The Jungle Book

This story is notably the only story in The Jungle Book in which the animals do not talk. However, the narrative does anthropomorphize Kala Nag in its descriptions, writing about animals as though they are fellow soldiers in the Anglo-Indian military. When describing Kala Nag’s history of work in the military, the narration relates the following:

[H]e had been hoisted into a ship at the end of a steam-crane and taken for days across the water, and made to carry a mortar on his back in a strange and rocky country very far from India, and had seen the Emperor Theodore lying dead in Magdala, and had come back again in the steamer entitled, so the soldiers said, to the Abyssinian war medal (218).

The elephant is not simply used in India, but has a role in multiple British Imperial wars such as the British expedition to Abyssinia (modern-day Ethiopia) and the Anglo-Afghan wars. The notion that he deserves a war metal emphasizes his role as a British soldier, not as an animal being made to work for human endeavors.  Similarly, the narration claims that “he had half killed an insubordinate young elephant who was shirking his fair share of the work” (218), suggesting that Kala Nag has a human-like propensity for military discipline. Anthropomorphizing Kala Nag implies that he is a willing participant in the British Imperial agenda, capable of recognizing the apparent legitimacy of British military operations and feeling loyalty to the Empire.

This story weaves together the themes of mastery and identity through Little Toomai’s desire to become an elephant catcher. While his father, Big Toomai, is content simply to be an elephant driver, Little Toomai’s desire to catch wild elephants suggests that he wants to possess even more control over the natural world. As the driver of Kala Nag, Little Toomai’s power over Kala Nag gives him a certain degree of mastery: “Kala Nag would no more have dreamed of disobeying his shrill little orders than he would have dreamed of killing him on that day when Big Toomai carried the little brown baby under Kala Nag’s tusks, and told him to salute his master that was to be” (225). However, Little Toomai admires Peterson Sahib, who is “the greatest white man in the world to him. He was the head of all the Keddah operations—the man who caught all the elephants for the Government of India, and who knew more about the ways of elephants than any living man” (231). Peterson Sahib is likely based upon British naturalist George P. Sanderson (1848-1892) who invented the method of trapping wild elephants in stockades. Little Toomai idolizes Peterson Sahib because of his knowledge of elephants and his ability to capture them. By the end of the story, Little Toomai has earned a new identity as a forester by gaining valuable knowledge of the elephant dance. In finding his own path, rebelling against his father’s wishes, he earns the respect of both humans and animals. The story ends with Little Toomai’s receiving a military salute: “[T]he whole line flung up their trunks till the tips touched their fore- heads, and broke out into the full salute—the crashing trumpet-peal that only the Viceroy of India hears, the Salaamut of the Keddah” (261). Although Little Toomai is only a child, his mastery of nature has elevated him to the status of the Viceroy of India, suggesting that receiving the fealty of Indian wildlife is tantamount to wielding power over the Indian nation.