short essay on jungle book

“The Jungle Book” by Rudyard Kipling Essay (Critical Writing)

There is a great number of different masterpieces of literature in the world. Each of them describes some peculiar phenomenon or event. The majority of books are devoted to human beings and their feelings and emotions. There are, however, some works which are devoted to animals and their touching allegiance to people. Being very popular, this issue has always interested people. However, there are not many works which manage to combine description of the life of human beings, animals behaviour and visions of nature, trying to show the authors way of to reflect the real world. One of these works is called The Jungle Book and is written by Rudyard Kipling.

Devoted to the description of the life of a human being, the book, though, manages to combine this description with the visions of nature of the jungle and the laws according to which animals live there.

The main character of the story is a boy called Mowgli. The main peculiarity of this boy is the fact that he was raised by wolves and acts according to their code. In certain period of time this fact was taken as ridiculous and impossible. However, boys like Mowgli were found. That is why, it is possible to say that Kipling created a very interesting story which could be based on some real facts. Mowgli is able to understand animals and communicate with them, following the rules accepted in the jungle. All these facts make him a unique character who is very interesting for people.

Having created his story in the form of a tale, Kipling romanticized the life of animals and human beings in the jungle. However, there is one very important aspect of the jungle which the author describes. It is the law according to which animals live. Kipling uses the term the law of the jungle to describe existing set of codes according to which the community of wolves and other animals is structured. They all should follow it or they will not be able to survive.

All rules which are described by this law are wise and created by generations of animals in order to guarantee their survival. The law of the jungle outlines the main activity of animals, their main food and relations with other species. However, the Bandar-log do not accept these rules. They can be taken as rebels, who do not want to follow the majority. However, Kipling describes them as primitive and disorganised tribe which is not able to guarantee its prosperity. Outlining this fact, the author wants to show great importance of the law and norms which regulate behaviour in society.

Being created by Rudyard Kipling, the term the law of the jungle became very popular, though having changed its main meaning. Nowadays, it is widely used in order not to describe some set of codes accepted in society, but to show special kind of human attitude to the rest of people and his/her role in society. Everyone should take care only of himself/herself and be the strongest to survive in coherent society. This is the meaning of the term which prevails nowadays.

Besides, having read the book, it is impossible to remain indifferent. Having created interesting and fascinating world, Kipling also introduced the new term which described existence of animals in the jungle. The term the law of the jungle became the metaphor which is widely used nowadays.

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IvyPanda. (2020, July 5). "The Jungle Book" by Rudyard Kipling. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-jungle-book-by-rudyard-kipling/

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1. IvyPanda . ""The Jungle Book" by Rudyard Kipling." July 5, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-jungle-book-by-rudyard-kipling/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . ""The Jungle Book" by Rudyard Kipling." July 5, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-jungle-book-by-rudyard-kipling/.

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Short Essay On Jungle Book

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Introduction

The jungle book is a story about an orphaned boy or man-cub named Mowgli who was abandoned in the jungle and was found by a panther named Bagheera who takes the boy to grow up with a pack of wolves where he was raised by Raksha. The stories are set in a forest in India. The book is one of the classic stories written by Rudyard Kipling. A major theme in the book is abandonment followed by fostering, as in the life of Mowgli, echoing Kipling's childhood.

A ten-year-old Mowgli becomes well acquainted with life in the jungle with the help of his wolf family. But being a human living in the jungle Mowgli was always in danger of some form. The wolf pack leader Akela tells Mowgli not to use his man tricks in front of the other animals when Mowgli uses the shell of fruit to grab water for himself during the drought that makes other animals look at him oddly (Akşehir 138). Then arrives the fearsome Sher Khan who is aware of Mowgli’s presence and considers Man to be forbidden in the jungle. Akela covers Mowgli and tells Sher Khan that he cannot have the boy. Sher Khan vows to come back for Mowgli once the river runs again. When the other wolves of the pack and Bagheera learned of the danger, they decided to take Mowgli back to the man-village. On their journey to the man village, Mowgli and Bagheera get separated once they come across a field of buffaloes where they are ambushed by Sher Khan. Bagheera holds the tiger off for Mowgli to run. The boy escapes and Sher Khan returns to the Peace Rock to confront the wolves where he throws Akela off the cliff and assumes leadership over the other animals and awaits for Mowgli to return. Now wandering alone in the jungle, Mowgli is met by yet another foe that tries to kill him. The snake called Kaa kept Mowgli under her spell with her hypnotic voice and eyes. Kaa told Mowgli of where he came from. She told him that he was an infant when his father came across a cave in the jungle and protected him from Sher Khan with the "red flower” (fire). Mowgli’s father blinded Sher Khan’s left eye and the tiger killed the man. As the boy was lost in her story, Kaa almost ate him by wrapping herself around Mowgli but a bear named Baloo saved him. Since he saved Mowgli’s life, he asked the boy to help him gather some honey. In the process of breaking off some honeycomb, Mowgli gets stung a few times but Baloo and Mowgli form a bond of friendship (Asghar and Muhammad 150). Baloo showed Mowgli that the human village is nearby and that he can go whenever he wanted, but Mowgli decided to stick with Baloo, who shows him all about the bare necessities of life.

As the story unfolds, we see Bagheera telling Baloo that he needed Mowgli to get to safety and away from Sher Khan.  Baloo reluctantly tells Mowgli he never thought of him as a friend and wanted him to go away. Heartbroken, Mowgli retreats to a tree and gets captured by a group of monkeys. Baloo and Bagheera see this and follow. The monkeys bring Mowgli to the temple of King Louie, a massive orangutan. Louie claims he can protect Mowgli, but he wants to learn the secret of the red flower (fire) and thinks Mowgli can solve it. Mowgli says he cannot, sending Louie into a fit of rage. Baloo and Bagheera arrive in the nick of time and fight the monkeys while Louie chases Mowgli, taunting him as he tells him that Akela, the pack leader has been killed by Sher Khan and Bagheera knew about it. As Louie tries to get Mowgli, he runs through his temple, causing it to crumble and crush him. Infuriated that  Bagheera didn’t tell him about Akela, Mowgli runs away and enters the man village undetected and takes a burning torch back into the jungle. As he runs back, the other animals see him with fire and follow (Park 228). A piece of ember falls from the torch and slowly starts a fire. Mowgli confronts Sher Khan as the other animals gather to watch. Sher Khan tries to turn the animals against Mowgli by stating that man has brought the red flower into the jungle. Mowgli tosses the torch right before Baloo and Bagheera show up. They along with the other animals, stand by Mowgli and against Sher Khan. Baloo battles Sher Khan. Bagheera tells Mowgli that he must fight like a man and not as a wolf. Sher Khan takes Baloo down, but before he can kill him, Raksha and other wolves attack Sher Khan. Mowgli sets a trap in the trees and waits for Sher Khan there (Mutiarani et al. 27). Escaping the wolves and Bagheera, the tiger climbs the tree and walks the branch where Mowgli is standing but Mowgli jumps to safety. Sher Khan ends up falling and is consumed by the fire. Mowgli returns to the other animals, and the river, aided by grateful elephants, turns its flow, putting out the fire. Mowgli finally reunites with his wolf brothers and Raksha. Baloo now lives close with Mowgli, Bagheera, and the other animals. The story of Mowgli later ends with Mowgli leaving the jungle bringing tears to the eyes of his friends in the jungle.

This story teaches us valuable life lessons as Mowgli undergoes an epic journey of self-discovery guided by a no-nonsense panther and a free-spirited bear.  It is entertaining as the adventures described are so exciting. This story teaches us about the bond of friendship and unconditional love. It also explains to us the laws of nature and to face our fear. Mowgli was afraid of Sher Khan, but he faced his fear and so could defeat it. The stories also illustrate the freedom to move between different worlds, such as when Mowgli moves between the jungle and the village. The book describes the amazing bond between man and animals. The Jungle Book is the perfect book for a person who loves fun and adventure like me.

Akşehir Uygur, Mahinur. "PERCEPTION OF NATURE AND THE LANGUAGE OF IMPERIALISM IN RUDYARD KIPLING’S THE JUNGLE BOOK." Celal Bayar Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi 16.1/2 (2018): 129-140.

Asghar, Jamil, and Muhammad Iqbal Butt. "Contrapuntal Reading of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book: Theorizing the Raj through Narrativity." NUML Journal of Critical Inquiry 15.1 (2017): 144-160.

Mutiarani, Mutiarani, Hasanul Misbah, and Aliya Nafisa Karyadi. "Rudyard Kipling’s Novel the Jungle Book as Moral Literacy Material on EFL Learning." English Language in Focus (ELIF) 3.1 (2021): 23-30.

Park, Minjin. "A Cognitive Approach to the Formal Aspects of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book." Children's Literature Association Quarterly 45.3 (2020): 224-243.

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The Jungle Book

50 pages • 1 hour read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

“Mowgli’s Brothers”

“Kaa’s Hunting”

“Tiger! Tiger!”

“The White Seal”

“Rikki-tikki-tavi”

“Toomai of the Elephants”

“Her Majesty’s Servants”

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Compare and contrast the “Law of the Jungle” with the rules Mowgli learns in the human village. How do their different values relate to the historical context of The Jungle Book ?

Analyze the songs and poems included at the end of each story. How do they relate to the themes of the overall stories? Why do you think Rudyard Kipling includes them?

What is the role of gender in The Jungle Book ? How are female characters portrayed? What is different about gender between human and animal characters?

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Related Titles

By Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling

Rikki Tikki Tavi

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Upton Sinclair

Everything you need for every book you read..

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Upton Sinclair's The Jungle . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

The Jungle: Introduction

The jungle: plot summary, the jungle: detailed summary & analysis, the jungle: themes, the jungle: quotes, the jungle: characters, the jungle: symbols, the jungle: literary devices, the jungle: theme wheel.

Historical Context of The Jungle

Other books related to the jungle.

• Full Title: The Jungle
• When Written: 1906
• Where Written: Chicago, Illinois
• When Published: 1906, serialized version first published in 1905.
• Literary Period: Muckraking journalism
• Genre: Muckraking journalism/historical fiction
• Setting: "Packingtown," the miserable community of immigrant laborers near Chicago's industrial meatpacking area.
• Climax: The book's very last line, in which an ambitious socialist speaker yells, "Chicago will be ours!" following a surprisingly strong showing in an election.
• Antagonist: Capitalist corruption, as embodied by Phil Connor.
• Point of View: Omniscient third-person narrator.

Extra Credit for The Jungle

Eat Your Heart Out. While The Jungle was designed to elicit compassion for poor immigrant laborers in the United States, the book's most viscerally provocative element was its lurid description of the meatpacking industry's unhygienic practices. As a result, two pieces of legislation, U.S. Pure Food and Drug Act and the Federal Meat Inspection Act, were passed in 1906 to assuage Americans' newfound concerns about the safety of their food. Surprised and somewhat disgruntled by the public's priorities for reform, Sinclair remarked, "I aimed at the public's heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach."

Don't Get Cocky. Sinclair's fervent idealism likely interfered with his more practical ambitions. In 1933, while he was still campaigning for governor of California, he published the boldly-titled book, I, Governor of California And How I Ended Poverty: A True Story of the Future . After a loss in the general gubernatorial election deflated his hubris, Sinclair published another book: I, Candidate for Governor and How I Got Licked.

100 Words Essay On Jungle Book In English

The Jungle Book is a classic novel written by British author Rudyard Kipling. The story is set in the jungles of India and follows the adventures of a young boy named Mowgli, who is raised by wolves.

The novel explores themes such as identity, belonging, and the struggle between civilization and nature. Mowgli’s conflict between his desire to live among humans and his loyalty to the jungle animals who raised him reflects the struggle between man and nature.

This classic has been adapted into numerous movies, TV shows, and stage productions. The most famous adaptation is Disney’s animated film, released in 1967.  

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Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, the jungle book.

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I saw the newest Disney version of "The Jungle Book" in the company of my enthralled 12-year-old son, and there were moments when I envied him—but not too many, because the film is so surefooted in its effects, so precise and simple in its characterizations, and so clear about what it's trying to say about the relationship between humanity and nature, that it made me feel about his age again, too. Maybe younger.

From the opening sequence of young Mowgli ( Neel Sethi ) racing through the jungle in the company of his adoptive wolf family and his feline guardian, the black panther Bagheera ( Ben Kingsley ), through its comic setpieces with the layabout Baloo the Bear ( Bill Murray ) and its sinister interludes with the python Kaa ( Scarlett Johansson ), the despot orangutan King Louie ( Christopher Walken ), and the scarred Bengal tiger Shere Khan ( Idris Elba ), the movie bears you along on a current of enchantment, climaxing in a thunderous extended action sequence that dazzles while tying off every lingering plot point, and gathering up all the bits of folklore, iconography, and Jungian dream symbols that have been strewn throughout the story like Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs.

It's not accurate to call this "Jungle Book" a "live-action" version, since so much of it has been generated on a computer. But screenwriter Justin Marks , director Jon Favreau and their hundreds of collaborators render such distinctions moot. Combining spectacular widescreen images of rain forests, watering holes and crumbling temples, a couple of human actors, and realistic mammals, birds and reptiles that nevertheless talk, joke and even sing in celebrity voices, the movie creates its own dream-space that seems at once illustrated and tactile. It's the sort of movie you might inadvertently dream about after re-reading one of Rudyard Kipling's source books or re-watching the 1967 animated Disney film, both of which contributed strands of this one's creative DNA.

The Disney animated version was the last cartoon feature personally overseen by Walt Disney , and its release one year after his death marked the start of a period of creative wandering for the company (though other features that had been in development for years, most of them lackluster, would appear throughout the decade that followed). Like a lot of the company's 1960s and '70s output, it was relaxed to a fault—a succession of beautifully rendered, mostly jokey set-pieces strung together by memorable songs, including "The Bare Necessities," "I Wanna Be Like You" and the python’s seduction song "Trust in Me"—but it still made a deep impression on '60s and '70s kids like the 49-year-old Favreau. This incarnation is a more straightforward telling that includes just two brief, according-to-Hoyle musical numbers, "The Bare Necessities" and "I Wanna Be Like You"—performed by Sethi with Murray and Walken, respectively. It relegates a longer version of the ape's song and a torch-song-y version of "Trust in Me," performed by Johansson, to the approximately seven-minute end credits sequence, which is so intricately imagined as to be worth the ticket price by itself. Other numbers, including the elephants' marching song and "That's What Friends Are For," performed by a barbershop quartet of mop-topped vultures, are MIA, presumably in the interest of pacing.

I mention all this not because I consider the film's lack of music a shortcoming, but because it gives some indication of how gracefully this "Jungle Book" juggles the competing interests of parents and kids. Musically, visually and tonally, there are enough nods to the 1967 version to satisfy nostalgia buffs, but not so many that the film becomes a glorified rehash. Kipling's tales are a stronger influence, down to the scenes where the wolves, Mowgli and other creatures recite a stripped-down version of Kipling's poem " The Law of The Jungle " ("...For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf/and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack"). And there are nods to Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan stories and the masterful comics illustrator Burne Hogarth's adaptations , which seem to have influenced the way the movie's CGI artists render the movie's trees: as gnarled, knuckled, pretzel-twisted, vine-shrouded wonders, rising from the forest floor.

The film creates its own, more politically evolved version of Kipling's literary ecosystem, with its ancient animal beliefs and practices, such as predators and prey declaring a "water truce" during a drought so that they can all drink unmolested from a parched watering hole. And it invests Mowgli with a touch of optimistic environmentalist fantasy: where human mastery of fire and tools was presented in earlier films as a threat, and Mowgli's fated exit from the jungle as an unfortunate necessity, in this film the boy is shown using his ingrained ingenuity to solve problems beyond the capabilities of his animal pals, as when he builds a rappel and pulley system to help Baloo claim honey from a cliffside beehive he's been coveting. The idea here seems to be that humanity is not necessarily fated to subjugate and destroy nature. People and animals can live in harmony if we behave with kindness and mercy while showing reverence for the ancients of other species, like the elephants that Bagheera credits with creating the rain forest and directing the flow of water by digging canals with their hooves and tusks.

The movie takes these ideas and others seriously, but in a matter of fact way, so that they don't feel clumsily superimposed, but rather discovered within a text that has existed for more than a century. Kingsley's unhurried storybook narration hypnotizes the audience into buying everything Favreau shows us, as surely as Johansson's Kaa voice-work hypnotizes Mowgli. (The latter sequence includes one of the new movie's most extraordinary embellishments: as Mowgli stares into one of Kaa's eyes, he sees his own origin story play out within it.)

Another kind of balancing act is happening in the voice actors' performances. Favreau leans on distinctive-sounding stars to earn knowing chuckles from the audience, and lets some of their familiar physical and facial tics seep into the animal "performances": Murray is a shambling pleasure-seeker in life as well as in many of his movie roles. Walken is legendarily good at playing funny-scary villains who love to mess with heroes' minds (he's merged here with Marlon Brando's performance as Kurtz in " Apocalypse Now ," entering the story swathed in Rembrandt gloom). Kingsley has aged into one of the cinema's great mentor figures. And so on.

But the film is never content to use our affection for its voice actors as a storytelling crutch. These are strong, simple, clearly motivated characters, not movie star cameos wrapped in CGI fur. The most impressive is Elba's Khan. His loping menace is envisioned so powerfully that he'd be scary no matter what, but the character becomes a great villain through imaginative empathy. As was the case with Magua in Michael Mann's " The Last of the Mohicans " and General Zod in " Man of Steel ," we understand and appreciate his point-of-view even though carrying it out would mean the death of Mowgli.

In every way, this quietly majestic film should be considered a triumph. The familiar, picaresque story of a young boy raised by forest creatures but fated to re-join Man has been re-imagined as a funny, scary, affecting family adventure with mythic heft but a refreshing lack of swagger. It was made with the latest in movie-making technology but has the ethical values and wide-net storytelling sensibility of an Old Hollywood classic. At its best it feels as though it always existed and we are only now discovering it.

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

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Film credits.

The Jungle Book (2016)

Rated PG for some sequences of scary action and peril.

105 minutes

Neel Sethi as Mowgli

Bill Murray as Baloo (voice)

Ben Kingsley as Bagheera (voice)

Idris Elba as Shere Khan (voice)

Lupita Nyong'o as Raksha

Scarlett Johansson as Kaa (voice)

Christopher Walken as King Louie (voice)

Giancarlo Esposito as Akela (voice)

Emjay Anthony as Gray (voice)

Sara Arrington as Nilgai Mother

• Jon Favreau
• Justin Marks

Writer (book)

• Rudyard Kipling

Cinematographer

• Mark Livolsi
• John Debney

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The Jungle Book

By rudyard kipling, the jungle book character list.

Mowgli is the main character in the book. Taken from his village by Shere Khan the tiger, he escapes and runs into a cave where a wolf family live. They treat him as their own and he is raised like a wolf cub. His wolf mother names him Mowgli which means "Little Frog." He is a happy-go-lucky boy who considers himself a wolf. He is brave and spunky as a young child and as he gets older his skills come to match his spunk. He is lithe and athletic, more animal in movement than human, and visually striking to look at. He is wily and smart and able to strategize well. Occasionally his imagination runs away with itself and he is brought back to reality by Bagheera or Baloo. He deeply loves his wolf family as his own. Mowgli is a good, strong leader who honors the Jungle Law and respects the jungle traditions. He is eager to fight and defend his pack whenever he feels they are threatened.

Shere Khan is a tiger who has a pronounced limp due to once being shackled. He is aggressive and extremely predatory, disrespectful of the Jungle Laws regarding killing, and an innate troublemaker. He stole Mowgli from a village on the outskirts of the jungle and never stops trying to hunt and kill him. He is also very political, forging alliances against Mowgli and turning pack members against him. Shere Khan is more brawn than brains and eventually gets trapped by Mowgli, who kills and skins him.

Bagheera is a black panther the color of ink, who most in the jungle are in awe of, and also a little afraid of. He joins the Council at Circle Rock whilst they are discussing Mowgli and trades his vote and a newly-killed boar for Mowgli's acceptance into the pack. He is one of Mowgli's main teachers, the other being Baloo, and is a great guide and example to him. He loves the man-cub dearly and the two spend much time together.

Baloo is a large brown bear who is the only non-wolf to be allowed at Council Rock. He is Mowgli's "sponsor" into the pack and also his primary teacher, teaching him Jungle Law, greetings, and how to stay safe and protected. He is fairly lazy physically because of his substantial weight. He loves to open honey combs by hitting them against the rocks until they break so that he can devour all of the honey within them. Baloo is one of the few characters still living by the time Mowgli leaves to find man again.

Kaa is a giant python blessed with beautiful, polished skin that he regularly sheds. He and Mowgli are great friends and Mowgli likes to lie on him as if a pillow. Kaa saved Mowgli's life when he was taken by monkeys, and was also instrumental in killing the red dogs by transporting Mowgli in silence to the other side of the water. Although he does not like to associate with the wolves, he has great affection for their man cub.

Akela is a gray lone wolf and the leader of the Pack. He is wise and fair, making decisions and keeping the Pack working and strong from the top of Council Rock. He went out of his way to protect Mowgli as a cub and this debt is repaid when Mowgli saves the jungle from the red dogs. Akela is a source of great knowledge and inspires great respect from the rest of the Pack.

Mother Wolf

Mother Wolf is very protective of Mowgli and raises him as her own. She attends the Council the night of the looking over of cubs, fully prepared to die in order to protect him. She is strong and brave and when angered the fiercest wolf in the Pack.

Father Wolf

Father Wolf is also very protective of his new human cub and fully supports his wife in wanting to keep him. He is instrumental in helping Mowgli free the humans who helped him.

Gray Brother

Gray Brother is the oldest of Mowgli's four wolf brothers. He and Mowgli are extremely close, never losing touch even when Mowgli leaves the jungle. He is loyal and dependable, always the first to support Mowgli's battle plans.

Chil is a kite, a very majestic bird of prey who feeds off the carcasses of any kill. He is on friendly terms with Mowgli and often carries messages for him, even to the wolves, with whom he would rather not communicate.

Hathi the elephant is King of the Jungle and a wise, inspiring leader. He is the voice of authority in the jungle, for example, calling the water truce during the drought, and leading his sons to help Mowgli drive the humans out of the village. There is no force in the jungle as destructive as Hathi when injured or angry.

The Warden of the King's Treasure

The Warden is an old white cobra who has lived under the ground for so long that he does not realize the Emperor has left and the jungle grown over where his palace used to be. He is cunning and keen to kill but too old to do so, as the venom in his fangs has long since dried up.

One of the few humans with a name in the book, Buldeo is the village chief who unwittingly sees Mowgli fighting alongside the wolves to kill Shere Khan. He is intent upon taking advantage of Mowgli and absolutely furious when he is not able to. He is a decent hunter but no match for the jungle. He is given to exaggeration and told his village that Mowgli changed from human to wolf to boy again before his very eyes.

Messua is Mowgli's human mother who recognizes her son when he returns at eleven years old and again at seventeen. She is loving and protective, nursing Mowgli back to health after his Spring Running. It is suggested that Mowgli returns to live with her when he leaves the jungle.

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

Rikki-tikki-tavi is a mongoose who is the protagonist of the last tale in the book. He was washed away from his parents and ends up in a house with a young family, which is the goal of every well-raised mongoose. He is protective of the family and extremely bold and courageous. He rescues the family from certain death by cobra bite no less than three times and is adept at thinking of ways in which to kill the snakes. He lives a happy life with the family diligently making sure the backyard is in good order and totally free from snakes.

Nag and Nagaina

Nag and Nagaina are married cobras who live under the bungalow where Rikki-tikki-tavi lives with his human family. They want nothing more than to kill the humans so that they may have the bungalow and garden to themselves for when their children are born. Both snakes are aggressive and calculating but neither is a match for the mongoose, who kills them both.

He is a white seal born to Sea Catch and Matkah. He decides he must prevent man's killing of young seals by finding a fabled island where man cannot come. Once he succeeds in this, he brings the thousands of seals from his homeland there.

An old, strong, and scarred seal, he is the father of Kotick.

She is Sea Catch's wife and Kotick's mother.

Kerick Booterin

An Aleut and chief of the seal-hunters on the island, he thinks Kotick is a bad omen.

He is Booterin's son.

Darzee and Darzee's Wife

They are two birds who live in the garden where Rikki-tikki comes to reside. Darzee is a little silly, but Darzee's wife is clever and helps Rikki-tikki get rid of the snakes.

Kala Nag's Indian driver and father of Little Toomai, he prefers the quiet and peace of camp life as opposed to hunting life. Although he loves his son and is teaching him the ways of the elephants in the same manner as he was taught, he is easily irritated at his son's courageous but foolhardy behavior.

Little Toomai

A bright and courageous young boy, he is the son of Big Toomai and his even more famous driver-grandfather. Kala Nag loves him and takes him with him to the elephants' dance. This raises his standing among the men and especially Peterson Sahib, the white leader of the Indian Government's elephant department and a man whom Little Toomai greatly admires. He will one day be the greatest of all the drivers.

The strong, old, and respected elephant in service of the Indian Government. His driver is Big Toomai, whom he loves, but he really feels affection for Little Toomai and takes the boy to see the elephants' dance.

Peterson Sahib

The white man who heads the Indian Government's Keddah operations and who knows more about elephants than anyone. Little Toomai looks up to him, especially when Peterson Sahib notices him, gives him a bit of money, and tells him he can go into the Keddah where he sees the elephant-dance.

The Narrator of "Her Majesty's Servants"

He is a white man who is privy to the conversations of the animals the night before the military review for the Amir of Aghanistan.

Little Vixen

Little Vixen is the white man's little dog.

He is an older, gruff mule in the Indian Army.

Young Recruit

A younger mule in the service of the Indian Army, he is nervous and easily frightened.

The Troop-Horse

The troop-horse is a horse in the service of the Indian Army.

The Bullocks

They are two large and implacable creatures in the service of the Indian Army.

The camel is one of the easily spooked animals in the Amir's army.

He is the elephant in the service of the Indian Army. The other animals respect him a lot.

Tha is the wise and stately First of the Elephants and Master of the Jungle.

The First of the Tigers

The First Tiger is appointed judge of the Jungle People's disputes but errs and brings Death into the jungle when he kills a buck. He then thinks he can alleviate Fear (in the form of Man) by killing him, but this backfires and more Men come. He gains his stripes by violating the laws and feels shame and fear, but maintains one night a year where he goes among men and they fear him.

He is a Brahmin, educated at Bombay University in the ways of the West, and Prime Minister of a semi-independent Indian state. Purun Dass respects and desires to emulate the ways of the English and thus earns their commendation and a Knighthood. After a time, though, he steps down from his post to seek out peace and fulfillment. He travels very far to the Himalayas and becomes a holy man for a small village. His time there is exactly what he desires and he befriends all of the wild animals, but he perishes leading his villagers out of danger when torrential rains bring the mountain down.

The Adjutant ("The Undertakers")

A crane who lives near the river, he is tall and thin and the villagers do not bother him.

The Jackal ("The Undertakers")

A small, mangy creature, he is friends with the Mugger and the Adjutant.

The Mugger of Mugger-Ghaut

An extremely old and weathered twenty-four-foot crocodile who lives in the river, he is feared and respected by the villagers, though not by the white man. He recounts stories of the past, particularly the Mutiny. A white man whom the crocodile once tried to eat when he was a child shoots the crocodile at the end.

Kotuku ("Quiquern")

He is a young Inuit man who, with the girl and his dogs, travels to find seals to feed his starving village.

Kadlu ("Quiquern"

He is an Inuit and father of Kotuku.

The Girl ("Quiquern")

A young girl who loses her father and brother, she comes to stay with Kotuku's family and travels with him to find seals.

The Jungle Book Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Jungle Book is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Who was purun Dass

I think he's from the second Jungle Book. Purun Dass .was a high caste Brahmin, whose father had been an important official in an old-fashioned Hindu Court.

The jungle book

What chapter are you referring to?

Briefly explain why "growing up involves facing tough situations" is a good theme for the story.

Mowgli becomes a young man as the book progresses, and the reader watches him grow from an impulsive and earnest man-cub into a leader. Like most adolescents, he believes he is not allowed to do as much as he wants to do, but readers see him grow...

Study Guide for The Jungle Book

The Jungle Book study guide contains a biography of Rudyard Kipling, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Jungle Book
• The Jungle Book Summary
• Character List

Essays for The Jungle Book

The Jungle Book essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling.

• War and Womanhood in Rudyard Kipling’s Mary Postgate (1915)
• Loyalty in “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi”

Lesson Plan for The Jungle Book

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to The Jungle Book
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• The Jungle Book Bibliography