Palacios 1

Grislean Palacios
Dr. Lynda Haas
WR 37
February 22, 2015
Metaphors of Isolation
Anthropomorphism, The Jungle Book, and Disney all come to mind when we
think of characters like Mowgli and Baloo from the childrens story most of us love, The
Jungle Book. Yet, there is more to The Jungle Book, than just Disney-fied characters
and a happy ending. The Jungle Book, on the scholarly level, is a story of isolation from
the world, not being able to fit in anywhere, basically a man without a home or a place
to fit in. The animal-human relationships expressed in the short stories are metaphors to
the life of author Rudyard Kipling and to his life in his home countries of Britain and
British Empire India; Literature expert Dylan J. Sirois and periodical writer John Walsh
both agree with the idea that Kipling tells the tale of isolation and desolation in his
personal life yet psychologists Diane Simmons and Elizabeth Welby see the metaphors
as a deeper perspective of childhood trauma faced by Kipling when he was exiled from
Britain to India by his parents. Rudyard Kipling utilizes metaphors in the short story
"Mowgli's Brothers, part of the collection of short stories in the book The Jungle Book,
to isolate Mowgli from both the animal and human world, turning him into an outsider
within both of his home countries, and left to survive on his own.