Kipling's tale of Ricky-Ticky-Tavy is familiar to one and all. We've all read it and admired the brave and courageous mongoose. From the very first lines we are imbued with sympathy for the cheeky little beast. But if we look at the story with an open mind, with the eyes of an outside observer, we get a completely different picture.
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was a journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. Kipling's works of fiction include The Jungle Book (1894), Kim (1901), and many short stories, including The Man Who Would Be King (1888). His poems include Mandalay (1890), Gunga Din (1890), The Gods of the Copybook Headings (1919), The White Man's Burden (1899), and If— (1910). He is regarded as a major innovator in the art of the short story; his children's books are classics of children's literature; and one critic described his work as exhibiting "a versatile and luminous narrative gift".
So. India, the jungle. Here live birds, rats, frogs and snakes. And here people appear, and they are not Hindus, but Englishmen, an alien element in ancient Indian soil. They build bungalows, set up a military camp, and behave like masters. A mongoose comes to them, accidentally, brought by water. He does not care where he lives: in a burrow with his parents or in the garden of the English. A conflict arises between the mongoose and the snakes that live in the garden. The sympathy of the author, and consequently of the readers, is undoubtedly on the side of the mongoose. He is more sympathetic than the snakes, and besides, the snakes ate the chick that had fallen out of the nest. The author deliberately deceives the reader by showing a benign mongoose, the fact is that in real life, the mongoose is as much an enemy to mice, frogs, and fallen chicks as snakes are.
Try looking at this story from the snakes' perspective. For centuries they have lived here on their land, continuing their lineage and not trying to take over someone else's land. And then two-legged invaders come here, cut down the jungle, build their dwellings, not caring a bit about those who lived here before and have much more rights to this land. The people have minions in the form of the mongoose, who were raised by his mother to honor humans. And not just people, but white people!
He sat on everyone's lap in turn, for every well-bred mongoose hopes, in time, to become a pet and run all over the rooms; and Ricky-Ticky's mother (she lived in the General's house in Segovlie) carefully explained to him how he should act when he met whites.
That is, Ricky-Ticky's mother Tavi was a domestic mongoose, then she was thrown out on the street, but she continues to bow down to people and educates her son in the spirit of loyalty.
The snakes are trying to restore justice, trying to drive people out of places they consider their own. The Mongoose tries to thwart them, for if he does, he will lose his warm place. He has underlings: the dumb bird Darcy, the cowardly rat Chuchundra, and the snakes fight alone. In general, there is a kind of terribly anti-serpentarianism flourishing in the tale. The mongoose's actions are far from noble, more like cunning and guile. He attacks the sleeping Nag, he takes the last surviving serpent hostage and blackmails Nagaina with it. And how he massacres Nagayna's clutch of eggs! This is baby beating in its purest form! And all this is presented to us as heroic actions.
The snake population has been wiped out completely. The ancient race of Nagas has perished. Not even the patronage of god Brahma saved it. Mice, birds, rats, and frogs exult. The white man feels like a complete master of the situation. But man may have nothing to fear, but frogs and rats should think twice.
- Don't kill me," Chuchundra asked, almost crying. - Don't kill me, Ricky-Ticky!
- Do you think a snake-winner kills musk-rats? - Ricky-Ticky said contemptuously.
Yes, but when the snakes are destroyed, the next victim might as well be a muskrat.
So, as the old Russian proverb says, "A tale is a lie but a hint is a lesson to good men.
This article was sponsored by Kellie Cyr
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