What literary device does Kipling use in the short story "Rikki-tikki-tavi"?

Literary devices include both
elements and
techniques. Literary
elements are things that must have a
place in all stories: form, structure, characters, setting, point of view, etc.
"Rikki-tikki-tavi" is a variation on the form of a fable. A
fable is a short story that teaches a lesson through the exploits of animals that talk,
have personalities, and have adventures in which good overcomes evil or in which some
other virtue is taught. Fables are not allegories because the animal does not represent
the virtue being taught (e.g., allegory: "Wisdom the mouse spoke to Sloppy the worm
...").

The structure begins with one of
Darzee's songs and ends with another that praises Rikki-tikki's victory. The
setting is a garden of a small home, or bungalow, in India,
where Kipling was born to parents who were in Christian ministry. The
characters include three humans, whom Rikki-tikki protects,
and various birds and animals living in the garden. The point of
view is that of an external third person narrator who tells the story
from a limited perspective that is restricted to what Rikki-tikki
experiences:

readability="13">

When he revived, he was lying in the hot sun on
the middle of a garden path, very draggled indeed, and a small boy was [speaking]
....

as Rikki-tikki stole in by the masonry curb where the
bath is put, he heard Nag and Nagaina whispering together outside in the
moonlight.

Literary
techniques are optional choices
author's can make about how to tell their story. These techniques may include things
like symbolism, simile, metaphor, personification, etc. One technique Kipling chose is
hyperbole, which
exaggerates statements or qualities to heighten the effect
of the narrative. An example of hyperbole (exaggeration) is when Rikki-tikki
says:

There
are more things to find out about in this house, ... than all my family could find out
in all their lives.

There is
also a grand example of the technique of
onomatopoeia, which is words that
represent sounds, like "the rocket went boom boom," or "the cat
went phfffft phffft." Kipling uses onomatopoeia in describing
Rikki-tikki-tavi, while, incidentally, revealing the source of his
name:

his
war-cry, as he scuttled through the long grass, was:
"Rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk!"

As
another example of literary techniques, even though the story is a variation of a fable
(fables don't always have human characters), Kipling also employs
personification, which gives human
characteristics and thoughts to animals. Personification is employed when the narrator
says Rikki-tikki "hopes," which is a human feeling:

readability="8">

[Rikki-tikki] sat on all their laps one after the
other, because every well-brought-up mongoose always hopes to be a house-mongoose some
day and have rooms to run about in,
....