Since I was a wee insufferable lad, I've seen Disney's interpretation of "The Jungle Book" probably over a hundred times. So when I finally got around to reading the source material by Rudyard Kipling, imagine my surprise when I discovered that they really aren't all that similar—at all.
I'm not sure why that surprised me. After all, that's sort of Disney's thing when you consider their interpretations of the Brothers Grimm. The book is a series of short stories revolving around Mowgli and isn't one long continuous narrative. Sure they all fit together, but they each have independent arcs separate from the overarching plot.
The setting and characters are a curious choice for a man like Kipling, other than the fact he was an English man, and they all had strong opinions about India, especially back then. But as charming as these stories are, and surprising as it is that our protagonist is an Indian boy named Mowgli, take it with a grain of salt that this was for any sort of early progressive reason. Kipling would soon go on to write something called "The White Man's Burden," which is precisely what it sounds like.
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