“Fables”
Introduction:
Now I know a little bit about fables, after doing a little bit of research in my English class. I know that fables are short stories that center upon animals. Fables also all have morals at the end, stated outright, or inferred. These morals are sometimes called Aesops, after the original creator of fables. Aesop was a Greek slave who wrote a lot of fables. “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” and “The Tortoise and the Hare” are two of the most famous Aesops in America. Aesops are primarily short stories; they can range from a few sentences to a page. No matter how short they are, the moral message still gets conveyed to the reader when he or she reads a fable.
I have chosen to write about Aesops because they interest me and I like animals. The moral at the end gets an extra bonus from me. The morals are fun to learn and can sometimes be funny. It also interests me in how stories that were written as far back as thousands of years ago were written and the themes they had. It is intriguing to know why they still hold relevance in modern day life. Learning about Asop has also lead me to learn more about Greece’s practices and other famous slaves. I picked fables because it has more of a variety of short stories versus the other topics and I like diversity. One of the reasons I think stories such as fables are important to people is because they let people express complex ideas in an easy to understand fashion.
The Search:
To get started with my research on fables I looked up the definition of “fable”. I also asked my mother what she thought a fable was, and she ended up describing a fairy tale. I found out that fables were mostly stories revolving around animals acting out an event with a moral to it. Then I...
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... traits of many animals and continue to do so. Fables have endured throughout the years and will most likely continue to do so.
Works Cited
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“Aesop's Fables – online collection – 656+ fables.”
Aesops fables – online collection – 656+ fables.
21 Jan. 2014 internet
Bottigheimer, Ruth “Fairy Tales and Fables.” Boardman’s PDF. January 30 2014.
Chesterton, GK. “Introduction to Aesop's Fables.”
The Chesterton review Feb 6.
May 2001 XXVII. 1&2 (2001):
17-20. Print.
"Fable." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 28 Jan. 2014.
“Tortoise and The Hare.” 1934. Youtube.web.7 Sept. 2008.
“The Tortoise and the Hare (Disney 1934.)
Youtube. Youtube, 17 june 2010
Web. 21 Jan. 2014. Internet.
Morel, Madonna. Personal interview. Jan 10 2014.
The Odyssey - Scylla and Charybdis & nbsp; One of the most difficult tasks as a parent is to teach your child life lessons. Many have tried, and many have failed. But over the ages, the most successful ideas have come in the form of a story or tale. Aesops Fables, nursery rhymes, and other tales of caution are used even today to teach this common knowledge one must have. In the Greek civilization, thousands of years ago, many children were taught through these fun and interesting stories.
In this essay I will compare and contrast the qualities and plights of both Aeneas and Gilgamesh. These two epic heroes share similar fates, yet are very different in personality.
Fable —A deliberately false or improbable account, well, so says Merriam-Webster. Can a love story be a fable? Sure thing —not only did Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful does not just fall into one genre, but into many. The remarkable film can be considered as a romantic comedy, a drama, but most of all, a fable—The story of a man, winning the heart of his “princess” and his own son.
The birthplace of Aesop’s Fables originated in ancient Greece and is widely speculated to have been written by a slave named Aesop. Many critics over time have questioned the true original author of this book, however, they seem to agree that Greece is the actual geographical location of its birth. The specific version of Aesop’s Fables discussed in this essay started with a man named George Fyler Townsend, who began the process of recreating the book by translating it into English and publishing it in 1870. Townsend’s Aesop’s Fables represents a collection of translated stories that highlight morals above anything else, and these morals reflect the values that Townsend considered to be the most important to transmit from Aesop’s original version in Greek to the English-speaking people of his time.
"The Epic of Gilgamesh." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 3rd ed. Vol. A. New York: W.W. Norton & Compnany, 2012. 99-150. Print
Short stories and fables give essential insight on life and convey a deeper understanding of the basic fundamental and intellectual lessons of life. Over the ages many stories and fables have been told from generation to generation to help people understand and grow intellectually/mentally to live a life which is one with yourself and everyone in relation to you. One such story which is deep in its morals is The Giraffe by Mauro Senesi. This story portrays a strong message, and when I read this book I was deeply affected emotionally as well as intellectually. This story helped me understand how accepting the most subtle change to the most significant change is important, it helped me understand
At first glance, what makes a fairy tale a fairy tale may seem obvious—some kind of magic, hidden symbols, repetition, and of course it’s evident it’s fiction—but fables are more than that. As Arthur Schelesinger puts it, it’s about “[expanding] imagination” and gaining understanding of mysterious places (618). While doing this, it also helps children to escape this world, yet teach a lesson that the reader may not be conscious of. A wonderful story that achieves all of this is Cinderella, but not the traditional tale many American’s have heard. Oochigeaskw, or The Rough-Faced Girl, and Ashputtle would be fitting for a seven-year-old because they get the gears of the mind turning, allowing for an escape on the surface, with an underlying enlightenment for children of the ways of the world.
Fairy tales portray wonderful, elaborate, and colorful worlds as well as chilling, frightening, dark worlds in which ugly beasts are transformed into princes and evil persons are turned to stones and good persons back to flesh (Guroian). Fairytales have long been a part of our world and have taken several forms ranging from simple bedtime stories to intricate plays, musicals, and movies. However, these seemingly simple stories are about much more than pixie dust and poisoned apples. One could compare fairytales to the new Chef Boyardee; Chef Boyardee hides vegetables in its ravioli while fairytales hide society’s morals and many life lessons in these outwardly simple children stories. Because of this fairytales have long been instruments used to instruct children on the morals of their culture. They use stories to teach children that the rude and cruel do not succeed in life in the long run. They teach children that they should strive to be kind, caring, and giving like the longsuffering protagonists of the fairytale stories. Also, they teach that good does ultimately defeat evil. Fairy tales are not just simple bedtime stories; they have long been introducing cultural moral values into young children.
For centuries, children stories have been a valuable tool in teaching lessons and morals. Like most stories that one was read as a child, there lies a life lesson that the author is trying to portray. Whether it was told orally like the story Beowulf or written by an author like Chaucer who wrote The Canterbury Tales, there are life lessons that are being taught through the characters and their challenges that they endure.
Cautionary tales typically follow what their name might suggest, in that they warn how consequences affect those who might think themselves above the rules. This is often seen in cases regarding self-centered animals, overly naïve children, and to a degree those who are deemed ‘tricksters’. It is common for animals to become the subjects of stories, as the author can then apply human philosophy to the actions of creatures in order to warn against behavior that might otherwise be seen as common.
During our infancy mostly of us (I hope) heard about the fairy tales that help us to imagine unrealistic ways of actions. Fairy tales also help us to think more broadly to solve a problem. We are used to read, listen, or see those compositions that are always written and censored many traumatic aspects to avoid bad interpretations. The majority of the stories are simplified to target lower ages, however, fairly tales can be scary. Sometimes, we do not notice the horror behind those stories. But to a great extent of stories, the fairy tales can be scary. The Shining is one of those fairly tales, where the father tries to kill his family. It is a fairy tale that is misinterpreted; however, the film itself depicts to be a fairy tale.
The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Odyssey both are held in high respect by literature analysts and historians alike for the characterization of the hero and his companion, the imagery brought to mind when one of them is read, and the impressive length in relation to the time period it was written in. The similarities that these two epics share do not end with only those three; in fact, the comparability of these works extend to even the information on the author and the archetypes used. However, The Odyssey and The Epic of Gilgamesh contrast from one another in their writing styles, character details, and main ideas. Both epics weave together a story of a lost man who must find his way, but the path of their stories contrast from one another.
A fable is a short story, typically with animals as characters, which conveys a moral. In many countries, they are used to teach lessons. In West Africa, they serve as a means of communication and are passed down from generation to generation. One of the most popular West African fable characters is Kweku Anansi. Ananse stories, as they have come to be known, have been told for thousands of years but became popularized in Ashanti, Ghana.
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The process I took to find this information on Aesop’s fables was long and challenging. To start off, I was absent on the first day of the assignment, leaving me behind the entire class. Once I finally caught up with the class, I found the assignment very interesting. The first day our class went to the media center was very frustrating. That day, our school had been experiencing severe power outages, and by the time I could get my computer to start working, class was almost over. I quickly did as much as I could in the short time, and took the rest home to finish. The very next day, I had trouble ...