Law of the jungle

"The law of the jungle" (also called jungle law) is an expression that has come to describe a scenario where "anything goes". The Oxford English Dictionary defines the Law of the Jungle as "the code of survival in jungle life, now usually with reference to the superiority of brute force or self-interest in the struggle for survival".^[1]

The phrase was introduced in Rudyard Kipling's 1894 work The Jungle Book, where it described the behaviour of wolves in a pack.

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In his 1894 novel The Jungle Book,^[2] Rudyard Kipling uses the term to describe an actual set of legal codes used by wolves and other animals in the jungles of India. Chapter Two of The Second Jungle Book (1895)^[3] includes a poem featuring the Law of the Jungle, as known to the wolves and taught to their offspring. It begins:

NOW this is the law of the jungle, as old and as true as the sky,
And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.

As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk, the law runneth forward and back;
For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.

In the 1994 film The Jungle Book, the jungle law is portrayed as a decree forbidding the killing of animals for reasons outside of one's own survival, such as gluttony or sport. The law is maintained by Shere Khan, the jungle's "royal keeper" and protector, who kills anyone who has violated it.

In the 2016 Disney remake of their 1967 animated film The Jungle Book, itself based on the novel, the wolves' poem is described by Baloo as a piece of propaganda.^[4]

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[1]
"Law of the Jungle". Oxford English Dictionary Online. Oxford University Press. n.d. Web. 10 May 2013.
[2]
Kipling, Rudyard, The Jungle Book, New York: Sterling Publishing, 2007.
[3]
Kipling, Rudyard, The Second Jungle Book, Middlesex: The Echo Library, 2007.
[4]
Bradshaw, Peter (12 April 2016). "The Jungle Book review – spectacular revival of Disney's family favourite". the Guardian. Retrieved 6 December 2024.