This poem written at the beginning of the twentieth century is about Industrialization. The poet starts by describing how the machines are created, wrought and taken from the ore-bed and mines. The only requirement for the machines is water, coal and oil. Further, Kipling enumerates the various skills of machines, such as pulling, carrying, pushing, lifting, driving, printing, ploughing, weaving, heating, lighting, running, racing, swimming, flying, diving, seeing, hearing, counting, reading and writing. Machines do. exactly as it is programmed.
These machines have no feelings and any wrong handling can be dangerous for they are just machines with power invented by humans. The first intention of the poem reveals the progress of machines which is indeed a good thing for mankind. They make many things easier and facilitate the work of the humans. The second purpose is to express that a machine can never replace a human-being, because a machine is devoid of feelings being the child of human brain.
Hence man has full control over it, dependent on humans. By choosing the headline, “The secret of the machines” the poet wants to simplify that machines also have secret flaws where they don’t possess feelings nor identify a lie. Any slip in handling it means instant death.
At the time of mechanization, people gave importance to machines. So Rudyard Kipling wanted to make known the advantages and disadvantages of machines. I have come to the conclusion that the poem by Rudyard Kipling still has a current importance today and that for all advantages there are also disadvantages while using machines.
‘Industrialisation based on machinery, is a
revolution wrought by technology’.
