Mowgli is stuck between two worlds throughout the book.

Mowgli struggles with his in-betweenness, his liminal status, his sense of belonging to two worlds. He loves the jungle but despairs being kicked out of the pack. He rues the fact that he cannot smell as well as the animals can, that he does not know all the stories of the jungle, and that he does not participate in the Time of New Talk. Conversely, while he likes Messua, he hates the greedy and superstitious villagers as well as many of their customs, and chafes at life in the village. Thus, Mowgli's identity takes a long time to develop because he is constantly torn between these two worlds. He chooses the life of man at the end, but it is clear that he will have to reconcile with the fact that he will never be truly man nor cub. Kipling suggests that identity is a malleable, fungible thing that is never fully fixed and takes patience and perspicacity to develop.