Tuesday, April 22, 2014

While the similarities between The Graveyard Book and The Jungle Book are plentiful and purposeful but one of the ways that Gaiman decided to distance his work from Kipling is through his portrayal of his protagonist. While Bod and Mowgli both are similar in their isolation from the human world and their "feral" nature, they differ in their interactions with the human world as well as their roles in their respective novels.
Both Mowgli and Bod are confined to an area that is mostly free from human interactions. Mowgli spends his time in the jungle where he lives and talks with animals because he was separated from his parents during a tiger attack and Bod lives in the Graveyard with ghosts, vampires and werewolves because his family was murdered by Jack. However where Mowgli is separated from humanity for much of the Jungle Book, Bod's companions are obviously more closely linked to the human world seeing as the ghosts were humans and Silas and Miss Lupescu are both humanoid. Bod even has a human companion that he interacts with for a considerable period of time in Scarlet. Fittingly, the similarity of their upbringings leads to very similar ends of both Mowgli and Bod. Once the two characters begin to grow up the grow out of their childhood homes as well. Mowgli drifts out of the jungle and into the human world, even being adopted by Messua and her husband, and although Mowgli still has interactions with the jungle, by the end of the book it is clear that Mowgli has chosen a life of man as opposed to one of animals. Like Mowgli, Bod is slowly forced out of the graveyard as he begins to lose the power of the graveyard when he grows up. However with Mowgli we know that later in his life he still has a connection with the jungle as is shown in the story Into the Rukh but with Bod, the ending of the Graveyard book makes it clear that he will not return to the graveyard. 
The two characters have their similarities as well as their difference in their interaction with the human world as well as their futures one large difference Mowgli and Bod have is their role in the stories of Kipling and Gaiman. Kipling uses Mowgli for only part of The Jungle Book as his growing up is not suitable for a children's book as opposed to Gaiman who fully explains the end of Bod's life in the graveyard. The difference between the two characters roles with humans as well as their roles in their stories shows the fundamental difference in times between the two novels. In Kipling's world it was possible for someone like Mowgli to exist, a feral child in the untamed jungle of central India. However with Gaiman this is not the case, a person cannot live detached from society like Mowgli once did, the difference of the times is shown at the very end of The Graveyard Book when Bod leaves forever and Silas gives him a passport and a wad of cash.

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