Tikki Tavi Character Analysis

Rikki Tikki Tavi put himself in a very dangerous position to save several other lives, making him a true hero. Without the small, but powerful, mongoose the two cobras would have seriously injured or killed the family, and members of the garden. The cobra snakes were threatening Rikki and his family, and he did not want any of his family members getting hurt by these powerful reptiles, so he had to take them down. Rikki put himself in danger to provide safety for his family, making him a brave hero. Although Rikki-Tikki-Tavi killed the snakes, he did this to save and protect people and animals, and this is not being a vigilante but a hero because he was not doing this to be evil.

Rikki Tikki Tavi demonstrates many acts of bravery to show that he is the one true hero in the story. For example, the narrator states that “...Karait had lunged too far, and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi had sprung, jumped on the snake’s back, dropped his head far between his forelegs, bitten as high up as the back as he could get hold, and he rolled away. The bite paralyzed Karait,” (Kipling 133-134). This was an important act because this is when Rikki not only killed the dangerously fast and small snake, Karait, but also saved Teddy’s life. Teddy would have been killed or seriously injured by the snake, but Rikki was brave and went in for the kill, which ended with

Karait no longer being a danger to the garden or to the people in the bungalow.
“He held on savagely and stuck out his feet to act as brakes on the dark slope of the hot, moist earth,” (Kipling 133). This is yet another act proving Rikki to be the hero of the story. Rikki went into a cobra snake hole -somewhere where no mongoose would dare to go- to kill Nagaina. He killed her not to be evil or mean, but because Nagaina was proving herself to be a malicious threat towards all that Rikki had grown to love; the garden, his friends, and his family.
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is a hero for the animals and should not be misunderstood as being a vigilante.

Some believe that Rikki-Tikki-Tavi was seeking revenge on the snake, making him a vigilante. He did kill the snakes in revenge for what they had done to who he loved, but he did this to protect himself and others. Rikki would have never gone after them to be evil, but because it was “every mongoose’s business in life to fight and eat snakes,” (Kipling 125). So not only is it a natural instinct, but Rikki only attacked the snakes who proved to be harmful. By doing this he saved the lives of three humans and countless animals in the

garden.
Clearly, it is a mongooses instinct to kill snakes, and his killing has a purpose. He is protecting the inhabitants of the bungalow and the garden. If a superhero killed a villain in a movie, this would be considered a good thing, because of all the bad the villain had done. Rikki killed the snakes because all the bad they had already done and the evil plans they were creating. As said on page 134, “...he kept that garden as a mongoose should keep it, with tooth and jump and spring and bite, till never a cobra dared show its head inside the walls,” (Kipling 134). Killing the snakes was an act that protected and saved both his family, the bird family, and other families in the garden and bungalow. For these reasons, what Rikki did is not an act to be categorized as something of a vigilante, but a true hero.