The role of the snake Kaa in Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Books" and in three film adaptations

Seminar paper from the year 2019 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, Bielefeld University, language: English, abstract: The snake Kaa is the most important side character of Kipling's Jungle Books. It changed within the years or re-telling the story. How it changed is analysed in this paper.
In this paper I will describe how the role of the snake Kaa changes and develops from its original role in Kipling's books to the way the snake is portrayed in three different film adaptations. In general, Kaa has more of a side part - in one adaptation the snake only appears once. However, provided with a great variety of characteristics and sometimes also mystic qualities, the snake becomes a very important part in the developing storyline. The fact that Kaa never plays the same role in any of the film adaptations, which in turn also differ from Kipling's original stories about Mowgli, makes this character especially fascinating. It is interesting to take a closer look at how the snake is developed and under which circumstances it meets the so called "Man-cub". Kipling introduces Kaa as a male, a mighty resident of the jungle who is friends with Bagheera and Baloo. In the Disney adaptations Kaa is more of a maverick, searching for food and trying to earn Mowgli's trust in order to eat him. In one Disney version Kaa is male, and in the later version the snake is female. In the Warner film, the snake becomes more than just an inhabitant of the jungle. I will have a detailed look at the four different ways in which Kaa is described, the snake's various characteristics and also consider the role of the snake in other contexts.
In over hundred years of re-telling Kipling's "The Jungle Books", the snake Kaa develops from Mowgli's smartest friend to his enemy to an omniscient prophetic saver of the jungle and is the most important side role in all analysed versions of "The Jungle Books".