The document analyzes children's literature and finds that some books contain prejudices. For example, Tarzan can only fall in love with a white woman, and Mowgli living in the jungle portrays Indians in a derogatory way. While children's stories aim to be prejudice-free, parental guidance is still needed to filter biased elements. The Jungle Book also contains manipulation as themes, as Bagheera manipulates other animals and Mowgli has an identity crisis living between humans and animals.

1.  We would want to assume that children's literature would be free of adult prejudice but
an analysis of some books reveal that it is not. Take for example Tarzan who is brought
up by apes. In the language of apes, the word Tarzan means 'white skin'. Tarzan also
rules the jungle world because he is stronger and smarter. He could only fall in love with
a white skinned woman. Mowgli of Kipling has to live in the jungle like Tarzan but
knowing Kipling that he was, we have reasons to read beyond lines. Portrayal of Indians
is derogatory in the Jungle Book. Mowgli can scare animals with his stare. Britisher who
shoots a crocodile is an indirect hint to Indians that only a Britisher could protect them.
Even the great Mark Twain is found biased at times in Adventures of Huck Finn when
Jim, the Afro-American is portrayed as superstitious and naïve.
Just as in some movies they warn that parental discretion is required likewise it requires
parental discretion and help to filter such elements from the stories.
 “The Law of the Jungle, which never orders anything without a reason, forbids every beast to
eat Man except when he is killing to show his children how to kill, and then he must hunt
outside the hunting grounds of his pack or tribe. The real reason for this is that man-killing
means, sooner or later, the arrival of white men on elephants, with guns, and hundreds of
brown men with gongs and rockets and torches. Then everybody in the jungle suffers.”
 Mowgli thinks that because he has been loyal to the rules of the jungle, animals would
not betray him. He says, “‘and what is a man that he should not run with his brothers?’ said
Mowgli. ‘I was born in the jungle. I have obeyed the Law of the Jungle, and there is no wolf
of ours from whose paws I have not pulled a thorn. Surely they are my brothers!’’ But Baloo
and Bagheera know that his faith in the pack of wolves is ill-founded.
 Rules of the jungle are not as innocent as they look. Bagheera uses Mowgli as a pawn to
overpower Sherekhan and has a false pride. Bagheera’s story that he broke the lock of
the zoo door with one blow of a paw is incredible. Towards the end when rescuing
Mowgli from the Bandar log, he injures himself. Bandar log also have vanity and all that
they do is to take sadist pleasure in troubling others. Kaa is cunning. In short, all the
human vices are present in animals also. “The second world, which it is impossible to
distinguish from the first by the material it is built of, is the world of the fable proper.
The elements of moral instruction, which are certainly not alien to a child's world, are
systematized. The beasts, without discarding pleasingly incongruous habits of their own,
are plainly representative of human traits and conditions, and we are never oblivious of
their counterparts in the world of men. They are grouped into arrangements that point
a moral, and the moral may extend beyond a child's comprehension, though it should
not lie wholly outside it. In The Jungle Books the fable comes and goes, and sometimes
lies like a transparent glaze over the adventures....” (Tompkins)

2.  Manipulation is a theme. Bagheera manipulates Mowgli, Sherkhan manipulates wolves,
Bagheera manipulates Kaa.
 Akela is the leader of the pack of wolves but he is isolated from his pack as he is getting
old. Sherekhan is able to manipulate wolves and both Akela and Mowgali are betrayed
by the wolves. Ultimately the pack of wolves remain leaderless.
 Raised by animals, Mowgli inherits all the traits of animals including an ability to
understand their language but he has human traits also. He is smarter than most of the
animals and shows emotions also.
 Mowgli also has an identity crisis. He is betrayed by the animals and is advised to live in
the village with the humans. He does not feel comfortable to live among humanbeings.
Ultimately he decides to live alone in the jungle.
