Characteristics Of A Trickster Tales

A trickster is a character of a story that cheats or deceives other people, and all tricksters possess a select group of traits that are easily identifiable. Every trickster displays a handful of these characteristics, and, in fact, it is impossible for a character to be deemed a trickster if none of these qualities are present. Some examples of these traits are brain over brawn, cleverness, and negative qualities, and all of them were able to be identified in various trickster tales that were assigned.
Brain over brawn is an element of a trickster tale that can be shown when the trickster is using his/her intelligence, rather that force, to swindle other characters. It is an essential aspect that is shown in all three of the tales that we

Cleverness of the Trickster is straightforward evidence of how intelligent the trickster character is. The story “How Stories Came to Earth,” uses Cleverness of the Trickster is when Kwaku Anansi tricks the animals he needs to capture by telling them lies his wife told him. Kwaku does this many time to creatures like a python, a leopard, hornets, and fairies to buy the stories from the sky-god. Also, the story “Coyote Steals Fire” uses Cleverness of the Trickster when Coyote and Thunder are playing a game and Coyote keeps taking Thunder’s pieces to win the game. In the story it says “Whenever Thunder took his eyes off of Coyote’s hands, even for just the tiniest part of a moment, Coyote turned his dice up so that they showed the carved sides.” Lastly, the story “Master Cat or Puss in Boots” uses Cleverness of a Trickster when he was trying to catch rabbits to eat. On page 48 it states “Then he waited for one of the little rabbits, on inexperienced in the ways of the world, to crawl into the sack and try to eat it when it was in it.” Cleverness of the Trickster is found plenty of times throughout the stories “How Stories Came to Earth,” Coyote Steals Fire,” and “Master Cat or Puss in Boots,” and is probably one of the easiest traits to pick out in