Originally published: . Volume 7, No. 5. Source pages: 14.
The salience of concerns about belonging in literary classics, especially children’s stories, from The Ugly Duckling and Pinocchio to Harry Potter tell us that worries about adoption and alienation abide in human psychology. These concerns are central to Kipling’s classic, The Jungle Book, both in its original form and in its transformation in the 2016 Disney film by that name.
The basic story in both tellings is that of an orphaned child, Mowgli, who is raised by wolves, and the issues of belonging that arise because of his situation. Mowgli begins by thinking about himself as a wolf, a creature of the wild, and struggles with the problems of being accepted in that context, only to face problems in being human as well.
The Disney decision to adapt a classic invites comparison of the two versions. The major characters remain the same, Mowgli, the adopted child; Akela, the leader of the wolf pack; Raksha, Mowgli’s foster mother; Shere Khan, the man-killer tiger; Bagheera, Mowgli’s black panther protector; Baloo, the wolf- boy’s mentor; Kaa, the boa, an ambiguous ally.
The movie adds a new character, King Louie, a giant simian who fosters a plot to have his monkey subordinates kidnap Mowgli. His purpose is to persuade Mowgli to bring him the “scarlet flower,” fire, which the simian sees as the key to sharing, or maybe overthrowing, human domination. The riff on Prometheus seems heavy handed, and the incongruity is emphasized by the King’s breaking into a jazzy aria about wanting to be “…like youu…."
Missing in the Disney version is the hyena, Tabaqui, a sly trouble-maker who conspires with Shere Khan. Not missing, but greatly changed, is Baloo. In Kipling’s tale Baloo is the strict mentor who drills Mowgli in the Law of the Jungle and the Words of Power. The film presents Baloo as manipulative but bumbling conman with a heart of gold. An interesting character, to be sure, but one that mars the mood of grandeur and mystery in the wild that Kipling presents.
Mood and atmosphere differ in Kipling’s tale and Disney’s film. Disney, using special effects, creates an impressive virtual jungle of great beauty; Kipling, relying on lyrical language, helps us imagine and feel an exotic and mysterious locale.
In the film, Shere Khan menaces the wolf pack and Mowgli out of sheer evil and a lust for power. In Kipling’s tale, the tiger kills cattle and men because he is born crippled. His malice and hate are rooted in a physical defect.
The film has Shere Khan killing the aging leader of the pack and usurping his power until Mowgli lures the tiger to his death, permitting his foster mother, Raksha to become the pack’s leader.
In Kipling’s tale Akela, the aging pack leader, is not killed, but deposed when he fails to make a required ritual kill. He survives to help Mowgli in luring Shere Khan to his death. We know from Shere Khan and Mowgli’s first encounter that it is fated for one of them to kill the other. When Mowgli fulfills an early vow by bringing the slain tiger’s pelt to a meeting of the pack, the aging leader is restored to power.
The differing outcomes with regard to pack leadership is not a central point, but one suspects that Raksha’s becoming the pack leader is an attempt to modernize Kipling’s tale by avoiding gender stereotypes.
The more important and arguably more tragic outcome issue is that Mowgli does not have a home among wolves nor among humans. In both tellings, Kipling’s and Disney’s, the story ends with Mowgli, Baboo and Bagheera pictured as united, a group in the wild, one belonging neither in the pack nor among humans.
In the film, the trio is pictured as almost on a carefree vacation at a resort. In the book, the outcome is more ambiguous: the three remain together in the wild, but only for now. Mowgli will find it necessary to become more fully human in the future.
The Jungle Book provokes profound questions. To what degree does social identity depend upon group acceptance? To what extent is tool-using, Mowgli’s “tricks”—using of fire and the like— essential to our human nature? Are there social bonds that transcend utility?
This article is part of a historical newspaper archive. Read the original issue for its original layout, photographs and graphics.