Summary
The poem ‘If’ is a father’s advice to his son. It is an
autobiographical work of Rudyard Kipling. Kipling wrote this
poem as a piece of advice to his son. The use of the second
person pronoun ‘you’ throughout the poem - is both a
personal address by the poet to his son and at the same time a
general address to every reader.
‘If’ is a didactic poem that gives the most valuable life lesson
on how to become a complete person.
The poem is divided into four stanzas of eight lines. Each of
the four stanzas deals with different life situations and the best
way to deal with them. Kipling presents the reader multiple
scenarios using the If-then conditional tense construction.
Each piece of advice begins with the word ’if’ which is the
first part of the conditional tense construction and the second
part comes at the end of stanza four in
“Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!”
There is only one complete stop in the poem – the
exclamation mark at the end. The poem, thus, is one long
conditional sentence. The sense is that ‘if you do this then that
will happen’. This also suggests that to become a complete
person is an on-going process that is difficult and challenging
as it will take a long time and considerable effort. “Rome was
never built overnight”.
The main theme of the poem is growing up and becoming a
complete person. The different sub-themes are rightful
behavior, modesty, balance, patience, self-belief, risk taking,
detachment, time management.
The several values or attributes listed in the poem are self-
control, believing in oneself, honesty, kindness, truthfulness,
humbleness, forgiveness, generosity, endurance, resilience,
being rational.
Through the first stanza, the poet offers his opinion on how to
operate during times of crisis. When the going gets tough and
things stop to work in our favor, we must not lose our
composure. We should be true to ourselves and not over-react
to the view of others or adopt them without full consideration.
To achieve this we should keep calm, trust in our decision,
control our emotions, be sensitive to other people’s view,
keep an open mind untouched by lies and hatred. In the last
line of the stanza, he warns us to never use what we have
arrogantly.
The second stanza tells us the correct way to pursue our goals
in life. The poet says that it is all right to have ambitions and
dreams in life but not to excess. We should treat success and
failure the same way. When people misinterpret our words in
order to serve their own agendas, we should not lose our
temper. Rather we should tolerate that and do not let them to
control our behavior or hinder us. And if our dream is
crushed, we should always be prepared to start again.
In the third stanza, Kipling tells us the very important life
advice of never giving up. The poet suggests to take risks and
if not successful must be willing to start afresh from scratch
but tell no one. Thus, we should keep on working driven by
the power of Will.
In the fourth stanza, the poet discusses the ideal way of
operating in life after success has been attained. He asks us to
be cautious of the heart numbing effects of success and
motivates us to not lose our compassion when talking to
common mass or become too proud when we walk with
Kings. He further says that a person is said to have achieved
true success when neither friends nor foes can cause any kind
of hurt in any way. The poet ends the poem with the parting
advice that we must use our time to the full. As Time does not
know how to forgive those who waste it. Towards the very
end of the poem, the consequence of doing all ifs is finally
revealed. Kipling says, if we fulfill all the conditions
mentioned so far, we can win this Earth and everything in it.
We can go to the top of the world and rule over everything.
And what is more, we shall be a complete and perfect human
being.
