Man Loves to Hate Man

    

Posted: September 3, 2016

Two of the last books I have enjoyed are Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan of the Apes and Return of Tarzan.  There were such fun reads, I can't wait to get my hands on more.  Tarzan especially is a strong amazing character.  He, while being still a man, hardly makes mistakes and seeks to be just and do right.

Last night I was able to watch the new Disney version of The Jungle Book.  I have of course seen the 1967 version as well.  The Jungle Book was written between 1893-1894 and published to be read in magazines.  Since they are a collection of stories about the jungle, I have read most of them.  I stopped after the chapter “Mowgli’s Song”.  The author Rudyard Kipling could not hold my interest much after that.  Mowgli, like Tarzan, is placed in the jungle.

The authors may or may have not realized the message they were sending from the stories they wrote, being that mankind has ruined man in his primeval state, making him dark and evil, taking away the innocence.

Let’s start by looking at how both characters, Mowgli and Tarzan, were raised by animals with laws and “rules of the jungle”.  Both were small toddlers when they entered the family that so willingly accepted them and would die for them.  For Tarzan, Kala his mother, one time so sacrificially brought water in her mouth multiple times from the stream to a hurt disabled son, badly wounded from a gorilla attack.  (Tarzan was raised by apes, not gorillas!  Once again Disney got it wrong)  Burrough’s expressed how never before has a mother loved.  Mowgli, also loved, was saved from the undesirable monkeys by Bagheera, Baloo, and Kaa.  Now each child learned the laws of animals.  They were shown that they killed only for food, never pleasure.  They learn that other animals live this way, so they must protect themselves and their own.  This was natural.

The two characters are both very smart.  Even though they are raised from an animal family they could easily adapt to the race of man.  Tarzan teaches himself to read from the books found in his biological parent’s cabin.  He discovers how to make a lasso and use it effectively.  Mowgli also learns the ways of man.  Eventually he shows his cleverness by killing the dreaded tiger, Shere Khan.

Both the jungle dwellers return back and forth to their preferred lifestyle and the human race.  Tarzan is torn between his love for Jane and his love of the jungle.  Mowgli’s family, the black panther and the sleepy bear, regretfully have to send Mowgli away to live with men.  The authors send the message here that if these men, raised so close to nature, live in the civilized world they will be ruined.  Luckily for the reader, they are not.  Tarzan, often confused by the vicious and cruel ways of his fellow man, always overcomes by remembering the ways of the jungle.

Books today go even the classic step further.  Instead of saying that civilized man will ruin our primitive selves they look at government and how men in power can ruin our entire human race.  The Hunger Games and Divergent are two books with two female leads that challenge a government power mad bent on destroying their populations.  Rebellion against government is nothing new.  Look at Caesar, a real historical story made famous again by Shakespeare.

I wonder what the next generation of writers will bring to the table.  What kind of humans we will use to fight against a new untold adversary?  I am excited to see what new ideas come from my fellow writers and thinkers.  I, myself, am inspired to create something new.

Let’s change the idea of man hating man.  We can develop the story to be so much more.

-Beck