Bod and Mowgli on Loneliness

Often, when I am sincerely intrigued by a particular narrative, I get lost in the plot and lose all sight of the overarching significance of the story.  Luckily, there was an “Aha! Moment” scene for me in The Graveyard Book in which all the pieces of the puzzle came together.  While trying to get Scarlett’s attention, Bod is hidden behind a tombstone on which an infamous biblical excerpt from Matthew 25 is inscribed: “I was a stranger and you took me in” (48).  I pondered on how applicable that quote was for Bod considering his upbringing.  At this moment, I realized how applicable this particular quotation was for Mowgli’s childhood as well.  Suddenly, I put all the pieces together, and Kipling’s influence Gaiman became embarrassingly obvious. 

Gaiman simply relocates the opening chapters of The Jungle Book into a graveyard.  No one seems to understand how Bod got into the graveyard in the first place, just as no one in the jungle knows how Mowgli got there.  Furthermore, both characters avoid what should have been an inevitable death: Mowgli narrowly escapes Shere Kahn’s impending attack just as Bod is saved from a deathly attack by Jack.  The similarities appear in other characters as well, namely the mother figures.  Mother Wolf is the one who ultimately saves Mowgli from Shere Kahn with her “advantage of the ground” (9) and willingness to fight to the death.  Similarly, Mrs. Owens argues for the custody of Bod and his permission into the graveyard.  Silas and Baloo also share similarities as teachers and life coaches for the small boys. 

While both narratives share the theme of “belonginglessness,” Bod seems much more frustrated by his lack of belonging than does Mowgli.  In fact, Mowgli takes advantage of his lack of agency and proclaims himself as superior to the rest.  Bod is inquisitive of the world beyond the graveyard but can only find somewhat definitive answers through Silas as most other residents of the graveyard are wary of his inquiries.  Despite his frustration of not knowing exactly the stories beyond the graveyard, Bod appears to have a stronger sense of responsibility or possible reverence to those who raised him than does Mowgli.  I perceived Mowgli’s lack of responsibility to his wolf family through his ventures with the Bandar-Log and the casual manner in which he decides to join the human sphere for a time.  I believe this discrepancy between the two characters will become more pronounced as we see how Bod’s story progresses in The Graveyard Book.            

Kipling vs. Disney

      As is the case with many of Disney's classic movies, The Jungle Book is based on a few of the stories written by Kipling in his book The Jungle Book.  One of the main difference between the two versions of the stories about the indian jungle are reflective of the audience.  Disney selected only stories about Mowgli, since he is a kid growing up, that their audience of children to young adults could relate to.  Some of the elements of these stories were either too complex for children to understand or too violent and not age-appropriate.  As a result, the stories about Mowgli are dumbed down a bit.   Examples of this include the wolf packs treatment of Mowgli.  In the book, Mowgli's inclusion in the pack seems to only be supported by the Lone Wolf, Akela, his parents, and Baloo, who is a member of the wolf pack despite being a bear.  The movie changes the story a bit and set us the wolf pack as a supportive base for Mowgli with other dangers surrounding him.
      In both the book and the movie, the chief danger is Shere Kahn, the tiger.  Shere Kahn wants to kill Mowgli since the moment he hears about his presence in the forest.  Even Shere Kahn's character is presented very differently between the book and the movie.  In the movie he is presented as a fearsome wandered, while in the book Shere Kahn actually integrates himself into the wolf tribe where the younger wolves begin to follow his lead in wanting to kill Mowgli.  In addition, Shere Kahn is lame in the movie do to damage to one of his paws.  Kaa, the python is the secondary villain that appears in the movie.  However, Kaa is a good character for the most part in the book.  When Mowgli is kidnaped by the monkeys, which also occurs in the movie, Baloo and Bagheera find Kaa to recruit his help in rescuing Mowgli due to monkeys lone fear of the huge snake.  Kaa does so and most likely saves all of their lives in the process as the monkeys outnumber them about 100-1.  However, we do get a small taste of Kaa's ability to hypnotize in the books that makes him one of the dangerous characters in the movie during this part of the story.  Oddly enough, only Baloo and Bagheera seem to be effected by the hypnosis and not Mowgli.
      One of the main differences between the book and the movie, is in how things are portrayed, especially the law of the jungle.  Although Baloo teaches Mowgli about this in both, the law of the jungle is a much more serious matter in the books.  Baloo is frequently freaking out over whether Mowgli is going to forget the laws and how to speak to the different animals.  Mowgli is perceived to be protected as long as he is able to talk to each animal in their own language by the laws of the forest.  The laws of the forest seem to be followed by every animal except for Shere Kahn, but even he has some regard for them as is shown during the wolf pack meetings.  Another element not presented in the movie, is that of the use and power of fire.  Bagheera sends Mowgli to find the "red flower" in the human village and this enables Mowgli to survive the second meeting when the wolves and Shere Kahn wish to kill him.  As with many Disney movies, the story of The Jungle Book is dumbed down in order to appeal to its audience and to set up a more simple moral situation in which Disney teaches a lesson.  The book is much more sophisticated with adult themes and a complex plot.

Obedience or Curiosity

The primary lessons for children that are presented in Kipling’s The Jungle Book and Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book are very different. In The Jungle Book, the Law of the Jungle clarifies Kipling’s belief that children should be obedient. This is most evident when at the end of “How Fear Came,” Kipling provides the reader with a part of the Law of the Jungle that states “Now these are the Laws of the Jungle, and many and mighty are they / But the head and the hoof of the Law and the haunch and the hump is – Obey!” (Kipling 244). Throughout the novel, each lesson Mowgli learns is part of the Law of the Jungle, so it is likely that Kipling is using the Law to suggest how children should behave. As is stated in the earlier quote, the most important law of all of the Jungle Laws is to be obedient. Therefore, Kipling is claiming that obedience is the most quality for a child to learn.

In The Graveyard Book, less importance is placed on children being obedient. In “The Witch’s Headstone,” many of the ghosts suggest that Bod stay away from the unconsecrated ground. However, the reader is informed that “Bod was obedient, but curious,” so he traveled to the unconsecrated ground regardless of the ghosts’ advice (Gaiman 106). Bod is not punished for going to the unconsecrated part of the graveyard. This chapter of The Graveyard Book suggests that while obedience is important, curiosity in children should also be celebrated. The primary rule in throughout the novel is that Bod cannot leave the graveyard because the outside world is not safe for him. The only time Silas gets angry with Bod is when Bod goes to school and draws attention to himself. Silas says that he is angry because “They can find [Bod]” (193), in reference to the Jacks of All Trades, who plan to kill Bod. Silas’s anger when Bod leaves is due to the fact that Bod is putting himself in danger. The lessons in Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book celebrate curiosity while advising children to consider how safe their decisions are, rather than simply being obedient as in Kipling’s The Jungle Book. 

Self-Interest VS Empathy

Throughout The Graveyard Book, Gaiman places a lot of emphasis on the difference between those who are motivated by empathy and those who are motivated by self-interest. In “The Witch’s Headstone,” the reader first sees Bod’s empathy when he sets out to find a headstone for his witch friend, Liza. When Liza tells Bod she doesn’t have a headstone, Bod “wanted to hug her. And then it came to him…He would find Liza Hempstock a headstone with her name upon it. He would make her smile” (113). He nearly gets himself killed trying to find the headstone, and puts himself in danger of being found by the man Jack, but his empathy for Liza earns him something; Liza is now his friend and his protector. She gets him out of a lot of sticky situations and becomes one of Bod’s good friends in the graveyard. In “Nobody Owens’ School Days,” Bod once again risks making himself visible to the man Jack by speaking out against the bullies at his school. He tells one of his classmates who has been forced to give his money to Nick and Mo to “’tell them that you think the police and school authorities could be a lot more interested in a couple of kids who are getting younger kids to steal for them” (185) and to stop giving them his money. Doing this gets Bod into a lot of trouble, but ultimately he prevails over the bullies, even though it meant he had to stop going to school. In the end, Bod has a happy ending.

            Those characters who are motivated only by self-interest are not given a happy ending by Gaiman. The Jacks of All Trades are a prime example. Jack Frost in particular shows a lot of self-interest throughout the book. After he realizes that all the remaining Jacks except for him have been defeated, he thinks, “Good…There’s always room at the top. The man Jack’s own rise through the Order had slowed and stopped after he had failed to kill all the Dorian family…now, soon, everything would change” (275). Jack is motivated by self-interest and the thought of gaining power and being the last Jack remaining. In the end, however, the man Jack meets his demise when the Sleer kills him. The Jacks of All Trades do experience a fair amount of success, since their group prevails for a few thousand years. However, although their order “goes back before Babylon” (278), they are all killed by the good guys slowly but surely, until they are finally defeated by Bod, Silas, and Miss Lupescu at the end of the book. The self-interested, the bad guys, fall, while Bod, the empathetic, gets a happy ending. Self-interest is defeated by empathy.

Alma

                The chapter Alma is interesting because the reader is exposed to a very different view of Yunior’s infidelity than what our class has come to have, especially in terms of what it means to be a Dominican man.  In the previous story Nilda, Yunior is still a very quiet person when it comes to his relationships with women, a characteristic that is quite un-Dominican.  He claims to love Nilda, but never tells her how he feels, and he sits quietly even while he expects Rafa to mistreat her.  While this reluctance to engage with women isn’t as explicit in the following chapter, the reader can gleam that Yunior is still inexperienced when it comes to the opposite sex. At the beginning of Alma, Yunior claims that if it wasn’t for girls like her he never would have lost his virginity (47).  While this doesn’t explicitly state that Alma was the girl who did it, the reader can assume that this relationship was towards the beginning of Yunior’s sex life.  There are also other examples within the chapter that show Yunior’s lack of experience when it comes to women.  When asked on their first date if he would rather come on Alma’s tits or her face Yunior responds with, “umm, neither” (48-49), and when he is caught cheating he foolishly tries to deny it (50).  But Yunior’s inexperience doesn’t stop him from cheating, although it does get him caught in one of the most idiotic ways possible.  Yunior’s infidelity is something that isn’t uncommon among the average Dominican man from Diaz’s books, and is something most readers would consider to make him more Dominican.  However, Alma views the situation differently.  Earlier in the chapter Alma brags to her friends that Yunior is a “real Dominican” (48), and it is only after she finds him cheating that she accuses him of being a “fake-ass Dominican” (50).  This difference between the reader’s and Alma’s opinion could illuminate the ways in which Dominicans view their nationality.  Being Dominican herself, Alma should understand how Dominican men behave.  Do we, as readers on the outside have an untrue bias about what it means to be a Dominican man, or is Alma’s perception skewed because of youthful inexperience or some other factor? How do Alma’s views compare with the other women in Diaz’s books?  

Yunior: Good or bad?

      As is similar with previous stories in the other books we get a similar Yunior who acts similarly to a typical Dominican man,  but realizes the error in his ways and often feels badly about them.  Yunior realizes being a Dominican man is not the right thing to do, but struggles to break away from the typical nature of men that has been instilled in him still his childhood.
      In the opening story of This Is How You Lose Her, Yunior cheats on his girlfriend, Magda, but feels terribly about it. He tells her he won't leave her "because I love you, mami. I know this sounds like a load of doo-doo, but it's true: Magda's my heart" (6).  At the same time, Yunior's friends are trying to pull him away from Magda using typical Dominican attitudes of "fuck her, don't sweat that bitch" (7).  Here we see the problem that Yunior is confronted with throughout the three books.  He has his own desires and a relatively good set of morals, but the expectations and influence of other Dominican males are often too much for him and he caves to their influence.
      This brings about the question of whose fault is it that Yunior and other Dominican men are the way that they are.  At the end of the day, every individual has to make their own decisions, but the way that people are raised and the situation they grow up in play a huge role in the actions and morality that they display later in life.  Certainly there is a certain amount of responsibility for the womanizing of Yunior and other dominican men on parents and the societal expectations of them.  Even today in modern America these expectations exist to a smaller extent.  It is much more acceptable, even encouraged for men to be more sexually promiscuous, while it is very frowned upon for women to do so.  
      The women in all three of the books are treated very poorly by the men in their relationships far past just cheating.  In The Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Beli is beaten to within an inch of her life because of the gangster, but continuous to love and adore him even after this incident, even hoping that he will come rescue her from the airport when she is fleeing to America.  As a result, it seems like some women are hopelessly complicit to the abuse and mistreatment in their relationship.  They almost come into relationships hoping not to be, but expecting of the fact that their Dominican man may cheat on and abuse them.  Because this is the social norm, they think that their is very little they can do given the situation and are imprisoned in their situation.
     However, there are some examples of the women fighting back and resisting the social expectations of their relationships.  Lola is the best example of this and acts like a strong woman with an independent sense of will.  This is the most important factor as many other women, especially Beli, define themselves by the men that they are with, instead of their own actions and talents.

Power Struggle Between Yunior and Magda

The first short story in This Is How You Lose Her, “The Sun, The Moon, The Stars,” is all about the power struggle of a relationship that Yunior has with his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend Magda.  Both Yunior and Magda used sex, albeit in different ways, to showcase who was in charge.  Early on in their relationship, Magda makes it clear to Yunior that “she wouldn’t sleep with [him] until [they’d] been together at least a month” and she stuck to this promise (6).  Right of the bat, Magda is showcasing to Yunior that she is in control, that she decides when they will have sex, and that if Yunior doesn’t like that, he can go pound sand.  Furthermore, Magda would ask Yunior personal question right after they had had sex, right when she thought he was most vulnerable.  But using sex as power wasn’t just limited to Magda within the relationship.  When Yunior is talking about his conversation with the VP, he mentions that “jealousy is the best way to jump-start a relationship” and that if your girlfriend gets mad at you for it, it means that she still cares (18).  While this conversation came after the fact that Yunior had cheated on Magda, it may have alluded to how he was thinking at the time.  Yunior started off just by dancing and talking to other women, to make Magda jealous, but eventually took it too far and got caught.  Yunior didn’t want to be a pushover within the relationship, but his quest for power ended with him having lost everything that he had gained.  Even Magda used jealousy to her advantage.  At the beach in Santo Domingo, he mentions how Magda and here friends pick out a swimsuit that she would were that “could torture me” (15).  She is not only giving Yunior a taste what he cant have but also showcasing her body to all the men on the beech as something they could possibly have; she is driving Yunior crazy.  Throughout “The Sun, The Moon, The Stars” Magda and Yunior have a power struggle in order to stay relevant within their relationship, but as far as both are concerned they both have lost as their desire for power has destroyed their relationship.