Subject Areas |
Art and Culture
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Anthropology |
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Folklore |
Literature and Language Arts
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Fiction |
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World |
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Time Required |
| Lesson 1: one class period
Lesson 2: one or two class periods
Lesson 3: one class period
Lesson 4: one class period
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Skills |
| Analyzing written and oral texts for plot, theme, and characterization
Working collaboratively
Comparing and contrasting
Gathering, classifying, and interpreting written and oral information
Making inferences and drawing conclusions
Observing and describing
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Additional Data |
| Date Created: 05/21/02 |
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Date Posted |
| 4/17/2002 |
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Fables and Trickster Tales Around the World
IntroductionFables and trickster stories are
short narratives that use animal characters with human features to convey folk
wisdom and to help us understand human nature and human behavior. These stories
were originally passed down through oral tradition and were eventually written
down. The legendary figure Aesop was reported to have orally passed on his animal
fables, which have been linked to earlier beast tales from India and were later
written down by the Greeks and Romans. Ananse trickster tales derive from the
Asante people of Ghana and were brought by African slaves to the Caribbean and
parts of the U.S. These tales developed into Brer Rabbit stories and were written
down in the 19th century in the American South. The
following lessons introduce children to folk tales through a literary approach
that emphasizes genre categories and definitions. In this unit, students will
become familiar with fables and trickster tales from different cultural traditions
and will see how stories change when transferred orally between generations and
cultures. They will learn how both fables and trickster tales use various animals
in different ways to portray human strengths and weaknesses in order to pass down
wisdom from one generation to the next. This unit is
related to the lesson Aesop
and Ananse: Animal Fables and Trickster Tales, which provides the same background
information for the teacher with different activities appropriate for students
in grades K-2. Please note that different versions of spellings of “Ananse” and
“Anansi,” and of “Asante,” “Ashante,” and “Ashanti” exist. Learning Objectives
After completing the lessons in this unit, students will be able to:
- Identify the definition and understand elements of
fables and trickster stories
- Recognize Aesop's
fables, Ananse spider stories, and related tales from various cultures
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List human traits associated with particular animals in fables and trickster stories
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Identify the specific narrative and thematic patterns that occur in many fables
across cultures
- Compare and contrast themes
of fables and trickster tales from different cultures
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Explain how fables and trickster tales are used in different cultural contexts
to point out human strengths and weaknesses
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Differentiate between the cautionary lessons and morals of fables and the celebration
of the wiles and wit of the underdog in trickster stories.
Guiding
Question:What is a fable, and how are fables different from other types of
stories? What is a trickster tale, and how is it different from other types of
tales and from fables? How have fables and trickster tales been passed down through
time and around the world? Which human qualities have been associated with different
animals? Why do fables and trickster tales use animals to point out complexities
in human nature and feelings? What kinds of wisdom about human nature and human
behavior do we learn from fables, and how is this wisdom relevant today? Preparing
to Teach this Lesson- Review each lesson in
this unit and select archival materials you'd like to use in class. If possible,
bookmark these materials, along with other useful Web sites; download and print
out selected documents and duplicate copies as necessary for student viewing.
- Visit the Asante
Information page in Peoples
Resources at Art and Life in Africa
Online for background on the Asante people and the cultural context of their stories. Additional information on Ghana, as well as a list of further online resources, may be found at the Ghana page of the EDSITEment-reviewed African Studies WWW.
- Review the "Preface"
on the Aesop's Fables Web
site, linked through the EDSITEment-reviewed Web resource Internet
Public Library. The "Preface" provides information on the history of Aesop's
fables and on the definition of fables in general. The Aesop's Fables Web site
notes: "It has been said that Aesop only created but a few of the Fables, but
he is still regarded as the greatest story teller of all time, and thus fables
are most always attributed to him" (from
Aesop's Fables Online Collection, Detailed Information.)
- The Sanskrit collection
Panchatantra, or Pañcatantra, another famous collection of fables,
was composed between the 3rd century BC and the 4th century AD in India by Vishnusharman.
Review background information on these fables from the India
Timeline 1 from Central Oregon Community College, found on the EDSITEment-reviewed
Web site Asia Source, Timelines
and Chronologies, Timelines of Asia: Literary & Cultural History. This source
states that, "Ancient folktales of India come down to us primarily in two collections
of stories many of which are about animals. These are the Buddhist tales of the
former lives of the Buddha known as the Jatakas and the Panchatantra
[traditional Hindu animal stories considered a textbook for wise conduct in this
world]."
- Another source that offers
background information on folktales and fables from India, the General
Notes from Joseph
Jacobs' Indian Fairy Tales, located on the EDSITEment-reviewed Web site Internet
Public Library, discusses the lineage of Indian fables and the relationship
between Indian and European fables. The
General Notes state that, "When the Hindu reaction against Buddhism came,
the Brahmins adapted these [Jatakas], with the omission of Buddha as the central
figure. There is scarcely any doubt that the so-called Fables of Bidpai
were thus derived from Buddhistic sources. In its Indian form this is now extant
as a Panchatantra or Pentateuch, five books of tales connected by
a Frame. This collection is of special interest to us in the present connection,
as it has come to Europe in various forms and shapes."
- In
the Preface
to his Indian
Fairy Tales, Joseph Jacobs writes, "There are even indications of an earlier
literary contact between Europe and India, in the case of one branch of the folk-tale,
the Fable or Beast Droll. In a somewhat elaborate discussion ["History of the
Aesopic Fable," the introductory volume to my edition of Caxton's Fables of
Esope (London, Nutt, 1889)] I have come to the conclusion that a goodly number
of the fables that pass under the name of the Samian slave, Aesop, were derived
from India, probably from the same source whence the same tales were utilised
in the Jatakas, or Birth-stories of Buddha."
Suggested ActivitiesLesson
1: Telling Stories - Writing Stories Lesson
2: Fables and Tales from Different Cultures Lesson
3: Sly as a Fox; Busy as a Bee Lesson
4: The Moral of the Story Extending
the Lesson Lesson
1 Telling Stories - Writing Stories Read
to the class the Asante tale from West Africa, "Ananse's Stories," which tells
how a certain type of story came to be called Ananse
Stories. Point out the last two lines of
the story as a piece of folk wisdom, a typical ending element of Ananse tales: "And
from that day the stories of the Ashante people and their descendants in the West
Indies have been called Ananse Stories." "And
that is why Old People say: If yu follow trouble, trouble follow yu." Have
students identify characteristics of this story and use this list of elements
to collaboratively devise a definition of a fable or trickster tale as a short
narrative that uses animal characters with human features to convey some universal
truth about human nature and human behavior and to pass down wisdom from earlier
generations in ways that can be used for present-day situations. Point out to
students that, while fables tend to end in moral or cautionary lessons, trickster
tales often celebrate values or actions that are disapproved of by society but
that may be necessary for the survival and success of the small and weak; together,
fables and trickster stories allow us to see the complexities of the human character.
Ask students what they think about the Spider character in the story, whether
they like him and his actions, and why? Why is Spider called a "trickster"? Discuss with
students the notion of "the talking drum," a story that is passed orally through
generations and cultures, and that changes as it moves from person to person and
from place to place. Discuss with students the differences between telling and
writing stories, and ask them what the advantages and disadvantages are of the
oral and written forms. Have students retell the tale from "Ananse's Stories"
and note how the story changes in the retelling.
Lesson 2 Fables and Tales from Different Cultures
The following stories involve cases where the less powerful of two animals (including
one human) who are natural enemies frees the more powerful animal. The divergent
responses of the animals freed lead to different lessons about human behavior
and values. Using the chart below, have students identify the characters, problem
and solution, and moral of these fables. "The
Lion and the Mouse" (Aesop) (another
version) "Mr.
Buffu and the Snake" (Ananse)(scroll down) "The Ungrateful Tiger" (Korean) Have students
fill out an online version or printed-out version of the Story Structure Chart:
| Title | Title | Title | Title | Story
Elements | | | |
| Characters | |
| | | Problem |
| | | | Solution |
| | | | Lesson/Moral |
| | | |
Ask
students to compare the characters, plot, and lessons of these stories. Which
characters did they like best? Which did they like least? Which story had the
best ending? The best moral? To see how fables teach universal lessons about human
nature and behavior, ask students to think of a real-life situation that applies
to one of the stories. B) Divide students
into small groups and give each group one of the following fables/tales, located
through the EDSITEment-reviewed Web site Internet
Public Library, that offer lessons on the dangers
of being too clever: - The Fish That
Were Too Clever (India, The Panchatantra).
-
The Fox and the Cat (Aesop).
- The
Cat and the Fox (France, Jean de La Fontaine).
-
The Fox and the Cat (Germany, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm).
- The
Seven-Witted Fox and the One-Witted Owl (Romania).
- The
Fox and His Bagful of Wits and the One-Witted Hedgehog (Romania).
- The Fox and the Hedgehog (South Slavonic).
- The Tiger Finds a Teacher (China).
Have each group fill out the Story Structure Chart from
Lesson 2A for their particular fable or tale. Ask students to compare the animals
and their behavior in each story: Why do the types of animals change or not from
one culture's fable to the next? How does the behavior change according to the
type of animal? What types of behaviors lead to what types of endings in these
stories? Lesson 3 Sly
as a Fox; Busy as a Bee In fables and
trickster tales, certain animals are associated with certain human traits - which
animals have which human traits in which cultures? Do you associate these animals
with the traits given to them in the stories? Have
students fill out the following chart online or as a downloaded, printed document.
Ask them to list the animals in the fables they have read and heard, and then
to list the corresponding traits. Then, ask students to add their own animals
to the chart and to provide traits that they associate with these animals.
| Animal | Traits | From
Stories | | | Add
Your Own | | |
Ask
students what animal they would choose to be and why? What traits do they associate
with their chosen animal? Could they think of a new form of made-up animal and
give it the traits they would like to see in humans?
Lesson 4 The Moral of the Story Often
fables and trickster tales illustrate how a smaller or weaker animal uses cunning
to outwit a stronger, more powerful animal. Why would this theme occur repeatedly
in so many stories and across countries and cultures? What implications do such
stories have for human society? Look
at the list of "Selected
Aesop's Fables," located through the EDSITEment-reviewed Web site Internet
Public Library and discuss the moral listed. Have students choose a moral
and write an original fable to go with it, or have students make up their own
fable with an original lesson/moral. Extending
the Lesson - The American stories referred
to as Brer Rabbit stories are actually Ananse Stories (the wise trickster spider)
that were brought to the United States and the Caribbean by African-American slaves.
To develop a history of this type of fable, have students trace the connections
between the two sets of stories and locate the places in Africa and the U.S. and
Caribbean where they stories are found. This topic also brings up questions about
the roles and identities of the people who created the stories versus those who
eventually wrote them down - Who is telling the story? Whose story is it? What
is the relationship of the writer towards his or her characters?
-
In their analysis of Uncle
Remus' Songs and Sayings (selected text), located through the EDSITEment-reviewed
Web site American Studies at the University
of Virginia, Melissa Murray and Dominic Perella discuss the attitudes and
intentions of Joel Chandler Harris, author of the Uncle Remus tales, in relation
to the implications of the tales themselves:
- "Readers
of Harris' Uncle Remus folk tales might be tempted to assume, as we were early
in our research for this project, that the author had some kind of secret racial
egalitarian agenda. Many of the stories he relates through Remus are clearly subversive
of American apartheid's hierarchies. They spring from a tradition with roots in
Africa, and also in Northern and Eastern Europe - the animal tale, with moral
lessons about escape from submission and the value of cunning. In the hands of
black Southerners in the nineteenth century, such stories clearly addressed their
submissive situation. However, the tales must have had a second role as pure entertainment:
if the stories were seen as basically subversive by their black tellers, would
they have dared relate them to their white masters or bosses? One would doubt
it, especially in the tense racial atmosphere of the 1880s and '90s."
- "Harris's understanding of his task is shaped by the
latter definition; he sees the recording of Southern blacks' "poetic imagination"
and "quaint and homely humor" as entertainment for whites and as a valuable anthropology
of sorts, the preservation of a fading, picturesque voice. What Harris, a man
who despite his anthropological efforts subscribed to most of his culture's white-superiority
beliefs, failed to see is that the tales he recorded for posterity undermined
the very culture he worked to stimulate" (Remus
Tales: Selected Text).
- The
following commentary serves as context for the first story of the collection,
"Uncle Remus
Initiaties the Little Boy" to the students. This story could be read to students
and discussed in comparison to other animal tales in the lesson.
- "This tale functions as an important component of the
larger text, Legends of the Old Plantation, in that it introduces the primary
characters and establishes the stylistic form of the text. Immediately, the reader
is introduced to Uncle Remus, Miss Sally, and the little boy; through the stories
of Uncle Remus, we are introduced to the principal animal characters, Brer Rabbit
and Brer Fox. One important aspect of the text's narrative style is the limited
view that the reader gets of the characters. When we first are introduced to Uncle
Remus, we do not see him as a first person narrator, but rather through the eyes
of Miss Sally, whom we see through the eyes of an anonymous limited narrator.
This is important to the text because it establishes a pattern of limited insight
to the minds of the human charcters, while more detail is given to the thoughts
of the animal characters. Harris also introduces the conflict of many of the animal
tales, the pursuit of Brer Rabbit and his escape through the use of wit and cunning."
- "The
tale also establishes the pattern in which the stories are told--by an elderly
former slave to the young grandson of his former master. It is significant the
Harris' storyteller be an elderly former slave. In this way, Uncle Remus provides
a direct link to a past and culture that is quickly slipping away. For Harris,
an advocate of preserving the Southern liteary heritage in the wake of the encroaching
industrial expansion of the New South, the decision to commit the oral slave tradition
to written form was a self-conscious attempt to solidf and preserve an endangered
remnant of the old plantation culture. Moreover, the recording of these tales
by Harris through the stories of Uncle Remus was a step toward the diversifcation
of Southern literature. During the Reconstruction era, there was little African-American
writing in the national level, and still less on the regional and local levels.
Thus, the stories of Uncle Remus filled a tremendous void in acknowledging the
culture of the African-American slaves, as well as the plantation culture Harris
wanted to preserve" (Editor's Commentary of "Uncle
Remus Initiaties the Little Boy."
- The
legendary figure of Aesop is reported to have been a Samarian slave: "…it can
cautiously be said that Aesop was probably a slave in the sixth century B.C.,
that he probably came from Phrygia and then lived in Samos, that he had a knack
for "fables" (logoi) and that he became famous and gained his freedom on this
account" - Leo Groarke Wilfrid, The
Recent Life of Aesop. This point could extend the discussion of Lesson
4: The Moral of the Story, and lead to a discussion of the Aesop's fables and
Uncle Remus stories in relation to slavery and unequal relations between different
groups of humans.
- The EDSITEment-reviewed
Web site American Studies at the University
of Virginia has created one of its Ongoing
Hypertext Projects on Joel Chandler Harris' Uncle
Remus and His Friends (1892). The Web site, Melissa Murray and Dominic
Perella on Joel Chandler Harris, Uncle
Remus provides several Uncle Remus stories from Harris' book, accompanied
by the editors' own social and historical commentary; background and contextual
information on the Uncle Remus stories and on Harris, including four contemporary
reviews of the Uncle Remus collections; a biography of Joel Chandler Harris; and
some other essays and tales written by Harris that indicate Harris' attitude towards
race relations.
- This online text,
"Uncle Remus: Social Context and Ramifications" offer primary sources - original
text and images - and their own commentaries in order to "make observations about
post-Civil War black culture, and Southern society in general, using the stories
and the reactions they engendered as points of reference … [and] offer other students
of the South one or two new insights into the region's endlessly complex myths
and meanings" (Melissa Murray and Dominic Perella on Joel Chandler Harris,
Uncle Remus.)
- Explain the differences between myths, legends, fairy
tales, and fables. Give some examples of each type of story and let students ort
them by category, or ask students to research their own examples of each of these
narrative forms.
Selected EDSITEment WebsitesEDSITEment
Partner Site Resources: ARTSEDGE Lesson
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