Akela (Jungle Book)
Akela, the great gray Lone Wolf, who led all the Pack by strength and cunning, lay out at full length on his rock, and below him sat forty or more wolves of every size and color
Akela (also called The Lone Wolf or Big Wolf) is a character in Rudyard Kipling's stories, The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book. He is the leader of the Seeonee pack of Indian wolves and presides over the pack's council meetings. It is at such a meeting that the pack adopts the lost child Mowgli and Akela becomes one of Mowgli's mentors.
Akela means "single or solitary" in Hindi,[1] Kipling also calls him the Lone Wolf:[2]
| “ | the great grey Lone Wolf, who led all the Pack by strength and cunning, lay out at full length on his rock, and below him sat forty or more wolves of every size and colour, from badger-coloured veterans who could handle a buck alone, to young black three-year-olds who thought they could. The Lone Wolf had led them for a year now. He had fallen twice into a wolf-trap in his youth, and once he had been beaten and left for dead; so he knew the manners and customs of men. | ” |
Kipling portrays Akela with the character of an English gentleman. This is shown by his recurring references to the honour of the pack.[3] He is large and grey and leads the pack by virtue of his strength and cunning.[4]
The leader of a group of the boys' scouting organisation, the Cubs, is called Akela after this character.[5] The cubs usually chant in ritual meetings, "Akela, we'll do our best".[6]
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[edit] Background
Nine or ten years after Mowgli's adoption, his enemy Shere Khan the tiger, with the aid of some young wolves he has persuaded to support him, plans to depose Akela so that he will no longer be able to defend Mowgli. A wolf who becomes too old to hunt is traditionally driven out or killed by his pack. Akela is far from decrepit, but the young wolves deliberately drive a young, healthy buck deer toward him, knowing that he will not be able to catch it. When the council meets to depose Akela, Mowgli defends him with a blazing branch and drives Shere Khan and his allies away.[7]
After Shere Khan's departure the remaining wolves beg Akela to stay, but he refuses to remain pack leader and decides to hunt alone. Phao becomes the new pack leader, Mowgli returns to humanity, at least for a time, and Akela hunts alone. During this period Akela helps Mowgli to kill Shere Khan with the aid of the human village's water buffalo herd.
Some years later, when Mowgli has been rejected by humanity and the pack is threatened with extinction by a rampaging pack of dhole, Akela joins the battle and fights to the death, finally dying in Mowgli's company ("Red Dog", in The Second Jungle Book). Mowgli did this for the love of Akela and his death is a major factor in Mowgli's decision to finally return to human society at the age of 17.[8]
[edit] Disney
In the Disney adaptation of The Jungle Book, Akela only has a brief role at the beginning of the film, when the council of wolves meet after Shere Khan's return to the jungle to decide what to do about Mowgli's future. Acknowledging that the pack is not strong enough to stand up to Shere Khan on their own, they decide to send Mowgli away, with Bagheera volunteering to take Mowgli back to the man-village.
A younger Akela also appeared with his mate, Leia, in an episode of the prequel cartoon Jungle Cubs, looking at the animal characters in their youth. In this episode, Akela and Leia run away from their old wolf pack as the pack leader wants Leia for himself, forcing the two younger wolves to escape and retreat to the old temple that serves as the groups Cubhouse. Although Shere Khan initially objects to their presence, when the rest of the pack arrives, the young cubs agree to help Akela and Leia, driving the rest of the pack away. At the conclusion of the episode, Akela and Leia become the parents of a group of wolf cubs, with the other animals being appointed the cubs' godfathers. Despite their evident closeness to the other cubs in this episode, Akela and Leia never appeared again in the series.
Akela plays a bigger role in the live action Disney movie Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story. In this adaptation, he is also the father of Mowgli's adopted family and mate of Raksha. He was voiced by Clancy Brown.[9]
[edit] Other adaptations
Akela is also a major character in the Japanese-produced Jungle Book Shōnen Mowgli. Akela leads of the Wolf Pack and passes leadership to Alexander, but takes back the role of leader after Alexander's death. He was voiced by Walter Massey in the English dub.
[edit] References
- ^ Oxford English Dictionary(subscription required)
- ^ Carolyn Rasmussen (December 2006), "The ‘Lone Wolf’ in sheep’s clothing?", History Australia 3 (2), doi:10.2104/ha060040, http://publications.epress.monash.edu/doi/full/10.2104/ha060040
- ^ J Nyman (June 2001), "Re-Reading Rudyard Kipling's English Heroism: Narrating Nation in The Jungle Book", Orbis Litterarum 56 (3): 205–220, doi:10.1034/j.1600-0730.2001.d01-44.x
- ^ Georgene Bankroff (2002), A Compilation of Classy Animal Names, ISBN 978-0-595-20674-2, http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=DpsTWZi8GXUC
- ^ Ronald Carter, John McRae (2001), The Routledge history of literature in English: Britain and Ireland, Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-24318-6, http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4p1AHnUGalMC&pg=PA293
- ^ Richard Flynn (summer), "Kipling and Scouting, or "Akela, We'll Do Our Best"", Children's Literature Association Quarterly (Johns Hopkins University Press) 16 (2), doi:10.1353/chq.0.0806, http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/childrens_literature_association_quarterly/v016/16.2.flynn.html
- ^ William A. Young (1970), "Akela", Dictionary of the Characters and Scenes in the Stories and Poems of Rudyard Kipling, Ayer Publishing, http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=te0jfYSWcusC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1
- ^ John Murray (1992), "The Law of The Jungle Books", Children's Literature (Johns Hopkins University Press) 20: 1–14, doi:10.1353/chl.0.0579, http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/childrens_literature/v020/20.murray.html
- ^ "Clancy Brown Filmography", New York Times, http://movies.nytimes.com/person/8910/Clancy-Brown/filmography
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