Literary Devices in Rikki-Tikki-Tavi from The Jungle Book
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Setting
The setting of "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" is restrained to a bungalow and its garden, so we don't have travel far to take in all the sights. But even though it's a small setting, the landscape is filled wi...
Narrator Point of View
Though the name may be daunting, this one is actually an easy concept once chopped up into littler pieces.The third-person part of things means the narrator isn't a part of the story. He's an outsi...
Genre
Kipling enjoys himself some adventure stories. His tales often center on action-oriented travelers going to foreign lands and risking all for the thrill and reward of dangerous circumstances. And R...
Tone
You remember Aesop, right? He's the Greek slave who is credited with creating a whole bunch of fables, stories that usually contain animal characters and portray particular lessons or moral teachin...
Writing Style
Kipling's writing style is pretty kid-friendly. Everything from sentence structure to word choice is basically arranged to make things as accessible as possible. Here's an example:Rikki-tikki smash...
What's Up With the Title?
Despite its page length, "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" is an epic at heart, and most epics are named after the hero they feature. Beowulf is about Beowulf. The Odyssey means "the story of Odysseus,...
What's Up With the Epigraph?
At the hole where he went inRed-Eye called to Wrinkle-SkinHear what little Red-Eye saith:"Nag, come up and dance with death!"Eye to eye and head to head (Keep the measure, Nag.)This shall end when...
What's Up With the Ending?
No surprises here. The ending to "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" is a straightforward ending to the typical hero-goes-a-questing story. But just for the sake of consistency, let's take a look all the same:"Oh,...
Tough-o-Meter
Kipling wrote "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" for children back in 1894, but it's plenty accessible for young 'uns and adults here in the far-flung future of the twenty-first century. The sentences flow, the la...
Plot Analysis
Like a Drowned Rat MongooseExposition is just a fancy way of saying background information, and every story has background information the reader needs to know to proceed. It's the "who," "what," "...
Trivia
In 1883, Hawaiian sugar cane farmers brought a bunch of mongooses to their islands to hunt the rats eating their crops. Had they bothered to ask a zoologist, they might have learned that mongooses...
Allusions
Segowell (now Sugauli) Cantonment (1)—a cantonment is an old name for a military base Marshal Adolphe Niel (17)—the Marshal Niel roses mentioned are named for this French marshal.Sluice (5...