SOURCE: Murray, John. “The Law of The Jungle Books.” Children's Literature 20 (1992): 1-14.

In the following essay, Murray analyzes the concept of law in Kipling's The Jungle Books.

There is broad critical agreement that the concept of law is vital and pervasive in Kipling's work, and the concept has been the subject of at least one book, Shamsul Islam's Kipling's “Law”. Islam devotes considerable space to a discussion of the law in The Jungle Books, asserting that “an exposition of the nature of the Law is one of Kipling's main aims in The Jungle Books in general and the Mowgli stories in particular” (122). He highlights their didactic purpose by stating that while they are “primarily children's books, [they] are secondarily educational manuals” and that Kipling is being “didactic as well as entertaining” (121). Bonamy Dobrée agrees with these sentiments, asserting that “what Kipling felt to be essential to the...