The Gentleman of the Jungle
Power is, and has always been, one of the biggest threats to humans. The fear of being overruled by others is major and can make us sacrifice a lot just to satisfy those whose power is above us. Earlier in the history Great Britain used their power to expand their territory and gain colonies. The story “The Gentleman of the Jungle” is a fable written in 1938 by Jomo Kenyatta, who was a man born in 1894. He was born in British East Africa which today is known as Kenya. He was a lobbyist who had interest in more land to his tribe, Kikuyu, and independence of Kenya. He was arrested and sentenced to prison, but when he finally nine years after got released he became president of Kenya and is therefore today a famous and very honorable man. The fable takes place in a jungle and the protagonist is a man. One day a hurricane came and an elephant asked the man to settle in his hut, although there wasn’t space enough for both of them. The man ended in the rain and grumbled for some time. Short after the community of the jungle was gathered and discussed the situation. The animals manipulated the story and they urge the man to build a new hut. The episode repeats several times, although the man is aware of the fact that the animals are using him. But he can’t refuse to satisfy them because they have sharp teeth and claws. In the end he tricks them all into a huge hut and lighting it up, which kill all the animals.
The fable is of course fiction and contains the standard features such as the opening, “Once upon a time..” (p. 1 l. 1) and the ending, “.. and lived happily ever after” (p. 4 l. 7). Besides this it also contains the usual genre elements for fables such as personification of animals by giving them the ability to talk and think as humans, having a learning morale in the end and the story is quite short. An exclusive thing in this fable is that usually a fable contains few persons/animals, but this one has nearly 10 different characters. However this underlines the hierarchy and the unfair matchup by 9 animals versus 1 man. The animals are given titles such as ministers, right hand honored, imperial etc., which leads to a civilized society by the animal kingdom.
By nature the animals are stronger than a human because they have abilities such as their strength, size, speed, claws, sharp teeth etc. By furthermore providing them with the human mind is sort of ironic because it leaves the man without any chances and yet he manage to trick them all which the reader had not expected. In the end where the man manages to ignite the hut it sounds like a very huge sacrifice just to get some peace, but as one of the features for fables it is the morale of the story, since it in the end says: “Then he went home saying, ‘peace is costly, but worth the expense,’..” (p. 4 l. 6). The man and the animals are in this story enemies and also a contrast to one another. We do also see this in the title where the words “gentleman”, which compromises the words fine, well-mannered and clean, and “jungle”, which referrer to dirt, wild and animals, are being used. But the story isn’t just an instructive tale.
At the time this tale was written Kenya was under British control and the fable belongs to the genre post-colonial literature. Also it is part of the concept “Empire writes back” which is a lot of literature that is written with an ulterior motive of the British colonies. This concept was invented after the empire days of glory. Obviously the story is not just about some animals fooling around with a man which backfires in the end. An interpretation of the fable is that the helpless man who is getting overrun by the dangerous animals is, in this case, the Kenyan people. The man doesn’t own any weapons or is able to man fight the big animals, just as the Kenyans couldn’t stand up against Britain since they would shoot anybody who came in their way towards greatness. Therefore the greedy, dangerous and manipulative animals should depict the British.
The man who lives in peace and harmony is one day making friendships and the next days these friends is demanding more and more of him, which very well may have happened for the Kenyan people. The British has promised protection and wealth to Kenya, but slowly infiltrated the political system. Just like the Animals promised the man protection as long as he obeyed their orders.
Another way to conclude that the animals must be the British people is the animal’s language. The lines: “My dear good man” (p. 1 l. 3) and “My lord” (p. 2 l. 8) indicates “Britishness” since it is mannered ways to appeal to other people. They also use the word “Mr.” which is a courtesy title in Great Britain, who is Jomo Kenyatta’s intention to criticize with this fable. The other main point is to ridicule the whole idea about colonies. It is morally wrong to travel out to plunder and take over strange people’s homes.