summary of 'If' poem by Rudyard Kipling
Answers
Answer:
The poem ‘If’ by the India-born British Nobel laureate poet Rudyard Kipling is a poem of ultimate inspiration that tells us how to deal with different situations in life. The poet conveys his ideas about how to win this life, and after all, how to be a good human being.
The poem, written in 1895 and first published in ‘Rewards and Fairies’, 1910 is 32 lines long with four stanzas of eight lines each. It is a tribute to Leander Starr Jameson. The poem is written in the form of paternal advice to the poet’s son, John.
For the theme, as already told, the poem basically tells us the conditions that we should meet to succeed in life and make this life happy and a beautiful one. The whole poem is written in a single complex sentence. So all the subordinate clauses begin with ‘if’ and the main clause concluding the entire theme comes at the end, and the poem ends with a full stop.
This structure of the poem was important to achieve the conditional goal. The poet speaks of the achievement at the end, after discussing all the requirements to reach there. This structure is actually symbolic in suggesting that you can get the rewards only after you have fulfilled the preconditions. Moreover, this makes the readers eager to know what would happen when we meet all these conditions, thus retaining the curiosity and interest till the end.
And, as the main theme of the poem is a combination of so many if’s, the title ‘If’ is an apt one for the poem.
Now it’s time to go for an analysis of the poem.
Explanation:
Summary & line by line explanation of ‘If’
First Stanza
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
To be a good human being and to succeed in life, we should keep calm when other people around us are losing their cool. We should not lose our temperament even if others are blaming us for their fault.
Losing the temper does not solve a problem, rather intensifies that. Keeping the head cool makes us think wisely to face those tough situations, and ultimately a solution comes out.
We should have the faith in ourselves, even when others doubt us. But after that, we should give some importance to their doubt too and try to find out what may be the reason for their suspicion. After all, ‘To err is human…’.
So, By keeping faith in ourselves we make sure that we don’t get demoralized or disheartened. And, by allowing others’ doubt a little space of thought, we ensure that we are not doing something wrong knowingly or unknowingly.
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
We should work hard and wait for the result patiently. We should not get tired by waiting.
There are a number of real life examples where people missed big opportunities only by losing their patience. Moreover, there goes a number of proverbs. “Hurry will bury you.” “Haste makes waste.” “Patience pays off.” So, it’s quite understandable why the poet makes a point for patience here.
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
People may lie about us to others, but we should not indulge ourselves in lies. In other words, we should always remain truthful.
If we are misled or tempted to lie, people would ultimately discover the truth and won’t believe us anymore. That’s why it’s important to speak the truth even if that hurts us.
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
People may show their hatred towards us, yet we should not hate them. We should show our love and respect to others.
No man or woman is perfect in this world. Everyone has his strengths and weaknesses. We have to accept that and respect them for the good qualities in them.
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
We should not show us as too good a person or talk too wisely with common people, even after possessing such qualities.
Having acquired all these good qualities mentioned above, people generally feel proud and tend to show off how good they are. But, the poet warns us not to go that way. In that case, others would feel uncomfortable in our company and avoid us. Even others may try to prove us wrong at any cost, leading to an unhealthy competition.
Explanation:
To be a good human being and to succeed in life, we should keep calm when other people around us are losing their cool. We should not lose our temperament even if others are blaming us for their fault.
Losing the temper does not solve a problem, rather intensifies that. Keeping the head cool makes us think wisely to face those tough situations, and ultimately a solution comes out.
We should have the faith in ourselves, even when others doubt us. But after that, we should give some importance to their doubt too and try to find out what may be the reason for their suspicion. After all, ‘To err is human
So, By keeping faith in ourselves we make sure that we don’t get demoralized or disheartened. And, by allowing others’ doubt a little space of thought, we ensure that we are not doing something wrong knowingly or unknowingly.
We should work hard and wait for the result patiently. We should not get tired by waiting.
There are a number of real life examples where people missed big opportunities only by losing their patience. Moreover, there goes a number of proverbs. “Hurry will bury you.” “Haste makes waste.” “Patience pays off.” So, it’s quite understandable why the poet makes a point for patience here.
People may lie about us to others, but we should not indulge ourselves in lies. In other words, we should always remain truthful.
If we are misled or tempted to lie, people would ultimately discover the truth and won’t believe us anymore. That’s why it’s important to speak the truth even if that hurts us.People may show their hatred towards us, yet we should not hate them. We should show our love and respect to others.
No man or woman is perfect in this world. Everyone has his strengths and weaknesses. We have to accept that and respect them for the good qualities in them
We should not show us as too good a person or talk too wisely with common people, even after possessing such qualities.
Having acquired all these good qualities mentioned above, people generally feel proud and tend to show off how good they are. But, the poet warns us not to go that way. In that case, others would feel uncomfortable in our company and avoid us. Even others may try to prove us wrong at any cost, leading to an unhealthy competition.