Week 2 Essay: Foolishness and Vanity: Recipe for Misfortune

           After reading several of Aesop’s fables, I noticed a recurring theme: foolishness and/or vanity almost always results in misfortune. In the fables, “misfortune” as a result of foolishness could refer to several different possibilities. It could be something as simple as missing out on a meal such as in The Wolf and the Kid. In this story, the wolf found a kid who had strayed away from his flock. Realizing that he was about to be eaten, the kid cleverly thought to ask the wolf to play a tune on his pipe so he could at least be merrily dancing when he died. The wolf obliged, but as a result, captured the attention of the shepherd’s dogs. They recognized the wolf’s tune and quickly chased him away before he was able to feast on the kid.

In addition to simply missing a meal, foolishness could also lead to something as drastic as death as seen in The Tortoise and the Ducks. In this story, the tortoise was very upset because he was confined to the ground and was not able to fly like the birds. Then, two ducks offered to help him see the world from their point of view. The ducks grabbed a stick and told the tortoise to grab on with his mouth. The tortoise bit down on the stick and the ducks flew off, revealing a new perspective of the world to the tortoise. As the ducks were flying with the tortoise a crow flew by and said, “This must surely be the King of Tortoises.” Foolishly, the tortoise opened his mouth to respond to the crow. Obviously losing his grip on the stick, the tortoise fell to his death.

“Misfortune” as a result of vanity was usually associated with different consequences. For example, in The Eagle and the Jackdaw, vanity ultimately led to embarrassment. In this story, the jackdaw witnessed an eagle diving down and grabbing up a lamb in its talons. The jackdaw thought that he was strong enough to do the same thing, and attempted to carry off a ram. However, the jackdaw only succeeded in getting his talons caught in the wool of the ram. And in the end, he was seized by a farmer who clipped his wings and gave him to his children as a pet.

However, much like foolishness, vanity could also lead to death, as seen in The Wolf and His Shadow. In this story, a wolf was out looking for something to eat one evening, and he noticed his shadow being cast across the ground. His shadow was very large, and therefore so was his ego. Since his shadow was so large, he felt that he had no reason to be afraid of anything, not even the lion. Then, in the midst of his admiration of his shadow, the lion killed the wolf.

These recurring themes made it easy to predict what was going to happen in the story; whether that is good or bad, is up to the reader I suppose. I enjoyed having the recurring themes throughout the stories. I found myself almost creating a game out of it; I would try to guess what the moral of the story would be before I actually finished reading it, and that was all made possible by the recurring themes! 

Cain, after killing Able. Or, when Aesop's characters succumb to foolishness or vanity.
Sculpture by Henri Vidal, Tuileries Garden, Paris, 1896.
Source: Wikipedia

Week 2 Storytelling: Friendly Frogs

One hot summer day the Thompson brothers decided to go for a swim in the pond out behind their barn. The pond was one of their favorite places to hang out. The shade created by the barn, and the cool temperature of the water made it the perfect oasis for the boys. However, it also served as a home for a family of frogs.

The three brothers Carl, David, and Shawn raced to the pond, and without hesitation, jumped in head first, creating massive splashes and enormous waves. The boys cried out in laughter as they let the cool water wash over their heads.

Meanwhile, the family of frogs was terrified that they had been placed under attack. The bodies of the boys jumping in felt like massive asteroids had plummeted to Earth and crashed right into their backyard. The frogs tried to swim to the safety of the bank, but the brothers were splashing around making it impossible to swim through the choppy water.

Finally, Father Frog cried out, “HEEYYYY!” The brothers froze. Where had that voice come from? They looked around for a few moments, and then finally David shouted, “Guys come here!” Shawn and Carl waded over to where David was standing, and they all three stared in astonishment at the family of frogs.

Pointing at Father Frog David said, “It was him. He’s the one that yelled.” Shawn and Carl dunked their brother under the water in disbelief. They thought there’s no way a frog could have yelled so loudly. David resurfaced, gasped for air, and then began swinging his fists in retaliation towards his brothers.

Father Frog yelled out again, “Hey! Y’all need to cut it out!” Immediately the brothers broke up their scuffle and stared at Father Frog. Father Frog continued, “While you boys may be having a grand ole time splashing around and causing a ruckus, you are scaring my family half to death.”

In complete disbelief Carl said, “Frogs don’t have families!”

“Sure we do,” replied Father Frog. He motioned for his wife and daughter to swim over. As they swam up he said, “This is my wife, Meredith and my daughter, Lacey.”

For a moment, the brothers just stood there with their mouths hanging open in shock. Finally Shawn said, “Well, it is nice to meet you Meredith and Lacey. I would like to apologize on behalf of myself and my knucklehead brothers.”

“It’s quite alright,” said Meredith. “We understand that you boys were just trying to have fun and cool off on this hot day.”

The brothers all made their apologies, and vowed to be more careful when swimming in the pond. And from that day forward, the Thompson brothers and the family of frogs shared the pond in peace. 

Father Frog on the pond.
Source: openclipart

Author's Note:

This story is based on Aesop's Fable The Boys and the Frogs. The moral of this fable is "Always stop to think whether your fun may not be the cause of another's unhappiness." In the original story, the boys were skipping rocks across the pond. As one could imagine, this would be very terrifying for the frogs at the pond. Hence, the moral of the story. 

In my story, I chose to keep the same moral as well as the same basic characters. I thought the moral was very practical, especially for fun-loving college students! Also, I thought the use of a slightly unusual pairing of boys and frogs to teach a lesson was unique, so I wanted to keep that the same. However, I made the boys a little more personal by naming them after some of my closest guy friends. 

Bibliography

Book: The Aesop for Children

Author: Writer of the text is unknown; Illustrator: Milo Winter 

Year Published: 1919

Web Source: Project Gutenberg 

Week 2 Reading Diary: Aesop (Winter)

Aesop for Children (Winter)

The Wolf and the Kid

The moral of this story was "Do not let anything turn you from your purpose." Even though in this story it was specifically talking about the wolf and his purpose of killing the kid so he had something to eat, I think this is applicable to life in general...for humans that is! As a college student, we are often required to wear many "hats". For me personally, I wear the student hat, the employee hat, the organization leader hat; and then of course the friend, daughter, etc. hat. With all these different roles we are expected to play, it is easy to get distracted from our main goal(s). For me, right now, my main goal is to finish out my last semester of undergrad with good grades, and prepare myself for graduate school. The point of all of this is to say that I liked that such a simple story could be so helpful at reminding me of something that is important in my life.


The Boy and the Filberts

When I think of Aesop's fables, I typically think of the main characters as animals. However I liked that the focus of this story was a child. Because much like animals, children have an innocence about them that makes their actions more believable. It reminds me of watching shows like America's Funniest Home Videos. In some videos, you can tell that the people in the video were trying too hard to make something funny happen, and in my opinion, that isn't funny at all. But in other videos, particularly those involving animals or young children, you can tell that it was not staged at all, making it that much more funny.


The Ass and His Driver

This story reminded me of myself in some ways. I will be the first person to tell you that I am stubborn and hardheaded. However, I like to think that I am not as foolish as the ass in this story. I do make a concerted effort to follow the advice of my friends, even though some of them may not be wiser than me, ha!


The Travelers and the Purse


"We cannot expect anyone to share our misfortunes unless we are willing to share our good fortune also." I love this moral! I am beginning to feel like I am going to be obsessed with Aesop's fables because they offer such simple, but very practical advice. Probably one of my favorite thing about Aesop's fables is that sometimes I can predict, or at least get pretty close, the moral of the story. This was one of those stories. I would brag on myself, but I know from reading through various fables that vanity leads to misfortune...


The Boys and the Frogs


This is a story that almost anyone could benefit from reading. Given that we are now living in the "me generation", I think everyone could use a reminder that there are other people in the world, and that their actions can have lasting effects on those people.

The Two Goats

As I mentioned earlier, I am a very stubborn person. However, I also have friends who are very stubborn. So I like that stubbornness leading to misfortune is a common theme in Aesop's fables. After reading several stories with this theme, I feel better equipped to give advice to my stubborn friends!


The Ass, the Fox, and the Lion

This story held the common stereotypes for the Ass and the Fox, foolish and trickster, respectively. However, I have started noticing that the Lion has a few options for his stereotype; he could be wise, noble, violent, etc. In this story, the Lion is noble and protects the foolish Ass who is betrayed by the deceitful Fox. It makes me feel good and reminds me that there are powerful people in the world who can do the right thing!


The Mice and the Weasels

Although the moral of this story is "Greatness has its penalties," I think it can easily align with the "vanity leads to destruction" theme that can be seen throughout Aesop's fables. Despite the fact that this moral is rather accurate, I do not like the connotative it gives off. This story almost makes me feel guilty, or at least hesitant, about chasing my dreams and achieving greatness.


The Wolf and the Ass

I really enjoyed the twist in character traits in this story. Typically the Ass is very foolish and the Wolf is wise, or at least a trickster. In this story however, the roles were essentially reversed. As someone who tends to root for the underdog, I enjoyed this twist!


The Dogs and the Hides

"Do not try to do impossible things." The moral of this story serves me very well for a couple of reasons: (1) I tend to take on a lot of tasks because I feel like if I want it done right, I have to do it myself, and (2) I do not always think before I act.

The Fox and the Leopard 

Although the moral of this story was "A fine coat is not always an indication of an attractive mind," I found that it could also be interpreted as "you can't judge a book by it's cover." Despite the fact that these two morals have different meanings, I think they both fit the story very well.

The Farmer and His Sons

Something very similar to what happened to the sons in this story happened to me one time. I was visiting some family who owned a farm. All of us kids were told that there was treasure buried outside one of the garage buildings. Naturally we began digging in search of the treasure. After we had dug a decent-sized ditch, we discovered that we had been tricked into doing the groundwork for laying pipe outside the garage.

The Astrologer

This story, like many of the others, contains the theme of "foolishness leads to misfortune." However, unlike other stories, it is a man who could be regarded as very smart for being able to read the stars who is foolish. He is foolish, like many people today, for worrying too much about the future and, consequently, missing out on the present.

Mercury and the Woodman

Such a great story of honesty! Growing up, I was always taught that "Honesty is the best policy." However, as a child, and even as an adult, it is hard to believe that sometimes. When I was younger, I feared getting in trouble for telling the truth about who spilled the nail polish on the carpet. But as an adult, I often fear hurting people's feelings for telling them how I honestly feel sometimes.

The Wolf and the Shepherd

This story goes to show that hypocrites are nothing new to society. However, I like to think that in Aesop's day the biggest hypocrites only did things like the Shepherd and his family - eat the lamb after hating the Wolf for doing the same. The world would probably be a less hateful place if that was the biggest issue in today's culture...

The  Mischievous Dog

The Dog in this story is very similar to some people who I know - loves attention, no matter if it's good or bad! Perhaps I should invest in a wooden clog to tie around their necks...

The Fox and the Monkey

I have always been a firm believer in leading by example. Although it does not always work to my benefit, this is still the leadership style I like best. This story just goes to show that even though it may not happen right away, true leaders will be rewarded for their actions/false leaders will suffer consequences.

The Cat and the Old Rat

I have always been a fan of the phrase, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." Even though I believe in and am fond of that lesson, it has not always been simple for me to follow that advice when making decisions in life. Hopefully I won't have to lose a portion of a limb to finally become as wise as Old Rat!

The Swallow and the Crow

As terrible as it is, I am rather certain that everyone has had a "fair weather friend" at some point in their life. I know I personally have had a few. When I was younger, I did not realize that quality really is better than quantity. So it took me a while to weed out the shallow friends, but now I am thankfully past those days!

The Fighting Cocks and the Eagle

This story goes along with the common theme among Aesop's fables: pride, vanity, and boasting will often lead to one's demise. Additionally, it also touches on the subject of humility. I consider  myself to be a humble person, and this story demonstrates how humility, rather than pride, will take you further in life.