Seven Stories
What is the story of The Jungle Book? There is no single story. Rudyard Kipling’s book is seven stories, and only three of them have Mowgli in them. Most people remember a boy raised by wolves and stop there. I read all seven, so this is a full summary of each one, with spoilers for the whole book.
I will go story by story, and I will point out one thing each story is really about.
The Edition
I read Project Gutenberg ebook number two hundred and thirty-six. It has seven stories, and each story is followed by a song or poem. By my count the stories add up to about forty-nine thousand words.
Three Mowgli stories open the book, spread out with songs between them. Then come a seal, a mongoose, an elephant boy and a camp of army animals. The songs are short, and I do not summarize them here, though they are part of the book. I give no first publication year here, because I did not verify it twice. This summary covers only what is in that text.
Mowgli’s Brothers
Story one. In the Seeonee hills, Father Wolf and Mother Wolf find a human baby in their cave. Shere Khan, the lame tiger, wants him, but Mother Wolf, called Raksha, will not give him up.
She names him Mowgli. At the Council Rock, Baloo the bear and Bagheera the black panther speak for him, and Bagheera buys his place with a bull. Ten or eleven years go by in one line. Shere Khan turns the young wolves against the old leader Akela, who misses a kill. Mowgli brings fire from a village, drives the wolves back, and promises Shere Khan’s hide. The pack throws him out, so he goes to men. This story is about belonging, and who gets to decide it.
Kaa’s Hunting
Story two happens before the end of story one. Baloo teaches Mowgli the Master Words, which make birds, snakes and hunters leave him alone. Then the monkeys, the Bandar-log, carry him off to a ruined city called the Cold Lairs.
Baloo and Bagheera ask Kaa the rock python for help. Bagheera fights the monkeys and escapes into a water tank, Baloo is nearly smothered, and Kaa breaks down the marble wall to free Mowgli. Kaa then dances, and the monkeys, Baloo and Bagheera are all pulled toward his jaws, until Mowgli leads his friends away. Bagheera punishes Mowgli with love-taps, and then the matter is settled. This story is about law, because the monkeys have none.
Tiger, Tiger
Story three goes back to where story one ended. Mowgli walks twenty miles to a village. A woman named Messua thinks he might be her lost son Nathoo, and she takes him in. He learns the language, and he herds buffaloes.
Gray Brother warns him that Shere Khan is waiting at the village gate. So Mowgli, with Akela and Gray Brother, splits the herd and sends it down a ravine. Shere Khan is trampled. When Mowgli starts skinning the tiger, the village hunter Buldeo is frightened into thinking he is a sorcerer, and the villagers throw stones. Mowgli returns the hide to the Council Rock and hunts alone with the four wolf cubs. The book says he marries years later, but that is a story for grown-ups.
The White Seal
Story four leaves India. On an island in the Bering Sea, a seal pup named Kotick is born white, which his father Sea Catch says never happens. At the beach he follows seal hunters and watches a drove being clubbed. He decides to find an island where no men come.
He spends five seasons exploring. In the end he meets the sea cows, who lead him through a tunnel to a safe beach. He returns, fights the biggest seals to prove it, and leads about ten thousand of them north. This story is about refusing to accept how things are done.
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
Story five is the most like a thriller. A flood carries a young mongoose to a bungalow, and a boy named Teddy and his family take him in. Rikki-tikki kills the small deadly snake Karait, then learns from the muskrat Chuchundra that the cobras Nag and Nagaina plan to kill the family.
He kills Nag by seizing his head in the bathroom, and the father fires a gun. Nagaina threatens Teddy at breakfast, until Rikki-tikki threatens her last egg. He chases her into her hole, and she never comes out. This story is about courage with a clever head.
Toomai of the Elephants
Story six follows Little Toomai, ten years old, who rides the elephant Kala Nag with his father, Big Toomai. Petersen Sahib, who runs the elephant catching for the government, tells him he may join the elephant catchers when he has seen the elephants dance, a joke that means never.
That night, Kala Nag slips his chain, and Toomai goes with him. In the hills, they find a cleared circle where scores of wild elephants stamp until dawn. Machua Appa, the head tracker, finds the place, and names the boy Toomai of the Elephants. This story is about being let into a secret.
Her Majesty’s Servants
Story seven is a night conversation. At a camp in Rawal Pindi, camels stampede, and the narrator hides among the guns. There he hears a mule named Billy, a troop horse, a camel, two gun bullocks and an elephant, Two Tails, argue about how to fight.
Each one is sure that its way is the only way, and each is afraid of something different. At the next day’s review, they all perform for the Viceroy and the Amir of Afghanistan. A native officer explains that every animal and man obeys, up a long chain to the Empress. This story is about obedience.
What the Seven Share
So what do the seven share? Mostly, they are about a creature with a code, whether it is the Law of the Jungle, the Rules of the Beach, or an order. That phrase, Law of the Jungle, appears nineteen times by my search, and every one is in the Mowgli stories. Away from Mowgli, the other four stories are about how each creature fights or serves, and why.
Here is my reading, and it is an opinion. The stories ask who gets to make the rules. Mowgli is cast out for being the wrong kind of animal, and Kotick is laughed at for wanting something new. Rikki-tikki and Toomai are welcomed by the people around them, while Mowgli is driven out by his own. The book never says which is fair.
Should You Read It
Read it if you want short stories, and you like animals who talk like people. Skip the songs if you want speed. Some language and attitudes are of their time, so go in knowing that. For me it is four out of five, and that is a draft opinion.
If this helped, subscribe, and tap like. And tell me in the comments which of the seven you would read first.
