検索キーワード： ナレーター "Anne Makoto" すべてのカテゴリー

Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book tell the story of the boy Mowgli who was raised by wolves. Set in a forest in India, the narratives promotes the ideas of law, freedom, respect, and obedience. Besides Mowgli, all the characters are animals or human archetypes in animal form, like Sher Khan the huge tiger, Baloo the sleepy brown bear, Bagheera the cunning black panther, and Kaa the python. The Second Jungle Book contains five stories about Mowgli and three unrelated pieces.

Kipling's Jungle Book remains popular and has seen many adaptations to film and other media. Besides the boy Mowgli, all the characters are animals or rather human archetypes in animal form. The stories, set in a forest in India, have themes like abandonment followed by fostering, and promotes the ideas of law and freedom, respect and obedience. Even critics of Kipling's supposed imperialism admit to the extraordinary power of his storytelling.

The story begins with an unnamed male narrator who describes a man with a limp and a striking demeanor. The story of Ethan, his sickly wife Zeena, and the caregiver Mattie then unfolds: Mattie helped to care for the infirm Zeena, but when Zeena noticed a spark of affection between her husband and Mattie, she demanded that the caregiver be dismissed. When the aforementioned narrator resumes, it emerges that Mattie was severely injured 20 years earlier in the accident which caused Ethan’s limp as well as a startling role reversal among the two women.