The Gentlemen of the Jungle is a fable story written by Jomo Kenyatta in 1938. Kenyatta was born in Kenya, and later became Kenya’s first prime minister. The story contains themes such as colonialism, control, power, inequality, and greed. The genre of the story is a fable which is a short story that features animals bearing human traits. This fable begins like a fairy tale with “Once upon a time” and it ends with “Lived happily ever after”. This shows us that the story has some features from a fairy tale. The main characters of the story are the man and the elephant, but because the other animals have an alliance with the elephant, they also have a large appearance in the fable.
Kenyatta uses irony in his title, seeing as the title describes the European settlers as “Gentlemen” in the jungle. In reality, they were far from gentlemen. Since the colony is defined as a jungle, it gives the reader an idea of the place as uncivilized and uncontrollable. This stands in contrast to the “Gentlemen” and gives the idea of the “Gentlemen” as superior.
The narrator in the story is an omniscient third-person narrator, who mostly takes the man’s perspective. The man is a symbol of African people living in one of the British colonies, a reason for believing this is the man’s language. The man speaks English however, he says a phrase in African “Ng’enda thi ndeagaga motegi” (p. 176, line 6). Another reason for assuming he is African is that on page 173, line 13- 16, the elephant says to the man that their skins are different. Therefore, the man should stay out in the rain. The rain could symbolize the sun, and because of the Africans darker skin, they can better withstand the sun. The elephant’s occupation of the hut symbolizes the settlers' arrival to Kenya and the new life under British rules.
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