Indian Fairy Tales Unit Story Analysis Essay: Week 12, Tricksters and Fools

In the unit ‘Indian Fairy Tales’ by Joseph Jacobs, there are a lot of stories that include the characters meant to be tricksters and fools. In ‘The Cruel Crane Outwitted', the trickster is at first the crane who tricks the fish from a drying pond to jump into his mouth on the promise that he would take them to a fuller pond and let them in there. The fish were reluctant to believe the crane at first but after some tricks they believed his words and hopped in his mouth one by one as the crane flew to the other pond and had each one as a snack. The fish were obviously the fools at this point in the tale. The crane though, greedy for more deceit tried to do the same to a crab that resided in the drying pond. The crab however, thought ahead and was able to have a plan in case the crane double crossed him. Which is smart, making him the trickster instead because the crane did end up trying to trick the crab. The crane was shown no mercy and was killed after he pleaded for his life and let the crab go into the pond. A similar tactic was shown in the fairy tale ‘The Tiger, The Brahman, and the Jackal’ where ultimately the tiger was the trickster who preyed on the brahman who was the fool. At the end of the story is where the jackal was the best trickster, much like the crab, because he turned the original trickster into a fool. The tiger was tricked back into the cage in which the brahman foolishly let him out of. Lucky for the brahman, the jackal was a ‘good trickster’. I think there are good tricksters and bad tricksters in these tales because the tricksters who trick the fools deserve to be tricked themselves and are by the ‘good tricksters’. Those are just two of the stories that I found to be similar in nature regarding tricksters and fools in this unit. There are many other fairy tales however that include a trickster and a fool and also like I was explaining, good and bad tricksters. The story of Harisarman is a good read as well in this unit because it included an ‘accidental trickster’ who gets lucky in his trickery and is never played to be a fool by a ‘good trickster’.

artwork by John D. Batten from BlogSpot.com 

 

Storytelling for Week 12: Don't let your pumpkin upset your mother.

There once was a boy who had mastered the art of pumpkin carving. He had carved pumpkins every year with his mother ever since he could remember, gaining much experience along the way. This Fall, the boy had decided to enter one of his creations into the annual pumpkin carving contest his town put on. The winner of this contest would receive a ride along lawn mower. The boy and his mother lived on a plot of land with a lot of acres and one of his chores was cutting the grass when it grew too tall. A lawn mower he could ride would be perfect for him!

After crafting a beautiful carving depicting a castle being attacked by a dragon, the boy sat back to admire his work. After staring at the castle for a few minutes he began to daydream about winning the contest.

castle and dragon pumpkin carving found at deviantart.com

The boy thought:
When I win, the townspeople will be cheer but be so jealous at the same time! That mean old Jacob Jr. will be so surprised he did not win this year. I will take home my prize to momma and never complain about mowing the grass again. Until the engine breaks, then I will have to take it to the mechanic down the street. Since he does not get a lot of lawn mowers in his shop he will not know how to fix it and I will have to break it apart and trade the parts in. I will trade the parts in at the scrap yard for a bike so I won't have to walk to school everyday. The bike will make me look so cool! After a couple years I will trade in my bike for a motor scooter, paying the rest with allowance money. The scooter will surely get me a girlfriend in high school and she will want to marry me. When I reject her and tell her I want to live with my momma the rest of my life she will get angry with me. After storming off she will go to my momma's house and bang on the door yelling for her to come out and speak with her. I do not like it when my momma is upset by anyone because she goes in her room for days and does not come out. I don't want my high school girlfriend making my momma cry and stay in her room!

After angering himself over this thought, the boy picked up his pumpkin and threw it to the ground. The creation that was sure to win at the contest was now a pile of yuck. The boy ran inside and hugged his momma, whom he would make sure never got upset by his high school girlfriend.

Author's Note: I based my story off of the Indian fairy tale titled "The Broken Pot" in the Indian Fairy Tale Unit by Joseph Jacobs. In this fairy tale, there is a Brahman who saved up a pot of rice and he began to think about what to do with it. He eventually traded the rice up to earning a house with wings. Then his daydreaming gets shifted towards obtaining a wife and then a child and how he would then tell the child to come to him one day and he would get mad at the wife because the child would be too close to danger so he ends up breaking the pot of rice when kicking his wife in his daydreams. I thought this was such a crazy fairy tale I had to re-create it with a modern twist. I used a little boy because I thought the Brahman resembled a little boy in his thinking and ill temper. I tried not to drift towards getting money as a trading up source to keep with the theme from the fairy tale. Ultimately, I needed something to have the boy destroy that he thought was the starting point of his final trade that led to his anger. After writing this story I realized both the fairy tale and my story reminded me of a cable commercial (I forget for which service) that creates this same kind of ridiculous thinking and that is where the title comes from. I thought it was pretty funny how some people can lead to conclusions that are so far from where they begin.

Reading Diary (Indian Fairy Tales Unit): Week 12

I chose to read from the Indian Fairy Tales Unit by Joseph Jacobs this week. Accessed here.

The fairy tale 'The Broken Pot' was quite interesting. I thought that the young boy had a great imagination going from a pot of rice to thinking up to kicking his wife and thus kicking the rice bowl. At first, his intentions of saving the rice in the pot made sense in terms of saving and trading up. Much like how adults try to sell commodities for other commodities of more value leading to a goal of gaining something worth a lot more than they start with. The boy lost me when he started thinking of how the rice would ultimately lead to gaining a wife then a child and then one day he would get the child to run to him and the kid would get too close to a horse and then he would kick his wife for allowing this, and this made him mad enough to actually kick the bowl of rice that got him started on this fixation to begin with. So now no rice, no goats, no cows, no bison, no horses, no house with wings, no daughter to marry, no son to be had, no kicking to be done to wife. I thought this was interesting and has a greater meaning that would be cool to bring out in a possible storytelling post this week.

The fairy tale 'The Cruel Crane Outwitted' had a surprising ending with a twist. At first, it is the crane that is the evil-doer and outwits the fish -even though the fish are suspecting at first-. Then he goes back for more, making him greedy after eating all those fish upon taking them to the other pond. Greed gets the best of him I think since the crab ultimately leads to the cranes death. I do not think the crane was too smart when he agreed to have the crab hold onto his neck to get to the pond, maybe he was too entranced with the possibility of eating him and was not thinking clearly. The crab was smart and had a backup plan in case the crane double crossed him but he kills the crane anyways after the crane surrenders so he doesn't have much character. The bystander watching all this go down is titled 'genius' in the tree, maybe because he is set away from this madness?

In the fairy tale 'The Tiger, The Brahman, and the Jackal' the jackal comes to the Brahmans rescue by acting too stupid to understand the situation he was put in and the tiger is stupid enough to get back in the cage. So perhaps it was the Tigers stupidity and the jackals cleverness that helped the Brahman out of being tiger good. I think the stupidest one here though is the Brahman because he went on this journey and CAME BACK to the tiger even though he knew the tiger planned on eating him after he let him out the cage.

-I like how each fairy tale has an animal incorporated into it somehow. Some fairy tales from this unit are centered around talking animals, some only have animals in the background, but it is cool to see how there is a theme of animals that show up regardless such as goats or snakes.