Nagaina Quotes

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Does being the antagonist always mean you are evil? In AELA this year, we read a short story called Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, by Rudyard Kipling. In the story, the main character, a mongoose named Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, is washed out of his home, and taken in by a family of people. In the backyard, there are two snakes, Nag, and his wife Nagaina. Rikki has to fight the snakes in order to ‘save’ himself, and the other creatures in the backyard. That is, however, only Rikki’s side of the story. This essay is about Nagaina, and how she may be more than just an evil antagonist. In the story, Nagaina is not only sly, but also intelligent and caring. Almost everything Nagaina did was for her children, still eggs at the time. First off, Nagaina is sly. This quote from the book proves that; “...she …show more content…

This is shown multiple times, and you could argue that everything she does is because she is caring for her eggs. The most prominent time that this trait is shown, is here: “Nagaina spun clear round, forgetting everything for the sake of one egg.” (p. 25) This quote shows how caring she is, because she would drop everything for her only remaining egg, thanks to Rikki smashing all the others. Because she cared about this egg so much, she sacrificed herself for it, but it did no good. Rikki killed them both (the egg and Nagaina), in a rat hole that Nagaina had used to escape being killed. After everything she did to keep the egg safe; Rikki ruined it all. Nagaina’s main traits, her slyness, intelligence, and how caring she is, were strongly shown when she attacked Rikki, devised a plan to make the him leave, and left everything for her egg. Every character has many traits. It’s important to see from different angles, before judging a character. We can relate this to real life as well. If there is someone you don’t like, maybe the reason you don’t like them isn’t a great reason, and you need to look at the issue from another

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