the Indians working at the tannery did. As shown, foreign countries enter into other countries in order to better their own