View source for Law of the jungle

{{Short description|Expression for behavior without rule of law}}
{{Not to be confused with|Jungle justice}}
{{other uses}}
{{Multiple issues|
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{{Primary sources|date=June 2020}}
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"'''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".<ref>"Law of the Jungle". ''Oxford English Dictionary Online''. Oxford University Press.

n.d. Web. 10 May 2013.</ref> 

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

== ''The Jungle Book'' ==
In his 1894 novel ''[[The Jungle Book]]'',<ref>[[Rudyard Kipling|Kipling, Rudyard]], ''The Jungle Book'', New York: Sterling Publishing, 2007.</ref> [[Rudyard Kipling]] uses the term to describe an actual set of legal codes used by [[Grey wolf|wolves]] and other animals in the [[jungle]]s of [[British Raj|India]]. Chapter Two of ''[[The Second Jungle Book]]'' (1895)<ref>[[Rudyard Kipling|Kipling, Rudyard]], ''The Second Jungle Book'', Middlesex: The Echo Library, 2007.</ref> includes a [[poem]] featuring the Law of the Jungle, as known to the wolves and taught to their offspring. It begins:

{{poem quote|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 (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 [[The Jungle Book (2016 film)|remake]] of their 1967 animated film ''[[The Jungle Book (1967 film)|The Jungle Book]]'', itself based on the novel, the wolves' poem is described by [[Baloo]] as a piece of [[propaganda]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Bradshaw |first1=Peter |title=The Jungle Book review – spectacular revival of Disney's family favourite |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/apr/12/the-jungle-book-review |access-date=6 December 2024 |work=the Guardian |date=12 April 2016}}</ref>

==See also==
{{portal|Children's literature}}
* [[Anarchism]]
* [[Evolutionary psychology]]
* [[Lord of the Flies]]
* [[Natural law]]
* [[State of nature]]
* [[Stateless society]]
* [[Social Darwinism]]
* [[Survival of the fittest]]
* [[American frontier|The Wild West]]
* [[Callicles]]
* [[Might makes right]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{Sister project links |wikt=law of the jungle|commons=no |b=no |n=no |q=no |s=The Second Jungle Book/The Law of the Jungle|v=no |species=no}}
{{Gutenberg|no=1937|name=The Second Jungle Book}}

{{The Jungle Book}}
{{Rudyard Kipling}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Law Of The Jungle, The}}
[[Category:Fictional laws|Jungle]]
[[Category:The Jungle Book]]
[[Category:1894 introductions]]
[[Category:Quotations from literature]]
[[Category:1890s neologisms]]
[[Category:1890s quotations]]

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