In Mowgli's Brothers we learn of Shere Khan's desire to kill the man-cub Mowgli. Shere Kahn, instead of treating the stranger Mowgli with respect, decides that it would be better to eat him. Shere Khan does not know, however, that Mowgli's "mother" is Raksha, who would rather fight to the death than see Mowgli taken away by Shere Khan. As Mowgli grows up, Raksha teaches him the he will have to kill Shere Khan one day, which he eventually does in the ravine. Had Shere Khan been a little bit nicer to Mowgli in the beginning, Mowgli would most likely not have killed him. However, he goes against the advice of Baloo's maxim, and though he escapes the wrath of Mowgli's mother, his mistreatment of the stranger Mowgli ultimately leads to his demise.
In Kaa's Hunting we learn about the Bandar Log, the wild monkey folk who reside above the forest floor and who do not live according to the law of the jungle. Because they do not follow the law, they have never heard Baloo's maxims. They do not know that they should treat the stranger Mowgli with respect when they come across him in the jungle. Had they known that Mowgli's guardians (sort of like mothers...or fathers), Baloo and Bagheera, would enlist the help of Kaa to help them find Mowgli, perhaps the Bandar Log would have treated Mowgli differently. Yet they do not. Rather, they abduct Mowgli, drag him through the treetops, and treat him like a hostage. Because they do not follow the maxim of Baloo, they encounter their greatest enemy--Kaa--and this encounter leads to many of their deaths.
Finally, in 'Rikki-Tikki-Tavi' we see how Nag and Nagina mistreat the stranger Rikki-Tikki almost as soon as they meet him. Nagina never even says a word to him; she simply tries to kill him. Had they followed Baloo's maxim and treated Rikki-Tikki nicely, maybe they could have worked something out. Maybe. But that would mean Rikki-Tikki would have to go against his snake-killing instincts, which is apparently quite hard for him to do. Needless to say, their initial hostility towards Rikki-Tikki does not help their cause, and it begins the war that eventually leads to their deaths and the deaths of their unborn snakelings. Though they are not hurt by Rikki-Tikki's mother, they are still hurt by their mistreatment of a stranger.
These conflicts deal with the mistreatment of strangers. Apparently Baloo knows what he is talking about.
The opening paragraph of this post nicely laid out both the seminal (and yet unfortunately atypical) maxim of treating strangers w/ respect and how said maxim could have been instituted w/i the context of Kipling’s Jungle Books. While the latter speculative foundation admittedly makes me uneasy, I think in its current presentation it works well to illustrate the strength of your moral. At the same time, I wanted to know more about how the characters of Baloo and Bagheera might act as our guides to realizing how significant the role of strangers might be in Kipling’s stories. For one thing, Baloo and Bagheera are themselves strangers to Mowgli. In fact, perhaps all of the influential characters in Kipling’s tale could be described as “strangers,” leaving no commonality b/w them except for their lack of direct relation. What might this reveal about the nature of family, from Kipling’s perspective? And how might such an understanding of family reverberate w/ —or perhaps collide w/ —Victorian ideas of empire? These such questions remained at issue for me at the close of your post; if you’ll excuse the bad pun, it seemed as if the final two sentences were more filler than filling.
ReplyDelete