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ANIMALS IN LITERATURETHE JUNGLE BOOK

MOWGLI STORIESRUDYARD KIPLINGANIMALS IN LITERATURE:

Animals played a vital role in literature. Many of the authors tried their hands upon animals in their works. Animals had been deal not only in English literature but also in other literatures. In English literature the famous author

Rudyard Kipling

dealt with animals in his novel

‘THE JUNGLE BOOK’.ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Rudyard Kipling was born on 30

Dec, 1865 in Mumbai and Died on 18

Jan 1936. He was a British author and poet. He spends the first six years of his Childhoodin England. He went back to India and worked there for about six and half-years.

THEJUNGLE BOOK

was written when he lived in Vermont.

INTRODUCTION:“THE JUNGLE BOOK”

is a novel which includes seven collections of stories written by Rudyard Kipling. It is one of the best novels in the Victorian periodwhich deals with animals. The tales in Jungle Book includes three stories about Mowgliare fables, using animals in an anthropomorphic manner to give moral lesson.

THE JUNGLE BOOK –MOWGLI STORIES:

Gisborne, an English forest ranger in

India

at the time of the

BritishRaj

, discovers a young man named

Mowgli

, who has extraordinary skill at hunting andtracking, and asks him to join the forestry service. Later Gisborne learns the reason for Mowgli's almost superhuman talents: he was raised by a pack of wolves in the jungle.Kipling then proceeded to write the stories of Mowgli's childhood in detail. Lost by his

parents in the Indian jungle during a tiger attack, a human baby is adopted by the

wolves

Mother

(Raksha)

and

Father Wolf

, who call him Mowgli the Frog because of his furlessness.

Shere Khan

the

tiger

demands that they give him the baby but the wolves refuse.Mowgli grows up with the pack,

hunting

with his

brother wolves

. In the pack, Mowglilearned he was able to stare down any wolf, but his unique ability to remove the painfulthorns from the paws of his brothers was deeply appreciated as well.

Bagheera

(Black Panther)

befriends Mowgli, because both he andMowgli have parallel childhood experiences, as Bagheera often mentions, he was "raisedin the King's cages at

Oodeypore

from a cub, and thus knows the ways of man.

Baloo

the

bear

, teacher of wolves, has the thankless task of educating Mowgli in

The Law of the Jungle.

Shere Khan continues to regard Mowgli as fair game, but eventuallyMowgli finds a weapon he can use against the tiger —

fire

. After driving off Shere Khan,Mowgli goes to a human village where he is adopted by

Messua

and her

husband

whoseown son

Nathoo

was also taken by a tiger. We never find out for certain if Mowgli is thereturned Nathoo, although a hint that he might be is provided in the Jungle Book story"Tiger! Tiger!" where we learn that the tiger that carried off Messua's son was lame, justas Shere Khan is lame. On the other hand, while Messua would like to believe that her son has returned, she herself realises that this is unlikely.While herding

buffalo

for the village Mowgli learns that the tiger isstill planning to kill him, so with the aid of two wolves he traps Shere Khan in a

ravine,

where the buffalo trample him. The tiger dies and Mowgli sets to skin him. Seeing this,Buldeo, a jealous hunter goads the villagers into persecuting Mowgli and his adopted

parents as witches. Mowgli runs back to the jungle with Shere Khan's hide but soonlearns that Buldeo and the villagers are planning to kill Messua and her husband, so herescues them and sends

elephants

, buffalo and other animals to trample the village andits fields to the ground.In later stories Mowgli finds and then discards an ancient treasure, notrealising that men will kill to own it; and with the aid of

Kaa the python

he leads thewolves in a war against the

dhole (red dogs).

Finally, Mowgli stumbles across the villagewhere his adopted human mother (Messua), is now living, which forces him to come toterms with his humanity and decide whether to rejoin his fellow humans.THE ROLE OF ANIMALS:In the “JUNGLE BOOK” a human baby is adopted by the

wolves

mother Raksha. Bagheera {black panther}

befriends Mowgli, because both he andmowgli have parallel childhood experiences.

Baloo {the bear}

teacher of wolves has thethankless task of educating Mowgli in “The Law of Jungle”. He is a sleepy serious bear.

Shere khan (the tiger)

which acts against Mowgli and later it killed by him.

Kaa (thepython}

helps Mowgli when he leads the wolves in a war against the Dhole{the red dog).CONCLUSION:The jungle book as a classic is from the 19

century, but stillenjoyable in the 21

century. Walt Disney’s studios made the stories in to film and acartoon series for children and families. Children have thus been able to know the stories before reaching age and can then enjoy them in a different fact as well. The Kipling’sstories offer a marked perspective of a human origins and history as well as animal. InThe Jungle Book, he creates a magical world in which animals talk and reason.