While it’s smattered
with reluctance and a lot of tangents, The
Jungle Book is a coming of age story. Mowgli has lived in a state of
innocence, knowing nothing of the world that he really belongs in. The story
operates under the assumption that children are neither good or bad, but are in
need of moral construction in order to maintain a pattern of goodness. Because
of this, Mowgli’s morality is completely dependent on whomever is taking care
of him—until he reaches maturity and leaves to make his own decisions.
When Mowgli starts out, he is happily living with the
wolves. They love him, and it’s apparent that he is doing nothing wrong—until
the adults have decided that he has reached a point where he needs to mature
and start to live his own life. However, at this point he is handed over to
Bagheera. Bagheera immediately begins teaching Mowgli his own ideas of
morality. According to Bagheera, Mowgli needs to be more focused, less silly,
and leave the jungle—really his childish ways, behind. When Mowgli is measure
up against Bagheera’s ideals of morality, he fails and is viewed as naughty.
However, when Mowgli meets up with Baloo, the morality he is
taught changes. Baloo is much more neutral, and views Mowgli’s innate
childishness as his best quality. For Baloo, right is having fun and wrong is
taking things too seriously—something that Mowgli immediately takes to heart.
As Mowgli is compared to Baloo’s sense of morality he is viewed as good and
nice. However, this changes when Baloo is also held to Bagheera’s correct
version of morality and finds himself failing. Consequently, Mowgli again is
seen as naughty.
When Mowgli has no adult to guide him, he has no morality
guiding him. When he is with the chimps, everything is chaotic—the same thing
happens with the vultures once again is in a state of chaos. Mowgli’s coming of
age happens when he creates his own kind of morality. Despite Bagheera’s
insistence that Mowgli should avoid Shere Khan and Baloo’s laziness, Mowgli
decides to fight against Shere Khan and succeeds, creating his own version of
morality and reaching maturity.
While the big picture of morality is still a clear black and
white—Shere Khan is evil and everyone else is good—good varies. When Mowgli is
a child, he is dependent on other adults to display what morality is. When he reaches
maturity and starts making his own decisions, Mowgli creates his own version of
morality. However, that morality is informed by what he has been taught in the
past and so he does what Bagheera and the other adults wanted him to do anyway
and goes to live in the village.
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