Tikki Short Story Analysis

The short story “Rikki-tikki-tavi,” by Rudyard Kipling, is a story about a mongoose, named Rikki-tikki-tavi, who faces many obstacles, emotionally and physically. He is separated from his family by a flood, and is also being attacked by an evil snake named Nagaina and her husband Nag. They want to kill Rikki because he is now the family’s new pet, and the snakes hate that family so they want to kill his new adopted family too. Rikki does not let that happen, though, and he will protect them at any cost. First of all, Rikki is fast, he is quick to thinking and on his feet. To support that, Rikki remembers “a full meal makes a slow mongoose, and if he wanted his strength and quickness ready, he must keep himself thin,”which means he must not
She wants to kill Rikki’s adopted family, and now she wants to kill Rikki because she wants to keep her babies safe from anything that poses a threat. Rikki was also the one who killed her husband, Nag. Before Nag died, Nagaina still wanted to kill the family because she wanted a place for her family to live, but now that Rikki killed her husband, she is even more mad than ever. Nagaina is also very tricky because she tried to kill the father when he was least expecting it, in the bedroom, where he would not have his stick to fight off the snakes. She also got Rikki to go into her burrow with her, and all mongoose’s know never to go into a snake's burrow because that a place that the snake is strongest because it knows it’s way. In the end Rikki killed Nagaina, and saved his family. Furthermore, the theme of the story is if you are evil or conniving you will never prosper when there is someone good around. Another theme in the story is, try to be brave because when Rikki went into the snake burrow, he made it out alive and defeated Nagaina. He was brave enough to do that, and no other mongoose would have done what he has done. In conclusion, Rikki faced his obstacles and overcame them. He proved that he would do anything to protect his