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Vol. 20, 2021
A new decade
for social changes
ISSN 2668-7798
www.techniumscience.com
9 772668 779000Technium Social Sciences Journal
Vol. 20, 926-934, June, 2021
ISSN: 2668-7798
www.techniumscience.com
A Critical Stylistic Analysis of the Ideological Positioning in
Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “If”
Amira Hasan Ahmed Saad
Affiliation: Language Instructor, English Language Institute, Jazan University
PhD Candidate, UNIMAS, Kuching, Samarhan, Malaysia
ameera.saad@yahoo.com; 18010064@siswa.unimas.my
Dr. Mona Lisa Sarbini
Affiliation: Associate Professor (Supervisor) – Faculty of Language and
Communication, UNIMAS, Kuching, Samarhan, Malaysia
E-mail address: szmonaliza@unimas.my
Abstract. This paper deals with the ideological positioning of the English poet, Rudyard Kipling
in a selected poem, entitled “If”, as regards to the theme of the heroic attributes of ―Wisdom,
Strength, and Courtesy. The researcher adopts a branch of stylistics, called Critical Stylistics, as
proposed by Jeffries (2010) in order to uncover the ideologies of the poet regarding the topic
concerned and how linguistic choices are used to display his ideas. The model is comprised of
ten tools of analysis which, upon being applied to the selected poem, have shown how the poet
exploits language resources in order to pass his ideology and influence his readers. In this paper,
the ten tools are presented as applied to the whole poem. The objective of the study is to examine
how Kipling’s poem astonishingly excels in giving advice and how it is easier to give advice
than being guided by it. The model of stylistics used in this analysis also includes in it these
tools that have predominantly been applied to small-scale qualitative analyses. Findings from the
analysis reveal the ways in which sets of beliefs and advice may be structured in the language of
wisdom and compassion, and, more specifically, the ways in which Kipling’s ideological
attitudes and assumptions are embedded in the structure of his poems. Moreover, how this poem
articulates the significance of burying the gap between the generations. The old should instruct
and the young in turn should listen and learn from the experiences of the old. Such ideological
assumptions about listening to the previous generation experiences and have the liberty to abide
by or reject their ways of thinking.
Keywords. Critical stylistics, CDA, Ideology, Model, Rudyard Kipling.
1. Introduction
Poetry has a distinct style and form. Style is the feature, or rather a key word, that distinguishes
poetry from all other genres of literature. The effect that a poem has on the reader is caused by
its style. And it is primarily dependent on the careful selection of words. Because a poem is
generally shorter than other literary genres, its power is most apparent. And the style is
determined by how these words are combined because poetry's distinctiveness appears in how
the ideas are expressed rather than what is said. And, inevitably, this foregrounding seems to
prioritize music and harmony in poetry. However, the prioritization of how something is said
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Vol. 20, 926-934, June, 2021
ISSN: 2668-7798
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in poetry should never lead one to believe that meaning is overlooked or undervalued, because
even these elements of music and harmony derive their evocative power from the semantic
power of the words chosen. Simpson believes that a successful stylistic analysis should conform
to three basic principles. Firstly, stylistic analysis should be rigorous; “it must be based on a
thorough and exact framework. It must be plainly stated and clearly expressed”. All the levels
selected for the analysis should be explained in detail one by one. Secondly, stylistic analysis
should be retrievable; “the analysis must be organized through explicit terms and criteria, the
meanings of which are agreed upon by other students of stylistics”. That agreement enables
other stylisticians duplicate the analysis and reach to a similar conclusion; to retrieve, in other
words, the stylistic method. Thirdly and lastly, stylistic analysis should be replicable; “the
methods should be sufficiently transparent as to allow other stylisticians to verify them, either
by testing them on the same text or by applying them beyond that text” (Simpson; 2004: 4).
Many poems were analyzed stylistically in different traditional (non-corpus) approaches and
critical stylistics is one of the latest approaches proposed by Jeffries (2010) in order to uncover
the ideologies of the poet regarding the topic concerned and how linguistic choices are used to
display his ideas. In this proposed poems, the poem used ,here, reflects the ideology of the time
when it was written. Fairclough(2000) puts it that discourse is a particular way of representing
social life, which is also poems do. The selected poem was written by Rudyard Kipling (1910)
in the beginning of the 20th. Century. The poem will be analyzed as proposed by Jeffries(2010)
and extract the ideology of the social life at that time using the ten tools mentioned in this model.
2. The poet
Rudyard Kipling, whose family are English, was born in India on 1865. He spent his childhood
there. Kipling was one of the most popular writers in England, in both prose and verse, in the
late 19th and early 20th centuries. Henry James said: "Kipling strikes me personally as the most
complete man of genius (as distinct from fine intelligence) that I have ever known." Rudyard
Kipling received Nobel Prize in 1907 for literature and mentioned as the youngest writer ever
to receive it. Among other honors, he was sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and on
several occasions for a knighthood, all of which he declined. Kipling's subsequent reputation
has changed according to the political and social climate of the age and the resulting contrasting
views about him continued for much of the 20th century. George Orwell called him a "prophet
of British imperialism". Literary critic Douglas Kerr wrote: "He [Kipling] is still an author who
can inspire passionate disagreement and his place in literary and cultural history is far from
settled. But as the age of the European empires recedes, he is recognized as an incomparable, if
controversial, interpreter of how empire was experienced. That, and an increasing recognition
of his extraordinary narrative gifts, make him a force to be reckoned with."
The poem was written in 1909 and published in the volume entitled “Rewards and Fairies”
(1910). The book contained the poem "If—." In a 1995 BBC opinion poll, it was voted the UK's
favorite poem. This exhortation to self-control and stoicism is arguably Kipling's most famous
poem. This poem talks about the characteristics which should be possessed by a man: self-
belief, patience, truthfulness, kindness and modesty (http://www.ool.co.uk/). Dillingham
(2005:187) mentions that ―‘If‘ is actually instructional in nature. It is about an older man who
teaches a younger person, possibly his son, some of the essential aspects of the heroic life. The
poem is about the heroic attributes of ―Wisdom, Strength, and Courtesy.
3. Stylistics and Critical Stylistics
Stylistics focuses on analyzing the style of text. Verdonk (2002) mentions that stylistics does
not only study the expression in language, but also the description of its purpose and effect. It
is further stressed by Fischer-Starke (2010), who defines that ― Stylistics combines the data of
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literary studies, that is, literary texts, with the analytic techniques and objectives of linguistics.
It thereby fills a gap within linguistics, since stylistics is the only linguistic discipline which
allows the analysis of literary texts and their literary meanings by way of linguistic techniques.
In stylistics, different language features can be observed at different levels: graphological,
phonological, lexical, and grammatical. In this paper, a branch of stylistics is to be used, more
specifically, critical stylistic approach. Jeffries(2010) asserts that the work of critical stylistics
was first inspired by critical linguistics and CDA(Critical Discourse Analysis). It is based on
the idea that linguistics could be used in real-world applications including the development of
critical understanding in the wider public. The word ‘critical’ is often used more narrowly to
imply a particular Marxist view of the problems of the society such usage sees ‘critical’ analysis
as being aimed solely for the viewpoint of the oppressed towards the dominant discourse
produced by the meaning makers: the politicians, business owners and media companies. This
would mean that critical analysis is aimed specifically at highlighting social qualities as they
are reproduced by the powerful(e.g. Fairclough,1992)
Critical stylistics distinguishes between two processes that lead to a better understanding:
interpreting and analyzing a text. An interpretation is an explanation of what the reader believes
a work means. On the other hand, a literary analysis is where the reader explores deeper
meaning and examines the different elements of a piece of literature. The goal of a literary
analysis is to broaden and deepen your understanding of a work. (critical= interpret,
stylistics=analyze)(Saad& Rajendran,2019). Critical stylistics is thus text-based analysis with a
particular critical purpose using analytical tools which can be used critically in the ideological
purpose. Here, the researcher uses Jeffries (2010) ten tools of analysis which, upon being
applied to the selected poem, have shown how the poet exploits language resources in order to
pass his ideology and influence his readers. It is important to note that critical stylistics and
CDA expose the underlying ideologies of texts. The general aim of critical stylistics is also
often to widen the range of the textual features that are used to draw conclusion about the nature
of the world created by the text and to some extent to make eclectic use of range of models to
cover such a broad set of features rather than tidying models.
Literary works are believed to be representations of human life. Many kinds of literary work
are produced as a result of the writers‘ personal life experience. For example, Maya Angelou’s
poems are related to her life as an Afro-American single mother who experienced rape and
racism. Literary works are also reflections of what happens in certain societies or events. Take
an example is a poem by Maya Angelou, entitled ―Caged Birds. In that poem, Angelou
describes the life of Afro American people who do not have freedom to think and perform.
Their life is compared to the life of birds which are caged. Their life is restricted, so they could
not reach happiness. The poem reflects racism and inequality experienced by the Afro American
people at the time when the poem was written.
4. Ideology of that time (1900-1910)
The years between Queen Victoria's death in 1901 and the start of the First World War in 1914
were years of growth and general prosperity, though the extreme inequalities which had
characterized Victorian London continued. By 1900 one out of five Britons lived in London,
with the population of roughly 5 million in 1900 rising to over 7 million by 1911. Edwardian
London was not without conflict, characterized principally by the burgeoning Women’s
Suffrage movement. The city became the epicenter for the nationwide suffrage movement
spearheaded by Emmeline Pankhurst and her Women’s Social and Political Union, which
moved its headquarters from Manchester to London in 1906 so it could better exert pressure on
the nation's political leaders.
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A 1909 report of the Poor Law Commission found that one third of the East End's 900,000
strong population lived in conditions of extreme poverty. The report also detailed the squalor
of conditions in these areas, with an average of 25 houses sharing every one lavatory and fresh-
water tap between them. One response to a dire lack of sanitation in London's poorest areas was
the provision of communal washhouses for bathing and clothes-washing; an average of 60,000
people each week used the 50 such bathhouses which existed across the city in 1910.
5. Critical Stylistic (Non-Corpus) Analysis of the poem “If”
The following analysis demonstrates how a qualitative analysis of the poem (short text) which
can provide insights into the ideologies being naturalized in the text. In this methodology, the
researcher plans to include the ten analytical tools suggested by Jefferies(2015 and finds out
how applicable they may be on the poem. The selected poem is ‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling. The
poem consists of (390) words. The ten textual-conceptual functions are to be applied on the
poem, namely, naming and describing, representing actions/events, equating and contrasting,
exemplifying and enumerating, prioritizing, implying and assuming, negating , hypothesizing,
presenting others’ speech and thoughts, and representing time, space and society.
Let us start the analysis by keeping each textual-conceptual function separate as it is possible
though they can still work jointly. It is easier for literary scholars to work on them this way
without falling in the trap of overlapping.
The poem consists of four stanzas with eight lines in each ( total of 32 lines as a whole).
5.1.Naming and Describing
There are many noun phrases in this poem, as the following list shows:
Noun phrases
1st. Stanza your head, all men, allowance , lies, hating (v+ing)
2nd. Stanza dreams , your master, thoughts, your aim, Triumph and Disaster, two imposters, the truth ,
Knaves , traps, fools
3rd. Stanza heap, all your winnings , one , turn , a word, your loss, heart, nerve , sinew , nothing
4th. Stanza crowds , virtue, kings , common touch, foes, loving friends, all men , minute ,Earth , men ,
my son
Table 1: shows how noun phrases are distributed in the poem
5.2.Representing Actions/ Events/ States
There are thirty seven verbs in this poem which break down into the transitivity categories as
follows:
Verbs
1st. Stanza can keep, are losing, blaming , can trust , doubt , can wait, by waiting
2 . Stanza being lied, being hated (passive), don’t deal, don’t give, don’t talk
nd
3rd. Stanza can dream , make(x2), dream, can meet, treat , can bear, to hear,
you’ve spoken, twisted, make watch, gave, stoop, build
4th. Stanza can meet, risk , lose , start again , breathe , can force, to serve ,are gone,
says, hold on
Table 2: shows the number of verbs in Kipling’s poem
Material action+ goal: 35
Material action event: 4
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Mental cognition: 2
Relational: 1
Verbalization: 3
In the poem, the actor is the addressee and all the verbs used are used to instruct the actor to
consider the advice and enjoy its consequences. The material verbs have been used frequently
showing that it is important to act as per the advice to lead a happy life and reach the ultimate
goal at least from the viewpoint of the poet and the poem and be eventually ‘the ideal man’
5.3.Equating and Contrasting
The poem has so many uses of oppositions which produce many instances of equating as shown
in the table below.
Situation Opposition
keep your head Others are losing theirs and blaming it on you
Trust yourself All men doubt you/make allowance for their doubting too
You can wait Not to be tired by waiting
Being lied Not to deal in lies
Being hated Don’t give way to hating
After acting as the above don’t look too good, nor talk too wise
you can dream Not make dreams your master
you can think Not make thoughts you aim
can meet Triumph and Disaster Treat them alike
can bear to hear the truth Twisted by knaves
watch the things you gave your life to, stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools
broken
you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss lose, And
start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss
you can force your heart and nerve and when there is nothing in you
sinew to serve your turn long after they are Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
gone
you can talk to the crowds and keep your nor lose the common touch
virtue or walk with kings
neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you
all men count with you, but none too much
you can fill the unforgiving minute sixty seconds’ worth of distance run
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son
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As seen from above, the emphasis is to put on the oppositions which are made up with the help
of conditional clauses sharing the same referent as a result of their appositional position. The
researcher has laid them out on separate lines to make them clear as shown in the above table.
The effect of this apposition is to create different situation that people can come across
throughout their lives no matter how negative and bitter but what really matters is the way we
act towards them. The poem is like a roadmap showing the proper way to act. Once followed
the Earth and all everything wished becomes at hand making the listener reach to completeness.
The “Man” as shown in the poem is the real person who would enjoy enormous characteristics
such as modesty, wisdom and self-confidence to become the real gentleman “ proposed by
Rudyard Kipling”. The main theme of ''If'' paints a picture of some real concerns about the
human world and the admirable goals that one must pursue. The poem "If" is a didactic poem.
It teaches a lesson about life. The speaker in the poem is possibly instructing his son on what to
do and not do to obtain or inherit the earth while he becomes a man. The speaker uses seemingly
contradictions of ideas, yet the paradox of ideas works: Kipling creates a paradox (the
combination of mutually exclusive ideas that, while seemingly contradictory, serve to make a
point in their contradiction) that is characteristic of the tone of the entire poem.
5.4.Exemplifying and Enumerating
The whole poem is a list of conditional sentences in the first type which indicates the possibility
of achieving and fulfilling to reach to the ultimate goal “ to have the Earth and to be a man”. It
is something that attainable and not far-fetched.
Prioritizing
The first two stanzas though made up of many clauses but there is no full stop to put an end for
the poet’s sentences. It has been also noticed that the poem goes on and closes at the end of the
second stanza with an exclamation mark(!). A sentence in the poem that exemplifies the issue
of prioritizing. You can see it represented diagrammatically below. This sentence has one main
clause and 2 levels of subordination. The subject is the second pronoun ‘you’, addressing
someone who could be the poet’s son or a younger person presenting a life with several
potentials trying to convey his image of an ideal person.
For instance,
If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you
Conditional clause subordinate clause
Figure 1. shows the type of clauses in a line from Kipling’s poem
5.5.Implying and Assuming
Rudyard Kipling believed that life has so many ups and downs which can in turn stop his / her
progress. Unless he has a set of ethics that helps him/her overcome all life’s obstacles to make
him in the end stronger and unbreakable. The first type of conditional sentences to reflect the
possibility of achieving the results as long as the listener adheres to the guidelines and listen to
the able advice with all ears.
5.6.Negating
As we have seen earlier that negating can co-occur with other textual-conceptual functions
especially in the equating and contrasting as in the following example:
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If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too
The textual-conceptual effects of negating are to produce a mental image of both positive and
negative scenarios, which in this case brings to the contradictory situations in life if a person
overcomes, he/she will reach to ideal state of a complete person owning the earth and all that
which in it.
5.7.Hypothesizing
Kipling’s poem is peppered with hypothesizing forms, such as conditionals (Jeffries,2015).
Many of these are at the highest level of structure (e.g. ‘if you can keep your head’) and this
emphasizes the fact that the whole poem is an old man experience. The effects of hypothesizing
in this way can be useful to a person who wishes to transfer over his personal thoughts and
experiences to a younger generation out of feeling responsible for the misleading information
passed to the young.
5.8. Representing time, space and society
Kipling’s poem was written in 1909 and published in 1910, three years after being awarded the
Nobel Prize. Although we can read the poem and witness how it sums years of experience and
wisdom, we can also wonder why such man whose political views as he aged made him
critically unpopular. In the New Yorker, Charles McGrath remarked, “ Kipling has been
variously labelled a colonialist, a jingoist, a racist, and an anti-Semite, a misogynist , a right-
wing imperialist warmonger; and – though some scholars have argued that his views were more
complicated than he is given credit for – to some degree he really was all those things. That he
was also fabulously gifted writer who created works of inarguable greatness hardly matters
anymore, at least not in many classrooms, where Kipling remains politically toxic.” In order to
scrutinize what has lead such a great talent to receive such harsh criticism, it is a must then to
consider “the period of time” before writing the poem- this means till 1909. This provides
additional insight on Kipling’s life, career and views which were gleaned from the three
volumes of The Letters of Rudyard Kipling. The volumes contain selected surviving letters
written by Kipling between 1872 and 1910; it is believed that both Kipling and his wife
destroyed. Writing in the Observer, Amit Chaudri remarks that the third volume of letters
reveals “the contractions of a unique writer; a loving father and husband who was also deeply
interested in the social, predominantly male pursuit of Empire; a conservative who succumbed
to the romance of the new technology [the automobile]; an apologist for England for whom
England was, in a fundamental positive way, a ‘foreign country.’ The poem If does not have a
conspicuous physical setting. However, after reading the poem one can visualize a scene in
which a father is speaking to his son and giving him the most valuable life lesson on how to
become a complete man. The token of personal philosophy and wisdom which the father
imparts to his son has universal validity.
6. Conclusion
The researcher could have defined each conceptual-textual function and gone roughly through
them without elaboration but presenting a practical example was the main goal of this article.
This current study was an attempt to analyze the poem using as many of analytical tools
suggested by (Jeffries,2010) as possible but one of them is not applicable. The one discussing
thought presentation since it is mostly used in novels ( Leech and Short, 1981) and the poem
language is mostly limited to conditional sentences.
Moreover, this analysis has enhanced further our understanding of poem language and how a
good piece of advice could transform the person to whom the advice has been given by
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ISSN: 2668-7798
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demonstrating the ways linguistic resources are deployed to communicate the potential ways
that is based on ideological evaluation of the time between (1900-1909).
The critical stylistic analysis has also shown a practical example of the investigation of textual
ideology using a mixture of critical linguistics and stylistics. The model presents a descriptive
linguistic analytical toolkits which is more comprehensive and more coherent than any other
single model available, in general. In compiling its inventory of textual features, Critical
Stylistics draws on all existing major linguistic models for the investigation of ideology. The
inventory is informed by lexical semantics, generative syntax, derivational morphology,
systemic functional grammar, pragmatics, and critical linguistics.
7. Appendix
If—
BY RUDYARD KIPLING (1910)
(‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
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And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
n/a
Source: A Choice of Kipling's Verse (1943)
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