Rikki Tikki Tavi

Fiction | Short Story | Middle Grade | Published in 1894

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Courage as Action

Content Warning: This section references colonialism and ethnic stereotypes.

Rikki-tikki-tavi is brave almost to the point of fearlessness. In his confrontations with snakes, battle-lust—exemplified by his red eyes and chittering call—takes hold of him to the near exclusion of all other emotions. Indeed, one of the first things the story says of mongooses generally is that “It is the hardest thing in the world to frighten a mongoose, because he is eaten up from nose to tail with curiosity” (2). When Teddy’s family rescues Rikki-tikki-tavi curiosity drives the mongoose to explore his new surroundings thoroughly, even at the cost of his physical safety; on his first day in the house, he almost “drown[s] himself in the bath-tubs” by accident (3). Even before learning of the threat the snakes represent, Rikki-tikki-tavi is constantly in motion, and the story associates this activity and decisiveness with his bravery.

Other courageous characters demonstrate a similar propensity to act. Teddy’s father twice attempts to kill snakes, once with a stick and later with a shot-gun. Another ally that comes to Rikki-tikki-tavi’s aid is Darzee’s wife, who feigns a broken wing to distract Nagaina and later “flap[s] her wings about Nagaina’s head” (16), allowing Rikki-tikki-tavi to catch up to Nagaina as the snake flees with her egg. By contrast, fear is repeatedly associated with inaction. Chuchundra, the most cowardly character, cannot even bring himself to venture away from the bungalow’s walls: “He whimpers and cheeps all the night, trying to make up his mind to run into the middle of the room, but he never gets there” (8). Darzee, if not exactly cowardly, is similarly useless in a crisis because of his indecision and passivity. As Rikki-tikki-tavi tells him, “You don’t know when to do the right thing at the right time” (12).

Tellingly, even characters who are otherwise brave become incapable of action when they allow fear to take hold of them. When Nagaina confronts Teddy’s family on the veranda, the story portrays all three family members as sitting “stone-still” with white faces, which Nagaina boasts about to Rikki-tikki-tavi: “They are still and white; they are afraid. They dare not move” (17). Darzee’s wife avoids a similar fate by taking care not to look directly at Nagaina: “[A] bird who looks at a snake’s eyes gets so frightened that she cannot move” (12). Even Rikki-tikki-tavi falters during his first encounter with the cobras due to fear: “[If] he had been an old mongoose he would have known that then was the time to break [Nagaina’s] back with one bite; but he was afraid of the terrible lashing return-stroke of the cobra. He bit, indeed, but did not bite long enough” (5). Time and again, the story suggests that fear is dangerous because it interferes with one’s ability to act. Conversely, acting decisively is itself an antidote to fear, as it leaves one with no time to be afraid.

Family Loyalty and Legacy

“Rikki-tikki-tavi” revolves around several families: Teddy and his parents, the tailorbirds and their fledglings, and the cobras and their eggs. Though separated from his own parents, Rikki-tikki-tavi often recalls his family and their teachings, and his relationship to the mongoose species is also figured as familial: “The motto of all the mongoose family is ‘Run and find out’” (2). These details reveal the centrality of family—and devotion to one’s family—to the story’s meaning.

For the characters who are parents, that devotion manifests primarily in their protectiveness of their children. Teddy’s mother initially hesitates to allow Rikki-tikki-tavi to sleep in Teddy’s bed because she fears the mongoose might harm her son, but when Rikki-tikki-tavi saves Teddy’s life, she embraces Rikki-tikki-tavi wholeheartedly; considerations regarding her son’s safety strongly shape her attitudes and actions. Similarly, Darzee’s wife risks her life to aid Rikki-tikki-tavi because she recognizes the threat the cobras pose to her own children, while Nag and Nagaina plot to kill Teddy’s family to ensure their eggs’ survival.

In return for this protection, the story implies that it is the child’s duty to continue their parents’ legacy. This is most evident in Rikki-tikki-tavi’s character arc, which involves him coming into his own as a young mongoose. Thoughts of his parents continually inform Rikki-tikki-tavi’s decisions, with even the mongoose’s instinctive drive to hunt snakes framed as a matter of family tradition, as when Rikki-tikki-tavi considers eating Karait “up from the tail, as was the custom of his family at dinner” (7). So loyal is Rikki-tikki-tavi to these customs that he will risk his life in the name of honor. When Nag plans to attack Teddy’s father, Rikki-tikki-tavi latches himself to the back of Nag’s hood. As Nag thrashes in his efforts to free himself, Rikki-tikki-tavi prepares himself to be “banged to death” rather than loosen his grip because “for the honor of his family, he preferred to be found with his teeth locked” (11).

Though Teddy’s family shows “parental” protectiveness toward Rikki-tikki-tavi in caring for him after the flood, it is notable that loyalty to his mongoose family seems to motivate Rikki-tikki-tavi much more than loyalty to his adoptive human family. Indeed, it is recollections of his mother—not, as Teddy’s mother speculates, the family’s kindness—that lead him to stay with the family in the first place: “[H]e [sits] on all their laps one after the other, because […] Rikki-tikki’s mother […] had carefully told Rikki-tikki what to do if ever he came across white men” (3). This somewhat complicates the story’s colonialist message, as even the “ideal” colonial subject shows deference first and foremost to his own culture. The idea that the colonized would recognize and accept the “superiority” of the colonizers thus runs up against the suggestion that each family, species, and people is primarily concerned with its own survival and legacy.

The Possibility of “Taming” Nature

On the surface, the story’s animal characters are unusually “domestic.” Like many animals in children’s stories, Rikki-tikki-tavi and his fellow creatures are anthropomorphized: They have language, marriages, customs, art (e.g., Darzee’s songs), etc. They seem also to prefer proximity to human civilization, with Rikki-tikki-tavi aspiring to be a “house-mongoose” and even the villainous Nag and Nagaina choosing a garden—a piece of cultivated nature—to lay their eggs.

Yet if the story’s animals choose (relative) tameness, it is not because of anything the humans themselves do. In fact, the human characters’ attempts to subdue nature are largely ineffectual, beginning with Rikki-tikki-tavi himself. Eager to explore the family’s home, Rikki-tikki-tavi effectively domesticates himself and sacrifices few of his natural instincts to do so. Though he allows the humans to pet him and curls up on Teddy’s shoulder, he also prowls the bungalow at night and fights snakes as ferociously as he would in the wild. He is thus bewildered whenever the family praises his actions, as when Teddy’s mother interrupts Rikki-tikki-tavi’s dust bath to thank him for saving Teddy from Karait: “Teddy’s mother might just as well have petted Teddy for playing in the dust. Rikki was thoroughly enjoying himself” (7). From Rikki-tikki-tavi’s perspective, he is not “serving” the humans but simply doing what he would be doing regardless.

The story also depicts Teddy and his family as all but powerless in the face of the snakes. Though Teddy’s father attempts to kill two snakes—Karait and Nag—he does so only after Rikki-tikki-tavi has alerted him to the snakes’ presence and, in Karait’s case, after the snake itself is dead. He does manage to deal the death blow to Nag, but his method of doing so is clumsy and dangerous compared to Rikki-tikki-tavi’s reflexes; the shot that kills Nag nearly hits Rikki-tikki-tavi as well, passing close enough to “singe[] his fur” (11). In the final showdown with Nagaina, all three family members are helpless prior to Rikki-tikki-tavi’s intervention. The best Teddy’s father can do is tell his son not to move and then pull him out of striking range once Rikki-tikki-tavi distracts the cobra.

The human characters are therefore largely bystanders to the story’s main drama—sidelined, in part, by their inability to speak the language that all the animals share. This total disconnect from the natural world limits their ability to influence it; even the timid Chuchundra can warn Rikki-tikki-tavi of the cobras’ presence in the bungalow, whereas the humans must simply respond to events as they unfold. Besides suggesting the limits of human efforts to subdue nature, this again speaks to the tensions underlying the colonial project. For all that the story literally dehumanizes its “Indian” characters, rendering them cobras, mongooses, birds, etc., they are at home in their environment in a way that the British characters are not.