Shere Khan


 * This article is about the fictional Kipling character. For the Pashtun ruler of northern India see Sher Shah Suri.



Shere Khan is a fictional tiger of the Indian jungle, named after a Pashtun Prince (Sher Khan Nasher) Kipling encountered on his trips to Afghanistan. Shere Khan is the chief enemy in two of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book stories featuring Mowgli.

The original Jungle Book stories
Despite being born with a crippled leg (and thus lacking the "fearful symmetry" of William Blake's Tyger), and derisively nicknamed Lungri (The Lame One) by his own mother, Shere Khan is aggressive and arrogant and regards himself as the rightful lord of the jungle. It seems, however, that the only creature who looks up to him is Tabaqui, the cowardly, despised jackal.

In "Mowgli's Brothers", Shere Khan's failed attempt to hunt humans causes a human "cub" to stray from his parents. By the time Shere Khan catches up with the infant it has already been adopted by the wolves Raksha and Father Wolf, who have named it Mowgli. Despite Shere Khan's bluster, Mowgli is accepted into Akela's wolf pack and protected by Bagheera and Baloo. Furious at losing his kill, the tiger swears that the cub will be his some day.

Over the next decade, while Mowgli is growing up, Shere Khan infiltrates the wolf pack by promising the younger wolves rich rewards once Akela is deposed. His plan comes to a head when the young wolves maneuver Akela into missing his kill, and the pack council meets to expel him.

At the meeting Shere Khan threatens that if the wolves do not give him Mowgli he will take over their hunting territory. Having been warned by Bagheera, however, Mowgli attacks Shere Khan and his allies with a burning branch and drives them away. Akela leaves the pack to become a lone hunter. Mowgli returns to the human village, but swears that he will return one day with Shere Khan's skin.

In "Tiger! Tiger!" Mowgli is adopted by Messua and her husband and learns human ways. He also learns that the villagers have heard of the lame tiger, which has a price on its head, but believe it is lame because it is the reincarnation of a money-lender who was lamed in a riot. When Mowgli scoffs at these fanciful tales the villagers decide to put him to work herding buffalo to keep him out of trouble.

While he is doing so he meets his wolf friend Grey Brother, who tells him that Shere Khan is still planning to kill him. Grey Brother forces Tabaqui to tell him where and when Shere Khan is planning to strike, and then kills the jackal. With the help of Akela, Grey Brother and Mowgli trap Shere Khan in a narrow canyon and stampede the buffalo, which trample him to death.

Mowgli then sets out to fulfill his promise by skinning Shere Khan, but while he is doing so he is interrupted by the village's elderly chief hunter Buldeo who wants the tiger's hide for the reward. Mowgli calls Akela, who pins Buldeo down while Mowgli finishes removing the hide.

Mowgli assumes that this will be an end of the matter, since in the jungle quarrels are usually settled quickly, but when he returns to the village with the buffalo the villagers drive him away, accusing him of witchcraft. Furious at being driven out of not one but two 'packs', Mowgli leaves. That night he fulfils his pledge by laying Shere Khan's hide upon the wolf pack's council rock, and then dances upon the hide singing of his anger and confusion.

Thus Shere Khan's story comes to an end, but the consequences of Mowgli's actions in defeating him continue to affect Mowgli and his adopted parents. In the story "Letting In the Jungle" in The Second Jungle Book Mowgli discovers that the villagers are preparing to burn Messua and her husband to death for harbouring a witch-boy, and so he prepares to rescue them and take revenge on Buldeo and the villagers.

Shere Khan also appears in the story "How Fear Came," which is set between the first and second halves of "Mowgli's Brothers," and probably some time after "Kaa's Hunting". In this story the tiger comes to drink from the river just after having killed a human purely for sport, prompting Hathi the Elephant to tell the story of why tigers, alone of all the animals in the jungle, are allowed to hunt humans for pleasure at certain times. This story, in which Mowgli appears mainly as an observer, may be seen as a direct ancestor of Kipling's Just So Stories.

The Disney version
In Disney's 1967 animated adaptation of The Jungle Book, Shere Khan is the major villain, entering the story about three-quarters of the way through. He is not depicted as being lame &mdash; quite the contrary, he is extremely powerful, deadly, and sophisticated. His mere presence in the jungle compels the wolf pack to send Mowgli away, since Shere Khan will kill him just on the principle that Mowgli is human; Man's gun and Man's fire are the only things Shere Khan fears. Even Kaa's hypnotic powers have no effect on him (or else he is just too intelligent to look Kaa in the eyes). In the climactic battle of the movie, Mowgli ties a burning branch to his tail, sending the tiger to run away frantically. His seductive, purring voice was supplied by the late George Sanders.

In the Disney animated television show TaleSpin (1990-1994), Shere Khan is a recurring character. He's been anthropomorphized and personifies the wealthy industrialist archetype, the president of a huge conglomerate called Khan Industries. The show saps him of his dry humor, making him very grim-faced and serious. His business practices occasionally put him at odds with Baloo and the other TaleSpin heroes. His voice in the series was provided by the late Tony Jay.

In the television series Jungle Cubs (1996-1998), a prequel to the original 1967 film, Shere Khan appears as a young tiger cub. The show reveals that he was once friends with Baloo, Bagheera, King Louie, Kaa and Hathi, but is still arrogant and haughty. In one episode, he laughs when Bagheera loses his voice in an attempt to roar like him; in another, he refuses to fight the invading Red Dogs alongside his friends, preferring to battle them alone; in another, to prove that he is the bravest in the jungle, Khan travels to the forbidden wastelands, but his good side surfaces when he saves his friends (who came to follow him) from the evil baboon Mara and her sons. He was voiced by Jason Marsden in the series.

Shere Khan appears again in the theatrical sequel to the original 1967 film, The Jungle Book 2 (2003). When Mowgli returns to the jungle, the tiger seeks revenge and places Mowgli's friend Shanti in jeopardy, only to be defeated again, but not killed.

Trivia

 * Shere Khan should be pronounced "Skere Khan" according to one of Rudyard Kipling's notes. However, in movie adaptations his name has always been pronounced as written.


 * Shere Khan is one of the most popular names for housecats, according to polls.


 * In Rudyard Kipling's novel, Shere Khan is lame. This is probably because of the widely known myth that only injured, diseased or weakened tigers attack humans. In reality, young, healthy tiger have also been known to become man eaters. It might also be that Kipling felt that a tiger on his prime and with all his physycal capabilities would be too much of a foe for Mowgli and his friends. (A healthy Shere Khan would also not need to manipulate the Seonee wolves to get his prey, which would have made pointless many of the stories minor plots).


 * Shere Khan (in Persian) means "lord tiger".


 * Shere Khan is the only tiger to ever appear in The Jungle Book, besides the First Tiger in a legend told by Hathi to the other animals.


 * Shere Khan is voiced by actor Carlos Petrel in the Spanish version of Disney's The Jungle Book. Petrel also voiced Scar, from the Lion King. Both of these characters have been said to be a lot like each other. As a curious fact, both of them had British accents in the original English versions of the films.

Shere Khan Shere Khan