Rudyard Kipling’s characters Mowgli, Shere Khan, and Rikki- Tikki Tavi have different degrees of pride and madness, which lead to a moral of the Jungle Books. In Mowgli’s Brothers, Shere Khan exhibits pride by intimidating and challenging all of the other jungle creatures. Mowgli assumes the role of the colonizer by challenging Shere Khan’s pride. The boy holds the fire, called the Red Flower, under Shere Khan’s chin. He attempts to assert his dominance over Shere Khan by calling him a “dog” and to do as he says or he will “set that coat ablaze” (19). With the burning torch near his head, Shere Khan’s “ears lay flat back on his head” and he closes his eyes. By not pulling away at all from Mowgli’s fire, Shere Khan is fearless of the boy. Shere Khan’s non-submissive behavior toward Mowgli proves that he cannot and will not be colonized. He exhibits pride by refusing to be colonized; therefore, he possesses Dewanee—madness.
Therefore, In ‘Tiger! Tiger!’, Mowgli plans to kill Shere Khan. Mowgli realizes that he cannot colonize Shere Khan due to the tigers pride driven actions and refusal to be colonized. Therefore, Shere Khan possesses mad pride. However as he is trampled not only with the help of Mowgli but a majority of the jungle creatures, he is referred to as soft. Soft refers to a lesser and defeated object. Therefore, Shere Khan’s mad pride leads not only to his personal destruction but also the destruction of the jungle community.
In contrast to Shere Khan, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, a fearless mongoose, removes himself from the wild and chooses to become tame and live with a British family. He assumes the role as colonizer by protecting the family he lives with as well as creating a community within the garden. Therefore, he has model pride as opposed to mad pride. When there is conflict in the garden or in the British household, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi steps up and takes action to resolve the conflict. Nag and Nagaina, two cobras that live in the garden cause a conflict by eating one of the bird’s eggs. Rikki-Tikki makes it his personal duty, as colonizer, to defeat the cobras.
However, he has too much model pride. Rikki-Tikki attempts to defeat Nag alone while in the British family’s bathroom. Rikki-Tikki spots Nag, jumps on top of him, and bites him on the back of the head. While the mongoose struggles to defeat Nag, the man of the household aims his shotgun in the general direction of the brawl, fires a shot, and successfully kills Nag. Rikki-Tikki does not defeat and destroy Nag, the British man does. However, Rikki-Tikki believes he has the power to defeat a cobra as strong and powerful as Nag; therefore his self-esteem and pride increase.
With a boost of self-confidence, Rikki-Tikki embarks on a mission to destroy Nagaina. However, in attempts to find and destroy Nagaina, he abuses his power as a colonizer by threatening his colony of animals in the garden. He threatens to roll all of the bird’s chicks out of their nest if the birds do not assist him in finding and distracting Nagaina. However, Rikki-Tikki’s hunger for power does not end there. He finds Nagaina’s eggs and kills all of them except one. Upon finding Nagaina, Rikki-Tikki taunts her by waiving the small egg in her face. Nagaina begs for Rikki-Tikki to give her back her egg. She moves away from the British family and lowers her hood to Rikki- Tikki —a sign of submission. Both cobras did not posses madness, Rikki-Tikki created their madness with his over excessive pride. In attempts to destroy the madness that Rikki- Tikki creates by defeating Nag and Nagaina, Rikki-Tikki becomes consumed in madness. His eyes flicker like “hot coals;” his pride induced madness is dirty and cruel (100).
Mowgli represents the pride of a colonizer and the colonized. He is the frog— native of both jungle and man. In Mowgli’s Brothers, Baloo and Bagheera teach him the Law of the Jungle. He becomes initiated into the wolf pack. Bagherra tells Mowgli he must fulfill his destiny as a man, introducing him to the Red Flower, as also known as the fire. Consumed by his destiny as a man, Mowgli asserts his control over his wolf pack. He attempts to colonize them with the fire pot. Mowgli begins hitting every wolf right and left with the fire to assert his control. He then feels empty inside and heavy tears fall from his eyes. He feels immense guilt and shame for physically harming and openly shaming his family, the pack. Despite his destined attack on the pack, Mowgli promises that when he is “a man among men [that he] will not betray [the Pack] to men as [man has] betrayed him” (18). Therefore, Mowgli becomes the ideal character in the Jungle Books.
Mowgli is the median character between Shere Khan and Rikki-Tikki. Because of Shere Khan’s pride he gave himself the label of madness; therefore, he is destroyed. Shere Khan’s mad pride cannot be seen as one to follow. Rikki-Tikki’s pride gave rise not only to his madness but madness of the other garden creatures. Therefore, Rikki-Tikki’s model pride cannot be seen as one to follow. This brings us to a moral of the Jungle Books from the Victorian Era viewpoint:
Every colonizer should embody the same attributes as Kipling’s character, Mowgli, who is a creature of the jungle as well as a man. A community can be reached with a stable amount of control and pride; however, if there is too much control and pride, the community becomes full of Dewanee—the madness.
Your opening pargraph presented an intriguing trajectory of how pride can lead to madness, thereby suggesting that the colonized must obtain a register of pride that remains tethered to the colonizing force. Moreover, it seems important for the colonizer to maintain a balanced or “model” pride toward those he colonizes. This works well to describe what motivates the behavior of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi—but, as you go on to mention, not what Rikki-Tikki can sustain. I was confused, however, when you mentioned that the Englishman effectively killed Nag, rather than Rikki-Tikki. Revisit the story to clarify that it was in fact Rikki-Tikki who killed Nag. This, in turn, would suggest that it is the Englishman who suffers from an excess of “model pride.” Regardless of this error, I like the idea that Rikki-Tikki suffers from excessive pride—as if to portray that he takes on the role of colonizer while too young and thus cannot handle his role. Mowgli, then, understandably presents the middle ground b/w Shere Khan’s and Rikki-Tikki’s registers of pride. And the post ends nicely by illustrating not only this point, but the duality that Mowgli must harbor in order to retain his median, and thus moral, position.
ReplyDeleteA logistical note: watch overuse of “therefore.” Also be careful not to rush the presentation of your individual ideas (this was most at issue in the second paragraph).