The Negative Elements Of A Trickster Tales

Tricksters have notoriously been known to ruin, not only their lives, but the lives of others. Although, they sometimes use their tricks to the aid of others by changing the ideas and ways of life of the people they trick. The trickster archetype can be traced back to nearly every mythological character. The trickster archetype is shown through Hermes, Loki, and the Joker in the way that their actions shape the ideas and ways of life in their cultures.

Tales from the past still teach lessons and morals that everyone can implement in society today. The Grimm’s others Tales were first told aurally but only did they get documented when the brothers decided to write them down. and perseverance. These stories are still read today because, they help us transform ourselves and our conditions to live in a better world. These tales all have morals and warnings about the importance of family, seven deadly sins, and perseverance.

Christopher Paolini once said “The trickster, the riddler, the keeper of balance, he of the many faces who finds life in death and who fears no evil; he who walks through doors.”

Human traits like defiance of authority, foolishness, and greed are what make up rabbits as tricksters also see a glimpse of goodness and kindness them. In the Brer Rabbit tale “The Famine”, Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox tried selling their families for food, but Brer Rabbit uses his cleverness to free his family by convincing Brer Fox that his wife already ate them. (Baker 151).

Triumphant reward in spite of unjust punishment is a universal sentiment that transcends languages and cultures. There are thousands of folktales and fairy tales that are firmly rooted in individual cultures, yet the tale of Cinderella has been told through many centuries and throughout the far corners of the world. With thousands of versions of this classic tale in print worldwide, the tale is believed to have originated with the story of Rhodopis, a Greek slave girl who is married to an Egyptian King. The story of Rhodopis, which means rosy-cheeks, dates back to 7 BC and is attributed to a Greek geographer named Strabo. The Chinese variation of this fairy tale is named Yeh-hsien. The Chinese version is traceable to the year 860 and appears in Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang by Duan Chengshi. Yeh-hsien is a young girl, motherless and in the control of her stepmother, who befriends a treasured fish. The jealous step-mother kills the fish, but it’s bones provide Yeh-hsien with magical powers, eventually enabling Yeh-hsien to escape the control of her step-mother for a royal life. The Story of the Black Cow which is found within the pages of Folk Tales from the Himalayas by John Murray, published in 1906, the child who is mistreated by a stepmother is a male and the role of savior is portrayed by a snake, with a cow serving as the moral of the story, faithfulness. These two versions of Cinderella carry many common threads that are

Lewis Hyde’s book Trickster Makes This World contains an excerpt called “Slipping the Trap of Appetite” in which the first line reads, “The trickster myth derives creative intelligence from appetite.” During the time of William Bradford, separating from the Church of England by law is considered an act of treason. Bradford will become part of a group, known as the “Separatists,” who did not wish to follow the national church. This group will encounter many difficulties in their escape of religious persecution and search of freedom. William Bradford reveals the Pilgrims’ appetite for religious freedom and displays their creative intelligence in escaping persecution in his book, In of Plymouth Plantation.

It is hypothesized that the two excerpts convey messages about the representation of goodness and evil attributes. An expository approach is essential to the study of this key idea, for the reason that no single punitive perspective can sufficiently address this issue. The research will be used to convey and interpret ideas from both passages. I will research the stories portrayal of wicked factors, while clarifying and expressing the importance within both accounts. By means of thorough investigation, the reader will apprehend the significance of why the authors included these themes within their stories.

The tradition of telling fairy tales to children effects not only the listener but also the reader. Maria Tatar, in her book Off with Their Heads!, analyzes how fairy tales instill and reaffirm cultural values and expectations in their audience . Tatar proposes that fairy tales fall into three different tale-types: cautionary tales, exemplary stories, and reward- and- punishment tales. These three types portray different character traits as desirable and undesirable. Due to the tale’s varying literary methods it can change the effectiveness of the tale’s pedagogical value. In Tatar’s opinion, all of these tales are similar in the way they attempt to use punishment, reward, and fear to encourage or discourage certain behaviors. In the cautionary fairy tale “The Virgin Mary’s Child”, the use of punishment and fear to discourage certain behaviors is enhanced by the Christian motifs and values employed by the tale. These literary devices encourage the audience to reflect on and internalize the lessons that are presented in the fairy tale.

Without doubt, Edgar Allan Poe’s story is one of the author’s masterpiece. The story is an exhibit of artistic genius with various literary features well incorporated. Among them, irony, defined as, “A figure of speech which is a contradiction or incongruity between what is expected and what actually occurs”, is the most evident. Allan Poe demonstrates the use of various types of irony throughout the play, which he uses to pass the intended message to the audience.

Trickster tales are short stories told by griots all around the world. They are most notably known for surviving for centuries and are traditionally passed down through generations. These tales have been a major part of oral storytelling in plenty of cultures and are still around today. Trickster tales all have a considerable amount of similar attributes. They include a protagonist who most often is an animal of some kind and has human characteristics, and this action is called anthropomorphism. In addition, all trickster tales used their smarts to outwit the antagonist, also known as “brain over brawn”. This occurs when the protagonist is physically much smaller than the antagonist, however, the trickster is mentally more intelligent. Furthermore, the trickster is constantly gaining knowledge and spreading ideas with others. The act of the trickster doing so is referred to as the helpfulness of the trickster. All trickster tales can be identified with the help of these three components, anthropomorphism, the use of “brain over brawn”, and the helpfulness of the trickster.

However, Stevenson uses the graphic novel form to subvert these stereotypes of hero, villain, and monster through Nimona’s cute character design and visual comedy. As Mihaela Precup notes, Nimona’s round figure, boisterousness, and “deceptive smallness” make her an endearing character, and the reader identifies with and supports her despite her supposed monstrousness (Precup, 7). By depicting Nimona as a funny, cute character, Stevenson not only subverts the hero/villain binary in the novel but also the process of labeling others based on appearances, an

“If you don't say the fields you are mowing belong to my master you will be chopped into little pieces.” Master Cat said this in the story puss in boots when he wanted to trick the king into thinking his master had wealth and land. Master Cat and How the stories came to earth are two different stories that have very different similarities and differences.

This student believes it is important to our culture that tricksters transgress the fundamental rules of human society because they make the stories, myths, legends, etc. really humorous. If stories or myths did not have tricksters in them, the myths and stories would be bored and bland. From the assigned passages that we had to read there were several tricksters. Tricksters tend to give of a type of vibe of being lazy, greedy, impulsive, dishonest, and selfish. In the course textbook, Myth and Knowing: An Introduction to World Mythology, tricksters is more than representations of the illogic of a universe in which we simultaneously experience good and evil (pg. 250).

Every story has a protagonist and antagonist, often thinking of them as two different people with either similar or coinciding personalities and traits, the battle between good and evil. However, the protagonist and antagonist could also be the same person. Everyone always has different emotions we all have our own, “dark-side,” or for some, their own alter-ego. This idea of a “dark-side,” is a trait which strongly resonates in Edgar Allan Poe’s protagonist William Wilson in his short story “William Wilson.” William creates a visual alter-ego of himself. William Wilson’s alter-ego, is a trick on his mind, with a lack of parental support, which is created by the need for control, and finally the insecurity within his own-self.

Fantasy literature typically follows the same formulaic flow of story through wrongness, thinning, recognition, and healing or return. Despite this typical progression of story, the way novels approach these themes and thread them together differs between each author. Wrongness, the recognition that the world is or is about to change, is the start of the chain reaction that pushes the story further. Three novels that provide variations on this theme are, The Year of Our War by Steph Swainston, Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed, and The Scar by China Mieville. The element of wrongness is undertaken in different ways in each of these novels, and the way in which the characters in the novel interpret and react to this element differ as well. The differences and similarities between the authors introduction of wrongness allows the genre of fantasy to not be constrained. As its traditional elements are advanced from various angles providing new and varied stories.