The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
"The Jungle Book" by Rudyard Kipling is a collection of stories primarily centered around a young boy named Mowgli, who is raised by wolves in the Indian jungle. The narrative explores Mowgli's adventures as he navigates life among various animal friends, including Baloo the bear and Bagheera the panther, while facing the threats posed by Shere Khan, a formidable tiger. The stories highlight themes of belonging, identity, and the conflict between civilization and the natural world. While the Mowgli tales are the most well-known, the collection also features other stories that delve into the lives of different animals, such as the brave mongoose Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and the seals in "The White Seal."
Kipling's work was published during the time of the British Empire and reflects elements of that context, including a complex portrayal of colonialism. Many readers associate the tales with adventure and moral lessons, yet they also invite critical examination regarding their depictions of characters from different cultures and the underlying messages about power and dominance. The stories have left a lasting impact on literature and have inspired adaptations in various media, although they are often simplified, focusing mainly on Mowgli's narrative. Kipling's keen observations of nature and his ability to weave rich, imaginative tales have solidified his position as a significant figure in literary history.
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The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
First published:The Jungle Book, 1894; The Second Jungle Book, 1895; both illustrated
Type of work: Adventure tales
Themes: Animals, nature, friendship, and coming-of-age
Time of work: The late nineteenth century
Recommended Ages: 10-13
Locale: India and the Arctic region of North America
Principal Characters:
Mowgli (Little Frog) , an Indian boy whose adventures among wild animals from the age of seven to early manhood form the central story line of the twoJungle Books Shere Khan , the tiger who has sworn to kill Mowgli and devour himRaksha , the Mother Wolf who suckled Mowgli and raised him as one of her own wolf cubsBaloo , a wise brown bear who teaches Mowgli the Law of the Jungle and the languages of all the animalsBagheera , a black panther who also serves as Mowgli’s friend and tutor
The Story
The first three selections of The Jungle Book are the best-known stories about Mowgli. “Mowgli’s Brothers” establishes the core situation.
At the age of eleven, Mowgli knows nothing about human civilization but has learned to speak the languages of all the wild animals. His best friends, besides the wolves he grew up with, are a bear, a panther, and an enormous python. His hated enemy is Shere Khan, a man-eating tiger. In this first story, Mowgli is expelled from the jungle because he is becoming a man, the creature hated and feared by all wild animals. In “Kaa’s Hunting” an earlier adventure is recounted in which seven-year-old Mowgli is kidnapped by monkeys and rescued by Baloo, Bagheera, and Kaa the python. “Tiger! Tiger!” follows the banished Mowgli into an Indian village, where he is regarded as a freak and cruelly tormented. A kindly woman adopts him and teaches him human speech. Eventually, he becomes a hero to both the humans and the wild animals by killing the hated Shere Khan. Mowgli is now recognized as king of the wild animals. He rejects human society and returns to the jungle.
The other four stories in the first edition of The Jungle Book are not about Mowgli. “The White Seal” describes the life of seals in the Arctic. “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi,” the best-known of all Kipling’s animal stories, features a brave little mongoose who kills deadly cobras. “Toomai of the Elephants” and “Her Majesty’s Servants” both deal with the patient working animals of India.
The Second Jungle Book contains five more Mowgli stories. “How Fear Came” deals with a perilous time of drought in the jungle. “Letting in the Jungle” tells how Mowgli leads the animals on an expedition to destroy the village where he and his foster mother were mistreated. “The King’s Ankus” takes place in a ruined city where Mowgli discovers a fabulous treasure but scorns it because he knows what greed does to man. In “Red Dog,” Mowgli and his animal friends have to fight an enormous pack of wild dogs. In “The Spring Running,” all the animals are infected with the urge to mate, and Mowgli feels his alien condition as the lone human being among them. Another story about Mowgli, “In the Rukh,” is included in many editions, though not in the original ones; it concludes the Mowgli saga by relating how the wolf-boy finally marries and becomes a game warden under the British administration that ruled India at the time.
The Second Jungle Book also contains three stories that are not about Mowgli. “The Miracle of Purun Bhagat” is about an Indian holy man who, like St. Francis of Assisi, communicates with animals. “The Undertakers” deals with scavenging animals of India. “Quiquern,” another story about the Arctic, describes the struggle of Eskimo seal hunters to survive in a time of famine.
Context
The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book have been published in numerous editions and translated into many languages. In some editions, all the Mowgli stories appear together in one volume called The Jungle Book, and many readers have gotten the impression that all the Jungle Book stories are about Mowgli. This misapprehension has been strengthened by the fact that the Walt Disney feature-length animated cartoon titled Jungle Book (1967) as well as an earlier film adaptation titled The Jungle Book (1942) focused on Mowgli and ignored the other animal stories. This discussion follows the stories as they appeared in the original editions of 1894 and 1895, respectively.
Rudyard Kipling lived at a time when Great Britain ruled the largest empire the world had ever seen. He gloried in his country’s might and wealth and became the foremost literary defender of British imperialism. (His attitude is succinctly expressed in his famous poem “Recessional,” in which he speaks of his country’s “dominion over palm and pine.”) He was the most famous and successful writer of his day, but his reputation has suffered because of his identification with conquest, killing, and exploitation. His two Jungle Books have been criticized for appearing to preach the doctrine that might makes right. The few human beings who appear in them are mostly Indians who are depicted as inferior specimens of humanity. The few Englishmen who appear (in “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi” and “In the Rukh,” for example) are depicted as noble and wise guardians of their childlike subjects.
No one disputes Kipling’s genius as a storyteller. Like two of his early literary models, Edgar Allan Poe and Guy de Maupassant, he had the ability to fabricate characters and plots out of nothing more than a mood evoked by a natural setting, a face in the crowd, an overheard remark, an item in a newspaper, or something even less substantial. His creative genius is nowhere better exemplified than in some of the best stories in his Jungle Books, such as “The King’s Ankus,” in which he paints a haunting picture of a ruined Indian city so ancient it has been forgotten by mankind and is inhabited only by wild animals.
Kipling has had a great influence on other writers down to the present day. The Jungle Book stories have inspired such well-known works as Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes, Jack London’s The Call of the Wild, Ernest Thompson Seton’s Wild Animals I Have Known, and Hugh Lofting’s Dr. Doolittle stories. Kipling’s philosophy of stoicism, courage, and self-reliance (summed up in his famous poem, “If”) can be seen reflected in many of his successors, most strikingly in the works of one of America’s most influential fiction writers, Ernest Hemingway.
Kipling’s love of nature is particularly significant at a time when ecological destruction is humanity’s greatest concern. He foresaw that man’s mechanical inventions, a symbol of human greed, were a threat to nature and to the human soul. In this respect, he suggested that Western man should learn from the more spiritual, less materialistic races he had conquered. This is best exemplified in “The Miracle of Purun Bhagat.”
Kipling was a passionate traveler and observer. In another book of animal stories, the popular Just So Stories, he wrote:
Their names are What and Why and When
The uncanny powers of description of Rudyard Kipling are attributable to his zeal for direct personal experience. He set an example for contemporary writers—Jack London, Stephen Crane, Ernest Hemingway, D. H. Lawrence, Graham Greene, and W. Somerset Maugham—to leave their books and study lamps and go out to experience the world at firsthand. Kipling has been loved and hated, but his mark on modern literature is indelible.