Comparing 'Master Cat And How Stories Came To Earth'

Imagine that a spider has to capture many creatures to gain stories from a god or a cat has to dress in fancy clothes to help his master attain wealth and social status. These are the stories of the classic Ashanti folktale “How Stories Came to Earth” and the classic fairy tale “Master Cat” or “Puss in Boots”. Both of these stories are trickster tales which are stories that have an animal or person use their wits and cleverness to gain what they desire. These stories also use anthropomorphism, which is the attribution of human characteristics to an animal, god, or inanimate objects. These stories can be told as folktales. These are stories that are spoken and not written down that get passed from generation to generation. They can also be told as fairy tales that are written make-believe stories. Even

In both of these stories the tricksters use their wits to gain what they desire. Anansi the spider must use his cleverness in order to gain the stories he wants from Nyame the sky god. The cat must use his wit to come up with ways to make it look like his master is rich so he can gain social status. Both stories have the protagonists succeed in gaining the things that they desired. In “How Stories Came to Earth” Anansi captures the required creatures and in return gets the stories. In “Master Cat”, and the cat was able to trick the king into thinking his master was rich so his master gained wealth, social status, and a wife. In these stories, the things that the tricksters desire are culturally significant. The Ashanti worshiped the stories that were told, and in France wealth and social status were the things that everyone wanted to have. Finally, the characters interact with gods or powerful beings. In “How Stories Came to Earth” Anansi meets Nyame the sky god and in “Master Cat” the cat is able to trick an ogre. There are many similarities between the two stories, but they have far more