In many cultures, we often have representations for the perfect being. For humans, we have gods that represent concepts or the ideal being. In Richard Adam’s novel, Watership Down, the rabbits have their own culture and their own model of a chief rabbit. The myths of El-ahrairah told throughout the story gives us an insight into “Lapine” culture, but he also serves as reminders of ideals and influences for the rabbits. In “The Story of the King’s Lettuce,” we finally see El’ahrairah’s trickster character in action. El-ahrairah manages to trick King Darzin into letting the rabbits take his lettuce for Prince Rainbow by convincing Darzin that the lettuce were infected. Although for most rabbits, being cunning is essential for survival, but this …show more content…
This story tells of El-ahrairah’s plans to steal Prince Rainbow’s carrots by using the Prince’s own spy, Hufsa. Most importantly, El-ahrairah requests aid from a hedgehog and a pheasant to trick Hufsa. Subsequently, Hazel must have been influenced from this tale to help a mouse and eventually persuade a gull named Kehaar to scout for other warrens. Hazel is even compared to El-ahrairah, “... the idea of making use of a bird, and one so strange and savage, convinced them that Hazel, if he could really do it, must be as clever as El-ahrairah himself” (Adams 188). As the new Chief Rabbit of the Honeycomb, Hazel aimed high. Following the footsteps of El-ahrairah, Hazel did what was necessary for his warren and took advantage of a rabbit’s cunning …show more content…
Although El-ahrairah is known as a trickster, he is unable to trick the Black Rabbit, so he offers his life in exchange to save his people from King Darzin’s war. However, Dandelion’s storytelling is interrupted when Pipkin warns of a fox nearby, and Bigwig suddenly darts towards it to lure it away from the others. Because of this, we can see Bigwig’s willingness to give his own life to save others. After Bigwig tries to explain himself, Hazel tells him, “Playing El-ahrairah… You duffer, you might have thrown your life away for nothing — we all thought you had” (Adams 286). Although Bigwig took an unnecessary risk, we can see the influence of El-ahrairah on him. Both Bigwig and El-ahrairah were stressed over some upcoming conflict, and tried to relieve themselves through some act of
Tartuffe is a simple, realistic story about understanding the real deceivers and those who are deceived in life as represented by the antagonist in the comedy named Tartuffe. In examining the entire story, there is only one deceiver in the story specifically Tartuffe. As the title character of the story, Tartuffe is highly remarkable for depicting various attitudes towards the other characters to hide his real intentions. Only the readers can truly see what was he really up to. He has tremendously played with every character in the story by hiding his true motive by means of presenting his holiness to Madame Pernelle at the beginning of the story as well as to Orgon. Orgon's two-sided character is revealed in the following lines, "some joys, it's true, are wrong in Heaven's eyes, yet Heaven's not averse to compromise... any wrongful act you care to mention, may be redeemed by purity of intention" (Lawall and Mack 360). On the other hand, the major character in the story of Wu, the Stone Monkey showed realism as they search for the Buddhist scriptures with the help of Tripitaka, Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing or Sandy.
As children, we are often told stories, some of which may have practical value in the sense of providing young minds with lessons and morals for the future, whereas some stories create a notion of creativity and imagination in the child. In Karen Armstrong’s piece, “Homo Religiosus”, a discussion of something similar to the topic of storytelling could translate to the realm of religion. Armstrong defines religion as a, “matter of doing rather than thinking” (17) which she describes using an example in which adolescent boys in ancient religions, who were not given the time to “find themselves” but rather forced into hunting animals which ultimately prepares these boys to be able to die for their people, were made into men by the process of doing.
Secondly, there is one pig left, but his house is too strong to blow down. The wolf then tries to outsmart the pig by sending him to different locations to meet him instead of trying to blow down his house. On the other hand, the pig ends up outsmarting the wolf by showing up an hour early to all the destinations. Lastly, at the final destination, the fair, the pig scares the wolf by rolling down a hill in a butter churner out of fear of seeing the wolf coming towards the fair. In the end, the wolf got fed up with the pig and declared to eat the pig by climbing through the chimney.
Williams Paden discusses the world building character of myths and their capacity to shape time and delineate scared and profane space for the communities that believe and transmit them. In William Paden, “Myth,” in Religious Worlds: The Comparative Study of Religion, he explains that within religious worlds, myths set a foundation that advance to shape a person’s way of life. Subsequently, they shape their belief and conscience. His theory relates to an element an indigenous story which is the creation story precisely the story of the turtle island. For the Ojibway and Anishinaabe people, the creation story was used as a grounding prototype to shape their belief and their outlook on how the world was created. The story shows how myth is being
From before the dawn of civilization as we know it, humanity has formed myths and legends to explain the natural world around them. Whether it is of Zeus and Hera or Izanami-no-Mikoto and Izanagi-no-mikoto, every civilization and culture upon this world has its own mythos. However, the age of myth is waning as it is overshadowed in this modern era by fundamental religion and empirical science. The word myth has come to connote blatant falsehood; however, it was not always so. Our myths have reflected both the society and values of the culture they are from. We have also reflected our inner psyche, conscious and unconscious, unto the fabric of our myths. This reflection allows us to understand ourselves and other cultures better. Throughout the eons of humanity’s existence, the myths explain natural phenomena and the cultural legends of the epic hero have reflected the foundations and the inner turmoil of the human psyche.
Hazel is a fiery little girl. She is strong-willed and openly opinionated, and believes that “when you got something on your mind, speak up and let the chips fall where they may” (Bambara 297). Although she is still very young, she has principles of what she believes to be wrong and right. She believes that her Hunca Bubba is not who he used to be since he has fallen in love and become engaged. Hazel feels betrayed by Hunca Bubba because when she was a little girl, he promised he would marry her. He is no longer Hazel’s Hunca Bubba; now, he is Jefferson Winston Vale. Hazel is befuddled with the entire situation. She is heartbroken that he seems to undermine the importance of his promise, by saying, “I was just teasin’” (298). He seems to be completely unaware that by breaking this promise, he has distorted Hazel’s entire outlook on trustworthiness. Hazel expresses her concrete belief that people should follow through with what they say, when she is commenting on the incident at the movie theater, “ I mean even gangsters in the movies say My word is my bond. So don’t nobody get away with nothing far as...
Machen, Arthur. The Great God Pan and The Hill of Dreams. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2006.
Creation stories have profound effects on humans. Those associated with ancient cultures/civilizations aim to ensure the successful survival or well-being of themselves and that particular culture/civilization of their association, but not all are beneficial, prosperous, or fortunate. Mesopotamia’s “The Gilgamesh Epic”, Egypt’s “Hymn to the Nile-Documents”, and Mesoamerica’s Mayan and Aztec creation stories/religion are influential to establishing significant relationships within society, whether that is between humans and nature or humans and their “god(s).”
Through studies such as comparative mythology, researchers and philosophers have discover hundreds of parallels between the myths that make up every culture, including their creation myths. As most are deeply rooted in religion, comparisons based on geographic area, themes, and similar story lines emerge as religions form and migrate. Campbell recognized these similarities an...
The myths which prove the contradictory behavior of the gods, acting as both benefactors and tormentors of man, can readily be explained when viewed in light of the prime directive for man, to worship the gods and not “overstep,” and the ensuing “Deus ex Mahina” which served to coerce man to fulfill his destiny as evidenced by the myths: “Pandora,” “Arachne, and “Odysseus.” Humankind and it’s range of vision over the gods beauty and power portrayed them to be benefactors but unseemingly it depicted their affliction towards humans.
The Idols of the Cave represent the illusions of the individual. Everyone has their own "cave" which alters their opinions differently, depending upon their...
On its surface, Martel’s Life of Pi proceeds as a far-fetched yet not completely unbelievable tale about a young Indian boy named Pi who survives after two hundred twenty-seven days on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. It is an uplifting and entertaining story, with a few themes about companionship and survival sprinkled throughout. The ending, however, reveals a second story – a more realistic and dark account replacing the animals from the beginning with crude human counterparts. Suddenly, Life of Pi becomes more than an inspiring tale and transforms into a point to be made about rationality, faith, and how storytelling correlates the two. The point of the book is not for the reader to decide which story he or she thinks is true, but rather what story he or she thinks is the better story. In real life, this applies in a very similar way to common belief systems and religion. Whether or not God is real or a religion is true is not exactly the point, but rather whether someone chooses to believe so because it adds meaning and fulfillment to his or her life. Life of Pi is relevant to life in its demonstration of storytelling as a means of experiencing life through “the better story.”
A fox is one cunning animal. And in the story, it is proven to be right. From the fox's lesson that one can see only what is essential by looking with the heart, the author leaves the desert as a changed person. He agrees with the little prince's thought: 'the stars are beautiful, because of a flower that cannot be seen';.
Many things are too good to be true. When someone makes an offer that sounds unreasonable, people go along with it and make promises that they cannot keep, thinking that they will get a good laugh about it. However, once the thing that seems too good to be true takes place, the people who did not believe it would occur are at a loss. They have no choice to go back on their word and cannot keep their end of the bargain. This results in the person who did the thing that was too good to be true enraged and wanting to seek vengeance. In The Children of Hameln by the Grimm Brothers, the Pied Piper is the character who did what seemed too good to be true and as a result did not get paid because the people did not have the money. This resulted in him getting his revenge on the town by making the children disappear, just like he did with the rats, and this lead to a representation of failed mourning by the townspeople.
The Chronicles of Narnia are veritably the most popular writings of C.S. Lewis. They are known as children’s fantasy literature, and have found favor in older students and adults alike, even many Christian theologians enjoy these stories from Lewis; for there are many spiritual truths that one can gleam from them, if familiar with the Bible. However, having said this, it is noteworthy to say that Lewis did not scribe these Chronicles for allegorical didactics of the Christian faith, but wrote them in such a well-knit fashion that young readers might understand Christian doctrine through captivating fantasy and thus gain an appreciation for it. With this in mind, and in the interest of this assignment, the purpose of this paper is an attempt to analyze one of the many doctrines of the Christian faith from The Lion, The Witch, And, The Wardrobe (LWW), namely, temptation and how Lewis illustrates it through an individual character, Edmund.