The Man Who Would Be King by Rudyard Kipling Book Review

📌Category: Books
📌Words: 465
📌Pages: 2
📌Published: 17 January 2022

Albert Einstein once said, “The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance.” Arrogance is an insulting way of thinking where someone believes they are better, smarter, or more important than other people. Arrogance is apparent in The Man Who Would Be King by Rudyard Kipling. In the story written by Kipling, arrogance has consequences as shown in the character of Daniel Dravot.

In the story, Daniel Dravot had built an empire on being arrogant. Dravot achieved this by allowing the locals to believe he was a God.This only encouraged his arrogant way of thinking, causing him to become more entitled. Dravot believed he was better than most. When he lied and told locals he was a God, it boasted his ego when the people began worshipping him. A way Dravot was able to uphold his lie of being a God was by introducing artillery to the locals. Locals had not known what artillery was prior to Dravot and Carnehan’s arrival. When he introduced them to what rifles were, locals thought these objects were innovative. This belief led to them further believing Dravot when he had claimed to be a God. Even though Dravot managed to build an empire on lies and arrogance, he also managed to destroy it.

Mr. Kipling’s story shows the audience how Dravot’s arrogance led to his death along with the downfall to his empire. Even though Dravot was contemptuous of accepting the status of a God, he refused to act like one. There were rules that had to be followed even by Gods. One of them was a mortal and an immortal could not be together. Locals saw this to be immoral. Dravot, however, did not care about this belief, and he broke the rule. He insisted that a woman would marry him. When he leaned in to kiss the unwilling woman, she bit his neck, causing blood to be drawn. This is what sparked the downfall of his empire. His arrogance led him to that exact moment of being bit on the neck. Because he believed he was above the Gods, influencing him to break a rule, he will now have to suffer the consequences. Locals were outraged when they saw Dravot’s blood. They had realized he was not immortal. They raged as Dravot tried to flee the scene. Dravot knew he could not escape the locals forever. Eventually, he went back. Dravot accepted a horrible death of standing on a rope bridge as insurgents cut away at the rope, forcing him to plummet to his death. In the end, Dravot ended up dying over something that could have been avoided if he just told the truth from the get go.

Dravot’s arrogance is evidently the reason why his empire was built as well as the reason why his empire crumbled beneath his feet. As the story continued, we learned arrogance can cause good things along with bad things. One can only assume that because Dravot was arrogant, his kingdom in conjunction with himself suffered the consequences.

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