The Jungle Book

The motif of superstition occurs throughout The Jungle Book, often used to depict certain characters as foolish and irrational. Mowgli is first exposed to human superstition in “Tiger! Tiger!” when he hears Buldeo telling stories about how Shere Khan is “lame” because he is the ghost of a money-lender with a physical disability. While Mowgli brushes this off as obviously false, Buldeo’s superstition eventually causes him to be cast out of the village and stoned for practicing sorcery. When Mowgli has one of his wolf brothers knock Buldeo down, he becomes convinced that Mowgli must have overpowered him with magic: “It was sorcery, magic of the worst kind, thought Buldeo, and he wondered whether the amulet round his neck would protect him. He lay as still as still, expecting every minute to see Mowgli turn into a tiger, too” (120). Because the reader knows that this is false and that Mowgli’s success in the hunt is the result of intelligence and knowledge of animal behavior, Kipling uses dramatic irony to portray Buldeo’s superstitious belief as foolish and unfounded.

Similarly, in “The White Seal,” the superstitious beliefs of the seal hunters are depicted as ridiculous, causing them to fear an animal that they could otherwise easily overpower. As Kotick follows the hunters along the beach, the hunters refuse to approach him, one of them worrying, “He’s unlucky. Do you really think he is old Zaharrof come back? I owe him for some gulls’ eggs” (150). Because Kotick is the protagonist of the story, there is no doubt that he is not the ghost of a seal hunter named Zaharrof, but the hunters’ superstitious fear causes them to irrationally leave the young seal alone and allow him to escape.

Kipling’s perspective on superstitions emphasizes that the wonders of the natural world are more impressive than a belief in magic, aligning with the rationalist morality of his work. For example, when describing the mongoose’s ability to survive a fight with a snake, the narration states that medieval bestiaries, which claimed that mongooses and weasels used magical herbs as an antidote to snake venom, are false. Instead, Kipling writes that mongooses survive due to their incredible speed, and “that makes things much more wonderful than any magic herb” (189). Kipling’s stories in The Jungle Book depict superstition as foolishly undermining the amazing phenomena of the natural world. His perspective supports an appreciation for the environment and a western scientific way of understanding nature, but often at the expense of the beliefs of non-white peoples, whose cultural and religious perspectives are degraded as nothing but irrational fears.