Rikki Tikki Tavi Lesson 1

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 4

Welcome you lovers of stories and English! 

Let's start in ......................................................

minutes

00:12

Where is this video situate

1. India
2. In my garden
3. Indonesia

01:48

What does this video have to do with the story of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi?

01:53

"Rudyard Kipling would be proud"
Who is that and why would he be proud?

Kipling

Watch the following video and take notes.

 Who was Kipling?

 What did he write?

When did he live?

 Where did he live? 

How would that influence his writings? 

Kipling wrote a famous book, called

1. Alice in Wonderland
2. The Jungle Book
3. Wind in the Willows
4. Harry Potter

Where did Kipling live?
Why that important to his writings?

What do you know about British Colonialism?

Introduction

For hundreds of years, Europeans traded with Africa and Asia. They mostly stayed along the coast, where they built trading posts and plantations. This changed during the nineteenth century. A search for raw materials and the motivation to rule a huge empire led to imperialism, the occupation of large parts of the world by European countries.

This is the original Watercolour painting by James E McConnell, painted in 1973

The Battle of Isandlwana on 22 January 1879 was the first major encounter in the Anglo-Zulu War between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom. Eleven days after the British commenced their invasion of Zululand in South Africa, a Zulu force of some 20,000 warriors attacked a portion of the British main column consisting of about 1,800 British, colonial and native troops and perhaps 400 civilians.

Building an empire in Asia (2)

If their land was not suitable they had to work for the government for 66 days. Local rulers were allowed to collect the taxes, and they even got bonuses, which led to exploitation of the farmers. The cultivation system led to famine and poverty and made the Dutch very unpopular.

Some inhabitants of Indonesian islands kept resisting imperialism, such as the people of Aceh. The Dutch army was technologically superior, but the local inhabitants resisted bravely. The Aceh war was the bloodiest war in Dutch colonial history. The natives defended their island in a war that lasted from 1873 until 1914. Historians estimate that it took the lives of more than a hundred thousand people.

The white man’s burden

In 1899, the British novelist Rudyard Kipling wrote ‘The white man’s burden’. In this famous poem he describes a task for Europeans and Americans - the ‘white men’ - to bring civilisation all over the world.

Kipling’s poem is filled with a feeling of white supremacy. This kind of racism was a cultural reason for Europeans to send their armies to Africa and Asia to take over lands. The burden, as Kipling calls it, had to be carried as best as possible to teach ‘savages’ about education, medical care and especially Christianity. People outside the Western world were seen as less developed and sometimes portrayed as such. The colonies would flourish as long as a European country governed it.

This cartoon depicts a representation of Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem “The White Man’s Burden”. It was now Britain’s and the United States’ (which had annexed the Philippines) moral duty to develop and modernise the conquest lands in order to help carry the foreign ‘barbarians’ to civilisation. Published in 1899.

Rudyard Kipling also wrote The Jungle Book.

"Kipling was an imperialist"
What was important to spread across the world according to Kipling?

1. Civilians
2. Civilisation
3. Religion
4. Wealth

Think of a question a classmate might still have about today's lesson

Which characters did you come across while reading the story?

Assignment

After reading the story , work on analysis of one of the elements of a short story: characters, setting, plot, themes or literary devices in project groups.

Hand in in Google Classroom  

Listen

Listen to the following poem.

'If' by Rudyard Kipling

You also have the printed version in Google classroom material.

0

What is the poem about?

This poem was written is 1910. In your opinion, is it still relevant today? Why?