Rikki Tifi Theme Essay

A theme is a message of a story or the idea that the author wishes to express. The theme in the short story, “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi” by Rudyard Kipling is that evil is punished and good is rewarded. Rikki-tikki’s character is good, and he is the protagonist. Throughout the story he worked to protect Teddy and the family. Rikki-tikki’s reward was keeping the family safe by defeating the cobras. The cobras were evil, and they were antagonists because they tried to kill everyone in the house and in the garden. They were punished by getting defeated, losing the garden, and losing the baby cobras. In this story, the action helped me figure out the theme and helped me realize clearly that it had something to do with good versus evil. I can see, however, how some people might think the theme is that hard work can bring a great reward. I intend to prove that my theme is correct.

With these examples, you can easily tell that Rikki-tikki is great and, the cobras are wicked, but is that really enough? If not, we can look at some more text like how Nag and Nagaina were evil. Nag ate all of Darzee’s babies that fell out of the nest. Also, when Nag was about to fight Rikki-tikki, Nagaina came up behind Rikki-tikki, and tried to strike. After that, when the house was quiet, Nag sent Nagaina to kill

the “big man”. The cobras, or the antagonists, were punished because they didn’t get the garden or house. Instead they were killed. These are some reasons that help me support my theme.

On the other side, Rikki-tikki, the protagonist, killed Karait in the inciting incident, when Karait was attempting to kill Teddy, and when he declared “I am death”. Next, in the climax, Rikki-tikki killed and ate all but one of the baby cobra eggs, and took that one to show Nagaina and get her out of the house. Finally, Rikki-tikki killed Nagaina and the baby cobra egg, and kept his family safe. At this point, everyone in the garden was elated and Rikki-tikki could sleep under Teddy’s chin. Rikki-tikki was rewarded by keeping what he had and getting big meals. These are other reasons why the theme I chose is correct.

Now I’m coming to the proof of why hard work can bring a great reward is not the theme.

First, Rikki-tikki worked hard to get the cobras to go away, and not arrive again, and Rikki-tikki slayed them. He was honored by both his garden family, Teddy, the “big man”, and the mother for keeping them secure and protected, and he could keep his home. On the other side, the cobras worked hard to get the garden and the house for them and the cobras that were about to hatch. But, they didn’t get rewarded, they got killed. So if you think that hard work can bring a great reward is the theme, just think, Rikki-tikki worked hard and got rewarded, but the cobras worked hard and got no

reward.

I used the theme of evil is punished and good is rewarded, because it helps us think about what actually happens in life. For example, Rikki-tikki is rewarded and gets to relax and watch the garden. The snakes are punished by their untimely death. If only there was no evil in the world and everything was great, but this is not the case. At least in many cases good is rewarded and evil is punished just like in this story. For example, people who study hard for tests most often get a good grade, but people who cheat will most of the time be punished. So in conclusion, you should be helpful because almost always you get rewarded and to me it feels great to help someone out.