Thursday, October 22, 2015

Essay: Tricksters and Fools



Flint Visits the Rabbit has a trickster that will also show up in the second story I analyze. In this story, the animals in the forest ask a rabbit to take care of a hunter called Flint. The rabbit asks Flint to go back to his place for dinner. Flint then says he's got to do something, but rabbit tells him he can do that later. When they get close enough to rabbit's home, rabbit stabs Flint and sprints into his home. The rabbit is the trickster in the story and is extremely persuasive with Flint coming up with anything as an excuse for Flint to make his way to his home. The rabbit knew he had to be fast since Flint had a gun. So, he waited until he was close to his home to attack and sprint there. He was very smart and saved the forest! 

Why the Possum's Tail Is Bare had a similar trickster from the last story. The rabbit in this story is jealous of the possum and his tail. The possum is extremely prideful about his tail and the rabbit is sick of hearing about it. So, like in the last story, the rabbit gets clever. The possum asked him to brush his tail and make sure it looks great for the dance (since the rabbit set him up to purposely be the center of attention after he is done with his tail). The rabbit does so, but asks the cricket (the dresser) to take the hair off the possum's tail. This happens and at the dance the possum notices when everyone is laughing at him. The main difference for this rabbit trickster from the last story is that the protagonist gave the rabbit an excuse and chance to shave his tail. In the last story, the Rabbit had to go persuade Flint to go with him. Also, the main difference in general is that in one story a character died from the trickster while the other story just had embarrassment involved. 

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