“Better he should be bruised from head to foot by me who love him than that he should come to harm through ignorance.”
Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Books all are heavily moralistic and ripe for scrutiny and close reading, but I feel that the most universal moral that can be taken from the Jungle Books is that knowledge is power. Throughout these short stories it is shown that the animals that have the most knowledge are the ones who survive the jungle.
There are at work in the Mowgli stories two types of knowledge that work to protect the young man-cub. The first and most important is knowledge of nature and its creatures. The second is the knowledge of man and by that I mean technology. Throughout the Mowgli stories the animals embody various qualities. The wolf pack is loyal, Bandar-log monkeys are stupid, Kaa is sly, and Shere Khan is wrathful. But it is from the wisdom and knowledge of Baloo, the bear, that Mowgli learns the lessons he needs to survive not only in the jungle, but also among men. In “Kaa’s Hunting” it is only because Mowgli has learned the Stranger’s Call from Baloo that he is able to communicate with the kite and send for help. Later, in the story it is this Stranger’s Call that protects him in the cobra’s den. Throughout this story knowledge of the Law of the Jungle saves Mowgli’s life.
Later, in “Tiger! Tiger!” Mowgli is “saved” from the jungle by the villagers. They bring him into and introduce him to the comfort and advantages of the village. Because of Mowgli’s knowledge of the language of pigs and bucks he easily imitated and assimilated the words of the villagers. Soon it is clear he has adopted some of the technology of the people when we discover he wears a small knife around his neck. This knowledge is also presented in “Mowgli’s Brothers” when he wields mans oldest and most important technology, fire, to overthrow the wolves and Shere Khan.
When Mowgli traps Shere Khan it is because of his merging of these two knowledges. He uses the nature-knowledge of the jungle and its creatures to know when to attack the tiger and he uses the man-knowledge of domestication and control over beasts to spring a trap on Shere Khan. In a final act of man over beast he uses his knife to cut open and skin the tiger.
The idea of knowledge as power is not limited to Mowgli’s stories, though. There is in the story of “Toomai of the Elephants” great power in having knowledge of the elephant dance. In the tale a young boy is made a forester because of his knowledge of the secrets of the elephants. This knowledge not only elevates him among the ranks of the other natives who make him Toomai of the Elephants, but also the white men promote Little Toomai to a forester. Both groups of men recognize that the knowledge gained from the elephants has the power to help control them.
The message that knowledge is power pervades Kipling’s Jungle Books in order to establish the right of Britain to colonize under an empire. The stories pit the characters against each other in many veiled roles as colonizer and colonized. It is difficult to pick up upon casual reading because of the fact that these roles are not static throughout the stories or even in the course of one story but upon close reading it is clear what different situations are meant to represent. I see Kipling utilizing the varying roles to show that using knowledge to control or help others has the highest value in people. Naturally extended this means that the “savages” that colonizers come upon are in need of the knowledge (and by extension power) that they bring with them. These tales establish not just the right but also the obligation to provide the colonized with the knowledge that the colonizer has. However, I think that Kipling realizes that part of “knowledge is power” is knowing when to use the stick and when to use the carrot. He opens the short story “Toomai of the Elephants” with a poem that reminds the colonizers to allow the colonized some modicum of their old lives in order to keep them loyal. Essentially, if you let them dance at night they will work tirelessly during the day.
I will remember what I was, I am sick of rope and chain – I will remember my old strength and all my forest affairs.
I will not sell my back to man for a bundle of sugar-cane: I will go out to my own kind, and the wood-folk in their lairs.
I will go out until the day, until the morning break – Out to the wind's untainted kiss, the water's clean caress;
I will forget my ankle-ring and snap my picket stake. I will revisit my lost loves, and playmates masterless!
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The epigraph w/ which you chose to open you post was well placed. It illustrated the contentious conflation of what you claim as the moral, “knowledge is power,” and the brutality necessary (perhaps) to gain such power. In fact, the moral might be better understood as “knowledge is survival,” thereby playing on an evolutionary theme of Kipling’s work. What left the greatest impression on me from this post was your discussion of Mowgli’s assimiliation of both Jungle Law and Man’s Law. Consequently, am I to understand that survival hinges on such assimilation? In fact, it seems to me that Baloo would be another model for this, given that he is the source from which Mowgli gains all his Jungle Laws—Baloo seemingly moves freely about the Jungle, even as an accepted voice among the Wolf Pack. With this in mind, I would have liked to have read more about Toomai; he seems also to represent a successful assimiliation, not just b/w Indian man and English man, but b/w Man and Beast. And, with assimilation must come balance, as you rightly attest to at the close of your post.
ReplyDeleteOne logistical note: watch out for minor typos, including comma placement and sentence breaks.