What Are The Elements Of A Trickster

Character foils are important to any story or play as they compare and contrast character traits as the story unfolds. The use of character foils allows the audience to understand a characters way of thought and the actions that they take. Character foils show the moral behaviour and can help the audience see contradictory factors that help advance the plot. Although characters may seem similar, the use of character foils can show their differences. In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the use of character foils proves Fortinbras is a stronger political leader over Hamlet, the contrasting view of Laertes as a son in comparison to Hamlet and Horatio being thought of as the better man in contradiction to Hamlet.

In “The Devil and Tom Walker,” the devil carries pious Tom away on his great black horse, and in “Young Goodman Brown,” all the village’s citizens, including Goody Cloyse, Goodman Brown, and his wife willingly gather at a worship service for the devil, which ruins the remainder of Brown’s life so that “when he had lived long, and was borne to his grave...they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom.” The corruptness of man’s sinful nature made it possible for the devil to capture the souls of Tom Walker and Goodman Brown.

During the early 1700s, a traveler met a man in the Massachusetts forest. However, this was no mortal man, but the devil. “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Devil and Tom Walker,” two short stories, both start out in this way. Washington Irving wrote the latter in 1824, which tells how Tom Walker profited through working for the devil. In 1835, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote “Young Goodman Brown,” which describes Goodman Brown’s woodland encounter with the Devil. The two stories share specific ideas regarding the devil, overpowering minor deviations between each other.

However, as with original ideas that are based on previous ideas, Nanapush demonstrates many un-trickster-like characteristics, most notably the ones that make him seem more human, specifically his fear and his love. For the first, fear, while the trickster character occasionally feels afraid of his situation, he does not actually fear other beings. In fact, one of the markers of the trickster is his sometimes foolish fearlessness. The trickster character does not fear repercussions of his actions—as evidenced by his constant return to them; he does not fear the power of others—as evidenced by his willingness to tackle problems much larger than his ability; and he does not fear what others would call sacred—as evidenced by Coyote’s desecration of the dead buffalo. Nanapush, on the other hand, fears Fleur and her power. His fear is more than pure terror, though; it is the fear that is mixed with respect, a respect that the trickster character gives to no one. For the second characteristic, love, the trickster character loves no one but himself. Although Coyote has a wife and children, he manipulates and uses them, but he

“Fool I will now take you to the Sky God,” said by the spider Anansi from “How the Stories Came to Earth,” after he captured all of the animals. Trickster Tales are stories about a trickster who tricks people, animals, or gods into getting what they want. After reading “Master Cat,” and “How Stories Came to Earth,” it was obvious that there were similarities and differences. There are countless similarities in the trickster tales of “How Stories Came to Earth,” and “Master Cat.” The first similarity is in both stories they had a plan.

Kind and selfish, deep and shallow, male and female, and foolish and wise aren’t always words that are associated with each other, quite the opposite in fact. However, when it comes to the trickster tales of Native Americans, each word is associated with the other and describes more or less the same person or animal. To Native American people a trickster affects the world for an infinite number of reasons, including instruction and enjoyment. A trickster, like the name implies, is a cunning deception. A trickster can be a hero. However, at the same time he could introduce death. How is that heroic? Why would a group of people want to remember a person that brings punishments such as death? The function the trickster tales have/ had on

Soon, he became very cold and went to take his blanket back. When he returned to where he left his deer, it had mysteriously disappeared. Iktomi became greedy and wanted both food and warmth. Instead of being satisfied in receiving what he asked for, he convinced himself it was just a coincidence. Another one, of many shared characteristics by Anansi and Iktomi, is they both obtain supernatural powers. Anansi wanted to learn all the stories of the world, but for them to be handed to him, he had to complete three difficult tasks. Unlike anyone else, Anansi was able to complete all three without money or power. Once completed, Anansi was awarded all the stories of the world. As mentioned earlier, Iktomi told the ducks they would be cursed if they opened their eyes when learning to dance. As promised, Iktomi forever cursed the duck who opened its eyes to warn the other ducks they were being slaughtered. Instead of remaining a beautiful duck, Iktomi had the power to change it into an ugly mud duck for the rest of its life. Now that the duck is ugly, it is shunned by the rest of the ducks, just as Iktomi wanted. Both folktales of the tricksters are few of many common stories. These folktales passed down orally are very relative to each other, though they may be from different places. Being clever, greedy and having supernatural powers are only a few of the many similarities between these two

The writers seemed to view the creatures of the night as a sign of evil rather than a helpful source. For instance, this fear of the supernatural is displayed frequently in writings by Nathaniel Hawthorne. In his story, “Young Goodman Brown”, Hawthorne circles the plot around the devil and his attempts to turn Goodman Brown to a life of sin which is represented in the form of a staff. In an excerpt, he says, “‘Come, Goodman Brown!" cried his fellow-traveller, "this is a dull pace for the beginning of a journey. Take my staff, if you are so soon weary.’” The devil, arguably being a supernatural figure, attempts to trick the goodman into taking his staff and leading him toward sin. This, being a negative look on the supernatural, deeming them as unhelpful and dangerous which opposes the views by the

Imagine a spider smart enough to catch a python, leopard, hornets, and a fairy. This is what occurs in the trickster tail “How Stories Came To Earth”. In “How Stories Came To Earth” and “Master cat” both tricksters are clever and achieved a goal. In both these stories there are many similarities and differences.

A trickster story “The great Spirit Names the Animal People” written in 1933 since the time of the bible. These trickster tales involve animals to show the powerful moral showing the value of life. The author unsuccessfully expresses the story of being grateful of what life brings you.

Trickster tales enact in a tremendous amount of the history in most cultures, Africa being the most relevant. Therefore, the trickster tales passed down in varied cultures throughout generations have much value. Some of the supplementary famous tales being How Stories came to Earth, Coyote Steals Fire, and Master Cat. Throughout this time analyzing these stories, it has helped define a better judgement of what a trickster in a trickster tale actually represents. Nevertheless, in the three tales all of the protagonists are non-human, but present themselves as being capable of human abilities and characteristics. By way of example a trait represented in copious amounts of trickster tales is that of Gods, Spirits, and the

On the way to “Twister Two” one of my friends suddenly had a candy bar in his possession. When he was asked how he got it, he simply replied, “I stole it.” It was so amazing to me that he could do that, and act as if it was no big deal. To me stealing would be a thing that needed to be planned and executed, but to him it was just another place that he ripped off. He explained that it is easy to do, “you just grab what you want, wait ‘til no one’s looking, and then walk out.” This is when I first began pondering the idea of stealing. I had never stole before because I knew it was against my morals, but there was that rebel in me that wanted to try it. He, on the other hand, had probably stolen so many times that he could do it with his eyes closed, and he had never been caught. Lucky him.

The True Deceiver, a novel, is written by Tove Jansson, a Swedish-Finnish author, and is the subject of the lies we tell ourselves and the lies we tell others. When reading the novel The True Deceiver we see inside and outside spaces and the different types of imagery. The imagery shown in the novel shows many different conflicts that the characters went through and portrays the message of the story. The novels setting starts off in a snowy town or village with the village being mostly dark. The main character of the story is Katri Kling who is considered to be an displaced person stuck in a different place than she is used to. She lives with her younger brother who is shy due to the loss of their mother. The other main character is Anna Aemelin who is considered to be the total opposite of Katri. Katri is a 25-year old woman who looks after her 15-year old brother, Mats. Their mother died nine months earlier and that has seriously affected Mats. He is a “little slow” to catch on, but a very gentle lad who is described as a “simple” boy by the villagers. He does manual labor extremely well and with great care and attention and has few conflicts with the other villagers. He particularly enjoys helping out in the Liljeberg boat yard. Mats, since working there, has come up with his own remarkable talents and has drawn up an excellent design for new boats.

For a story to be a great trickster story, the story must contain certain qualities along with the characters having certain characteristics. Among these traits, three are very important in the story. The use of anthropomorphism, the gods, spirits and supernaturals, and the negative qualities of the trickster. All of these are equally important, but in there own way.

To summarize, all trickster tales are supposed to conclude with some morals and laughter, in this case all three tales meet these criteria. A copious amount of the storyline is alike, however throughout the text there are some differences. All three trickster tales have anthropomorphism and an optmistic end result, “How Stories Came to Earth” and “Coyote Steals Fire” have a beneficial change, while “Master Cat: Puss and Boots” has a selfish change. To close, all the trickster tales are alike, but also very different in their point of view throughout the stories.