SOURCE: Scott, Carole. “Kipling's Combat Zones: Training Grounds in the Mowgli Stories, Captains Courageous, and Stalky & Co.” Children's Literature 20 (1992): 52-68.

In the following essay, Scott analyzes the role of warfare and rules of conduct in three of Kipling's short fiction works: the Mowgli stories, Captains Courageous, and Stalky & Co.

Kipling's obsession with the mastery of rules, laws, and codes of behavior dominates his work as it did his life. He wrote a charter for his children that identified in detail their “rights” to the Dudwell River near Bateman's; he created a Jungle society with a code “as perfect as time and custom can make it” (The Second Jungle Book 125); and he knew how to manipulate the rules to hasten his son's classification into active military service in World War I. Anyone at all familiar with Kipling's childhood will readily understand these concerns. The shock of being moved at...