Alfred Noyes wrote The Empire Builders in the early 20th century. Despite the era in which it was written, there are several postcolonial themes regarding the hierarchy of differences. The tone of the poem is pessimistic, which is understandable since Noyes writes during the naturalist period of English literature. Noyes is aimed at the English middle class; those who “fulfill their duties as they come” (Noyes, 45). Use the article in the first person plural to create a connection between the readers and the narrator. Noyes, in his poetry, addresses two postcolonial themes of Christianity as a vehicle of colonization and the errors of European philosophy. In this essay I argue that the themes and structure that have been characterized in Alfred Noyes's The Empire Builders are essential to constructing the notion of hierarchy of difference. The hierarchy of difference helped create a colonial state, and since postcolonial theory primarily analyzes the legacies of the colonial period, it is essential to know the hierarchy of difference. I will divide my essay into three parts: in the first stage I discuss the structure of the poem and how it creates a hierarchy of differences. In the second phase I discuss the two themes mentioned above and how they establish a fragmented world between the West and the East. Finally, in the third stage, I discuss the conception of time discussed in the poem and its relation to postcolonial theory. The structure of the poem shows the hierarchy of difference in itself. The poem consists of six stanzas, all of eight lines each. The poem is divided into two sections: the first three stanzas describe the effects of the empire builder, and the last three stanzas describe the... middle of the paper... century. In conclusion, The Empire Builders can be interpreted through a postcolonial perspective as it produces many elements of the hierarchy of differences. Works Cited “Can Non-Europeans Think?” - Opinion. Np, nd Web. 17 February 2014. Chakrabarty, Dipesh. Provincializing Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2008. Print.Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth: Frantz Fanon. New York: Grove, 2004. Print.Noyes, Alfred. The empire builders. Oxford: The MacMillan Company, 1908. Print.Reade, Arthur Robert. Main currents of modern literature. Folcroft, PA: Folcroft, 1970. Print. Ritze, George and Zeynep Atalay. Readings in globalization: key concepts and major debates. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. Print. Rodney, Walter, A. M. Babu and Vincent Harding. How Europe underdeveloped Africa. Washington, DC: Howard UP, 1981. Print.