MAHARASHTRA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, NAGPUR

B.A.LL.B.(Hons.) Year-I, Semester-II: Academic Year : 2021-2022

First Open Book Assessment, February-2022

Course Code and Name: 2.5 ENGLISH-II (Law and Literature)

Name of Student: Prashant Shukla UID: UG-21-81

Question 3.

The animals grouped in the law of the jungle suggest imperialistic undertone. Justify the
aforementioned statement with reference to Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book.

Answer 3.

The Jungle book (1894) written by Rudyard Kipling is actually an allegorical representation
of modern life influenced and ruled by various politics. Book characters became extremely
popular in 1967, after the book- inspired cartoon got released.

The stories tell mostly of Mowgli, an Indian boy who is raised by wolves and learns self-
sufficiency and wisdom from the jungle animals. The stories are set in an Indian forest, with
"Seonee" (Seoni), in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, being a frequent setting. The book
describes the social life of the wolf pack and, more fancifully, the justice and natural order of
life in the jungle. Among the animals whose tales are related in the work are Akela the wolf;
Baloo the brown bear; Shere Khan, the boastful Bengal tiger who is Mowgli’s enemy;
Tabaqui the jackal, Shere Khan’s obsequious servant; Kaa the python; Bagheera the panther;
and Rikki-tikki-tavi the mongoose.

The verses of The Law of the Jungle, for example, create laws for the protection of
individuals, families, and societies. Kipling put almost everything he knew or "saw or
imagined of the Indian jungle" in them. Other readers have interpreted the work as allegories
of contemporary politics and culture.

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Imperialism as the underlying theme of The Jungle Book

Imperialism is defined as the extension of one government's, nation's, or society's rule or

influence over another. Imperialism is closely related to empire and therefore tends to place
more emphasis on the ruling power and its intent to expand its dominion, as well as on the
expanded empire itself, with its distinct parts subsumed under the banner of the dominating
force.

Rudyard Kipling portrays imperialism in India in The Jungle Book. These stories' characters
could reflect both British and Indian people vying for power. These socioeconomic duties are
represented by characters such as the wolves, Mowgli, Shere Khan, Bagheera, and Baloo.

Imperialistic Mowgli who is too troubled for his own good finds comfort in the ‘chill’ and in
other words lazy blue bear who just so happens to go by Baloo, the bear takes care of Mowgli
in the Indian jungle ensuring his safety and happiness for the most part. The tragic story of
Mowgli being abandoned by his birth parents at birth to be raised by wolves, who eventually
must also send him on his way leads the young child on an adventure of a lifetime that comes
back to haunt him. The experiences Mowgli receives in the jungle make him an immediate
threat to mankind for they do not fully understand him. Mowgli the man-cub, the young
imperialist too knowledgeable about animals to fit in with his own kind, meanwhile too
human to stay in the jungle with the animals he would grow to hate the unique child who
brought fear into the simple minds of both populations.

When reading this seemingly innocent children's book the underlying messages became
apparently clear in the terms of the monkeys. King Louie and his minions were unlike all the
other characters as they did not have a British accent, the monkeys were also not as calm and
‘civilized’ as the other creatures throughout the film. When Mowgli encounters King Louie
for the first time in his crumbling empire of a home he is welcomed with a song. Within this
song is the message implying imperialistic views of both the white man’s burden and Anglo
saxonism as the King sang “Now I’m the king of the swingers Oh, the jungle VIP I’ve
reached the top and had to stop And that’s what botherin’ me I wanna be a man, man-cub And
stroll right into town And be just like the other men I’m tired of monkeyin’ around!... Oh,
oobee doo I wanna be like you I wanna talk like you Talk like you, too You’ll see it’s true An

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ape like me Can learn to be human too.” Within this quote as the King states he ‘wants to be a
man’ is an example of Anglo saxonism for as the monkeys wish to be like Mowgli fits the
generalization that to be like the superiors is to be a superior for in this term humans are
supposed to dominate the world. The white man’s burden shows as the King sings of being
“tired of monkeyin’ around… an ape like me can learn to be human too” where people have
changed the culture of other populations to envy their own to justify colonialism. King Louie
gives these views in a nice, friendly manner that for a child would not be understood for they
see the monkeys singing and dancing as Mowgli enjoys the show being shown seemingly
equal.

The Jungle Book includes subliminal messages of imperialism as in the terms of a nation

exercising political or economic control over a smaller nation. Mowgli the “man-cub” is
portrayed as the larger nation for he is a human, though he has been raised by animals in the
wild. Throughout the movie we see signs of Mowgli revolutionizing a few animals as they
“require man's red flower” describing fire. There are many different terms for fire that are
used within the movie as the creatures are terrified of fire. The idea of fire is yet another
example of how Mowgli is the higher power, the more revolutionized person throughout the
movie. The main idea for the movie and the way it relates to imperialism is that Mowgli is the
larger nation, the one all others look up to. The monkeys represent the uncivilized and
illiterate population as their characters are all portrayed as chaotic and close-minded. The role
of Mowgli is to teach these and take care of them, Mowgli is what the monkeys aspire to be,
they are Mowgli before his evolution. 

Kipling's evocation of English imperial and colonial endeavors in India is more implicit than
explicit, but it is certainly there. Examples of how significant this historical context was for
the development of his tales can be seen in:

1) The lauding of the law, seen as a British colonial construction;

2) The hierarchy present in the world of the animals that corresponds to the hierarchy of
English ("good" native and "bad native");
3) The primacy of whiteness (in "The White Seal");
4) The echoes of the 1857 Mutiny and the punishment of rebel Indians (in "The
Undertakers");
6) the fear of native "madness" and contamination; and

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5) The eradication of Shere Khan, the dangerous outlier representative of bad natives. These
are only a few specific examples, but overall Kipling depicts a world that the colonizer makes
organized and orderly and that, consequently, is good and just. He uses Social Darwinism to
justify hierarchy and implies that there are "natural" characteristics present in
races/nationalities/species.

Kipling was born in India, a complex and contradictory country of jungle and desert,
mountain and plain, drought and monsoon; a country populated by a bewildering number of
ethnicities and religions, languages and customs; a country with a large number of native
princes but ultimately under the rule of white Europeans. His works reflect imperialism and
empire as moral parts of the world, and he frequently encourages child readers to accept
imperial values.

How do the terms "home" and "nation" change in the context of imperialism? The concept of
home is linked to another common metaphor for empire, that of family, with Queen Victoria
and England as the mother, and colonised peoples as children who are too immature and
unstable to govern themselves and thus reliant on an older and wiser nation.

As shown in The White Man's Burden, the Law of the Jungle, a set of laws developed by the
jungle animals to protect their safety, depicts the order Kipling desires to impose upon India.
* It's not just any forest; "it's India as jungle," as the author describes it, and it symbolises the
imperialist era in which it was written. The wolves that inhabit there are known as "Indian
wolves," thus the rainforest is named after them.

Shere Khan, too, disobeys imperialistic law and suffers as a result. Shere Khan begs that the
wolves give him Mowgli because of the boy's "racial difference," as demonstrated by the line
in which he asks the wolves to give him Mowgli.

Conclusion

The Law of the Jungle's animal classification system may have imperialistic overtones. The
wolves, who recite a poem about the Law frequently, Baloo, the Law's instructor, and
Bagheera, who remembers a Law that rescues Mowgli, are all depicted as morally upright
animals. Lawless monkeys and the law-breaking tiger Shere Khan, on the other hand, are

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shown as ethically dubious creatures. As a result, animals who follow the Law of the Jungle
are depicted as morally virtuous, while those who do not follow the Law are seen as morally
wicked. The law appears to imply that a native is ethically good only if he or she obeys
British imperialist rules.

Question 4.

Discuss the human apathy towards morality and self-centred attitudes as emerged in
Anton Chekov’s The Bet.

Answer 4.

Fifteen years ago, a party was thrown at a banker's home, where many intellectuals such a
journalists and lawyers attended. During that party, the group in attendance had many lively
discussions, ultimately turning to the topic of capital punishment.

As the group argued, the two sides of the debate coalesced into two representatives: the
banker, who is for capital punishment and believes that it is more merciful, and a lawyer, who
believes that life imprisonment is the better option, due to its preservation of life. The
lawyer believes that any life is better than none, and that life cannot be taken away by the
government, since life cannot be given back if the government realizes that it made a mistake.

The banker and the lawyer decide to enter into a bet, with the banker wagering that the lawyer
could not withstand 5 years of imprisonment. The lawyer, young and idealistic, decides to up
the ante and makes the bet longer: 15 years. If he could last to the end of his sentence, the
lawyer would receive two million rubles for wining the bet.

The banker cannot fathom his good fortune, and even offers the young lawyer a way out,
saying that he is being hasty and foolish. Nevertheless, the lawyer decides to stick to his word
and the bet is carried out.

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For fifteen years, the lawyer lives on the banker's property, in a small lodge, and has no
human contact. He can have any item that he desires. At first, the lawyer does not comfort
himself with any liquor or tobacco, confining himself to playing the piano. But as the years
progress, he gives in and spends much of his time drunk or asleep.

Later, the main focus of his time becomes books, as he searches for adventures and comforts
that he cannot possess physically. He takes great advantage of the banker's ability to provide
any book, and asks that the banker test the result of his reading by firing two shots in the
garden if his translations of several languages is indeed flawless. The banker acquiesces and
confirms the lawyer's suspicion that he has mastered languages.

As the years go by, the lawyer reads virtually every genre under the sun. He makes his way
from the lighter reading of the early years, to the dense text of the Gospels and Shakespeare.
The banker, by this time, has gone broke due to his own recklessness and gambling. He
begins to worry that the lawyer's bet with him will ruin him financially.

The banker begins to hope against all hope that the lawyer will break his vow and lose the bet.
He doesn't even feel remorse at his evil thoughts, excusing them on the basis that they are in
his own best interest. In fact, the banker even manages to convince himself that the lawyer is
getting the better end of the deal, since he will still be relatively young at 40, and, with the 2
million rubles, relatively rich.

With this in mind, the banker goes to investigate how the lawyer is doing. He finds that his
prisoner is asleep at his desk, looking much older and careworn than he ever imagined him to
be. After observing him for a few seconds, the banker notices a letter on the table.

In it, the lawyer proclaims his intention to renounce earthly goods in favor of the spiritual
blessings. The prisoner has become entirely embittered during his captivity. He has developed
an intense hatred for other humans and believes that there is nothing that he or they can do to
ever reconcile this chasm. To prove his seriousness, the lawyer decides to leave his prison five
hours before the appointed time, and renounces his claim to the two million, thereby freeing
the banker from his debt and from financial ruin.

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The banker cries and kisses the prisoner with relief. The next day, watchmen alert the banker
of the lawyer's escape, and the banker is unsurprised. He walks over, takes the letter from the
lodge, and locks it in a fireproof safe.

Human apathy towards morality and self-centered attitudes in The Bet

The lawyer is sentenced to life in jail for the banker's bet of two million rubles. Men's moral
apathy and self-centered attitudes have surfaced as significant themes in The Bet. Men
tolerate suffering for a variety of reasons, including personal bravery, whim, and physical
problems. The lawyer breaks his part of the bet and foregoes his claim to the two million
rubles since he no longer values money and sympathises with the banker's loss. When the
banker enters the lawyer's chamber with the goal of killing him but instead finds his letter,
after reading the contents of his letter, repentance engulfs the banker for his wrongdoings and
he feels immense disgust for himself.

The banker's two million are used as a symbol for man's greed, that a young man is willing to
give up fifteen years of his youth that he will spend imprisoned, with no human connection,
just two million to prove his point in the argument, to depict that the young man values
money and proving his point in an argument over fifteen years of his life. At the end of his
fifteen years in solitary confinement, the lawyer refers to the money as a fantasy of paradise
highlighted by his time alone.

The banker is corrupt, so he sees everyone else as corrupt, too. While the banker
acknowledges to his own lack of values in making the bet by saying, "It was the caprice of a
pampered man," he also concludes that the lawyer made the bet out of plain hunger for
money. However, the story never truly explains why the lawyer took up the bet, whether it
was out of greed for money or out of idealism to prove his point. Regardless, by the end of
the novel, the lawyer has learned knowledge and developed a deep aversion to money.

Even at the end of The Bet, it is disputed if the experiment of the lawyer and the banker
demonstrated that capital penalty is less painful than life imprisonment. However, it has
proved that forced seclusion is a dreadful thing. The banker himself questions near the end of
the storey whether their bet actually proved whether the death penalty was better or worse
than life imprisonment, and he concludes that it did not. It was illogical and senseless. It was

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a pampered man's caprice on the banker's behalf, and hunger for money on the lawyer's
behalf.

In this sense, Chekov's story, The Bet, provides a deep insight into human feeling; human
apathy toward morality and self-centered attitudes are strongly displayed in this story.

Question 5.

Analyse Franz Kafka’s The Trial’s exposition of corruption and bureaucratic standards
in totalitarian justice system.

Answer 5.

The Trial is a book published posthumously by the visionary German-language author Franz
Kafka. It was published for the first time in 1925. This surreal narrative about a young man
caught up in the mindless bureaucracy of the law, one of Kafka's major works and perhaps
his most pessimistic, has become synonymous with modern anxieties and feelings of
alienation, as well as an ordinary person's struggle against an unreasoning and unreasonable
authority. It is commonly seen in the imagination as a portent of totalitarianism (a system of
government that is centralised and dictatorial, requiring complete subservience to the state).

Summary

The Trial is a narrative about a man named Josef K., a respectable high-ranking banker who
awakens on his 30th birthday to a strange circumstance illustrating the irrationality and
bureaucracy of law. He became entangled in the web of unreasonable and perplexing
"Justice" and law. The scenario is unexpected and exceedingly inconvenient. He was arrested,
but it was an arrest that was out of character, since K was permitted to live almost freely, at
home and at work, while through an unjustified trial. It was also unjust because K was never
informed of the reason for his arrest; he had no idea what he had been charged with. The
story ends with his execution. He died without knowing why he had been arrested. He was
denied even the right to a fair and equitable hearing. While a few minor criteria governing a

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fair trial and arrest were observed, the majority of the characteristics of a reasonable trial, as
well as the basic essence of a fair trial, were flagrantly disregarded. Justice was never served
as a result of a corrupt court system and police force. Ironically, he remained absolutely
powerless and bound till the end, trapped by the perplexing system of authority and laws in
what he referred to as a "Free Country."

Analysis of The Trial’s exposition of corruption and bureaucratic standards in

totalitarian justice system;

Franz Kafka's work The Trial is a mirror of an irrational, corrupt, and incomprehensible
system. The implausible circumstances surrounding Josef K's arrest, trial, and final scene all
exemplify what has come to be characterised as a Kafkaesque style of storytelling. The
novel's core themes focus around and are related to the frustration produced by the imprecise
nature of information surrounding the offence and the subsequent court process.

K. is brainwashed into feeling he is guilty by the fake regime, stripping him of his
sovereignty and transforming him into yet another defenceless victim of the system. K. lives
in a hypothetical civilization where the government is founded on hearsay rather than facts.
The system is described as one that "does not seek out but attracts guilt in the general
community." Rather than pursuing actual criminals, officials arrest people falsely accused of
crimes by others. After detaining suspects, this illogical method of locating criminals in
society becomes even more problematic. After K. is detained and interacts with the case
inspector, he is advised not to waste his time attempting to establish his innocence, since he
has "learned[ed] nothing about why he was arrested and on whose orders." Throughout the
storey, K. is never told why he was detained. At the book's conclusion, he asks, "Where was
the judge he'd never seen?" "Where was the high court to which he had never been?" he
thought. K. is kept in the dark and has no voice or influence over the result of his case,
indicating the government's standards are corrupt. The government's power is boundless, and
it exerts complete control over every aspect of K.'s case, precluding him from receiving a fair
trial. By withholding information about K.'s situation, the government's policies and system
bear a significant resemblance to those of a totalitarian government.

As K.'s ignorance and ignorance about his conviction gradually convince him that he is
guilty, he loses his identity and is governed by society. Despite his initial belief that he is "not

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guilty. This is an error. How can someone be guilty in general? After all, we are all human,
each and every one of us," he is met with the retort, "that is how guilty people always speak."
Despite the absence of substantial evidence, K. is repeatedly told he is guilty, and he
gradually accepts this. "Had I behaved reasonably," he tells himself, "nothing else would
have happened; everything else would have been nipped in the bud." The government's
corruption, as well as the manipulation of other subjects by the authorities, convince K. that
he is guilty. He gradually blends into a mob of people controlled by the government. In the
novel's opening sentence, Kafka refers to the protagonist as Josef K. Nonetheless, once
Josef's condition becomes clear, Kafka refuses to give him a full surname, instead referring to
him as K. throughout the novel. This harsh treatment transforms K. to an object,
demonstrating how the government's norms and methodical processes rob him of his
uniqueness. The protagonist is gradually brainwashed by the government and begins to doubt
not only his identity, but also his innocence.

Conclusion

The Trial is riddled with corruption and bureaucratic norms, and bears an uncanny
resemblance to a totalitarian legal system. The protagonist's befuddlement, coupled with the
court's malicious and unprincipled restriction of his rights, shows society's and the system's
immorality. The ideals that form the basis of the imaginary society have an effect on the
protagonist throughout the storey as he endures his unfair trial. Mr. Joseph K. "K." becomes
another subject of society as "K." and, like many others, relinquishes his autonomy by
abandoning his quest for innocence.

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