Rikki-Tik By Rudyard Kipling: Character Analysis

Lao Tzu once said “Being deeply loved gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” Has the love for others ever given you courage? On the other hand, has the love from others given you strength? Rikki-tikki-tavi by Rudyard Kipling is a fictional story that demonstrates that love gives people a reason to be brave and to have strength, even in the smallest creatures. The main character in the story, Rikki-tikki, is brave and curious. Paragraph 33 explains that Rikki-tikki fights the snake named Karait to protect the little boy, even though Karait’s bite, if not more, was just as deadly as a king cobra’s, but since he was smaller he was more treacherous. As one can see, Rikki-tikki’s bravery and affection towards the boy and his family gave him the courage to fight Karait. His bravery is proven through this by displaying that Rikki-tikki would protect the little boy from something as deadly as
In support of this, paragraph 24 introduces the small mongoose Rikki-tikki as the protagonist and the deadly cobras Nag and Nagaina as antagonists. Rudyard’s use of a small creature and treacherous creatures as rivals is an example of this. Also, this adds evidence to said theme by showing that Rikki-tikki is brave enough to combat Nag and Nagaina, which seems like a very dim battle. A different piece of evidence is that Darzee’s wife is willing to bait Nagaina with her life to defend the future of the garden. Darzee’s willingness to lure Nagaina at the chance of actually getting caught shows her love for the inhabitants of the garden. Another, even weaker, character displays that anyone can help for the greater good, no matter how much. Thusly, the use of personification by Rudyard Kipling helps prove that anyone can protect who or what they love if they are brave