Loyalty and devotion leads to bravery. Bravery leads to the spirit of self-sacrifice. The spirit of self-sacrifice creates trust in the power of love. -Morihei Ueshiba Like Ueshiba said, Rikki had to stay loyal and fight the snakes for the family he loved because they saved him and adopted him. The theme of the fictional story Rikki-Tikki-Tavi by Rudyard Kipling is that an act of kindness can give some people loyalty and courage.
Rikki Tikki is a loyal character in this story. For instance, Kipling says, “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.” (Para. 105) This shows that Rikki was loyal because he could have gone away after killing Nagaina, but it says that he stayed and protected the family. This proves the thesis because the families’ kindness to Rikki gave him more loyal to the family. In one example Rikki was being courageous when he followed Nagaina into her underground nest even though most mongooses were not willing to do so. (Para. 96) This proves that Rikki was courageous because most mongooses who had been with families longer would not go into a cobra’s nest. …show more content…
To begin with, Nagaina had tried to kill Rikki from behind as he talked to Nag. (Para. 29) This proves that Nagaina was cunning because she used trickery to accomplish her goals. This is similar to Rikki because he had to use trickery to stop Nagaina from biting Teddy, however Rikki did it for someone else not himself like Nagaina. In fact, Nagaina was also selfish because she wanted to kill the family for room for her babies not for the convenience of others. (Para. 51) This shows that for her own good Nagaina really didn’t care what she did and who she hurt. This is different from Rikki because Nagaina did things for herself and Rikki did work to help others. These examples proved that Nagaina was both cunning and