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Mowgli is a Fictional Feral Child character who originally appeared in Rudyard Kipling 's short story "In the Rukh" (collected in ''Many Inventions'', 1893 ) and then went on to become the most prominent and memorable character in his fantasies, '' The Jungle Book '' and '' The Second Jungle Book '' ( 1894 - 1895 ), which also featured non-Mowgli stories. The Mowgli stories including ''In the Rukh'' were first collected in chronological order in one volume as ''The Works of Rudyard Kipling Volume VII: The Jungle Book'' ( 1907 ) (''Volume VIII'' of this series contained the non-Mowgli stories from the Jungle Books), and subsequently in '' All The Mowgli Stories '' ( 1933 ). MOWGLI STORIES ''In the Rukh'' describes how Gisborne, an English forest ranger in India at the time of the British Raj , discovers a young man named Mowgli, who has extraordinary skill at hunting and tracking, and asks him to join the forestry service. Later Gisborne learns the reason for Mowgli's almost superhuman talents: he was raised by wild animals in the jungle. Kipling then proceeded to write the stories of Mowgli's childhood in detail. Lost by his parents in the Indian jungle, a human baby is adopted by the Wolves Mother ( Raksha ) and Father Wolf , who call him "Mowgli the Frog" because of his furlessness. Shere Khan the Tiger demands that they give him the baby but the wolves refuse. Mowgli grows up with and runs Naked with the pack, hunting with his brother wolves. the Bear , teacher of wolves, has the thankless task of educating Mowgli in The Law Of The Jungle . Mowgli has many adventures among the talking animals in his jungle paradise, assuming ever-increasing mastery as he approaches manhood. Shere Khan regards Mowgli as fair game, but eventually Mowgli finds the one weapon he can use against the tiger - Fire . After driving off Shere Khan, Mowgli returns to the human village where he is adopted by Messua and her Husband who believe he is their own long-lost son Nathoo . (In fact we never find out if this is true.) While herding Buffalo for the village Mowgli learns that the tiger is still planning to kill him, so with the aid of two wolves he traps Shere Khan in a Ravine , where the buffalo trample him. Seeing this, the villagers persecute Mowgli and his adopted parents as witches. Mowgli runs back to the jungle but soon learns that the villagers are planning to kill Messua and her husband, so he rescues them and sends Elephants , buffalo and other animals to trample the village and its fields to the ground. During his time in the village Mowgli wears Clothing , but discards it again when he returns to the wild. In later stories he finds and then discards an ancient treasure, not realising that men will kill to own it; and with the aid of Kaa the Python he leads the wolves in a war against the Dhole (red dogs). Finally, Mowgli stumbles across the village where his human mother is now living, which forces him to come to terms with his humanity and decide whether to rejoin his fellow humans. Kipling also adapted the Mowgli stories for ''The Jungle Play'' in 1899 , but the play was never produced on stage and the manuscript was lost for almost a century. It was finally published in book form in 2000 . ''The Jungle Play'': UK Paperback edition: ISBN 014118292X INFLUENCES UPON OTHER WORKS Only five years after the first publication of ''The Jungle Book'', E. Nesbit 's ''The Wouldbegoods'' ( 1899 ) included a passage in which some children act out a scene from the book. Mowgli has been cited as a major influence on Edgar Rice Burroughs ' character Tarzan , although the Mowgli stories are arguably better written. Mowgli was also a probable influence on at a number of other "wild boy" characters; see Feral Children In Mythology And Fiction . Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson used the Mowgli stories as the basis for their humorous 1957 science fiction short story "Full Pack (Hokas Wild)". This is one of a series featuring a Teddy Bear -like race called Hokas who enjoy human literature but cannot quite grasp the distinction between fact and fiction. In this story a group of Hokas get hold of a copy of ''The Jungle Book'' and begin to act it out with the help of a human boy and his mother, who is a little bemused to see teddy bears trying to act like wolves. The situation is then complicated by the arrival of three alien diplomats who just happen to resemble a monkey, a tiger and a snake. This story appears in the collection ''Hokas Pokas!'' ( 1998 ) (ISBN 0671578588), and is also available on-line: |
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