Reading Notes: Aesop's Fables (A)

Title: Foxes
Author: Joseph Jacobs (1894)
Link: Foxes.

Plot:

• Fox plays a trick on Crane, serving a dinner that she can't eat. She then invites him over and pays him back in kind, serving dinner in a bottle that his snout doesn't fit in.
• Fox, thirsty on a hot day, spies some grapes. He leaps and tries fitfully to reach them, but ultimately cannot. Angered, he spitefully decides they must be sour anyways.
• Fox sees Lion across the way and is terribly frightened of him. The next day, he sees Lion again and manages to creep closer to him. The last day, Fox goes right up to Lion and has a conversation with him.
• Fox, beset by a swarm of mosquitoes, is asked by a companion if he wishes to shoo the mosquitoes away. Fox tells his friend to leave the mosquitoes where they are, because it's better to have them as opposed to new, hungrier mosquitoes who will suck more of his blood.
• Fox gets his tail caught in a trap and loses it. He then goes to his friends and tries to convince them of how great it is to not have a tail, but none of his friends buy his case.
• Fox falls down a well and becomes trapped. Goat walks past, and Fox tricks him into jumping into the well. Fox promptly uses Goat to escape and leaves him there.

Setting:

• The lack of a defined setting lends itself nicely to the universal nature of these parables. The point of these fables is not to cater to a certain demographic that identifies with a specific setting, but to impart wisdom to the general populace. Therefore, each fable is set in Anytown, USA and can be relatable to any reader. We don't get hung up in unnecessary details of where a story is so that we can focus on what it is saying.

Fox, sans tail, tries to convince his peers to do away their own tails. Source: Flickr.

Characters:

• Fox: A wily, crafty trickster. Fox isn't always the "good guy" -- he's petty and the sour grapes story shows that he's flawed and envious.
• Fox also doesn't win every time. Crane gets him back, he misses the grapes, he can't convince the others to get rid of their tails, etc.
• Fox is a bit of an anti-hero; he's sly, he's conniving, and he's in it for himself. I imagine that he's also rattling off snide one-liners the whole time.
• Crane: Another trickster, who dupes Fox in revenge.
• Lion: Frightening, as Aesop's lions normally are. He instills fear at first, but isn't so bad when you get to know him.
• Goat: Gullible, trusting, ill-fated. He subscribes to Fox's malicious advice, only to be duped.

Fox, Crane, and their series of ill-willed dinner parties. Source: Wikipedia Commons.

Writing Style:

• About half of these are written in verse that is reminiscent of limericks. I know that I already did it after the Robin Hood unit, but I really love rhyming tales. Something about when a line or stanza clicks neatly into place in the right rhythm and rhyme scheme, while still conveying the intended message is immensely satisfying.
• From an analytical standpoint, it's all third person omniscient here. Third person omniscient and rhyming verse -- two great tastes that taste great together.