Reading Notes: Week 7 Extra Credit Reading

Title: The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story
Author: Joel Chandler Harris
Link: Story link.

Plot:

• Fresh off his failure to have Brer Rabbit for dinner, Brer Fox decides to make a decoy child out of tar and turpentine. He sets it on the road and hides in the bushes to watch whatever happens next.
• Rabbit comes bounding up the road and encounters Tar-Baby, whom he greets to no response.
• Rabbit continues to try to make conversation with the silent Tar-Baby and becomes increasingly frustrated with the lack of dialogue.
• At the end of his patience, Rabbit socks Tar-Baby and his paw get stuck in the tar.
• He threatens Tar-Baby and hits her again to free himself -- this goes as poorly as one would expect.
• A glutton for punishment, Rabbit then headbutts Tar-Baby and firmly adheres himself to the decoy.
• Fox reveals himself, has a good laugh and leaves Rabbit on the road.
• Very benevolent of Fox not to just eat him right there.

Brer Fox inspects his handiwork on the infamous Tar-Baby. Illustration by A. B. Frost.

Setting:

• No setting is specified, but it feels very deep south and in the back country. The sun is scorching, life moves slowly, and the roads are paved with dirt here. Wherever just came to mind for you works just fine as the story's location.

Characters:

• Brer Rabbit: Crafty, conniving, lucky. The quintessential trickster, Rabbit flies by the seat of his pants but always manages to stay one step ahead of his rivals.
• Brer Fox: Another trickster, set on eating Brer Rabbit. He's clever himself, but he's always a step behind Rabbit.

Writing Style:

• After a week of fairly uninspiring writing styles in the Sun Wu Kung myths, Brer Rabbit is chock-full of elements that make it unique and memorable. Some of the stories are done in a poetry format, and the tales are written in a very thick dialect that adds considerable flavor and character to the writing. The narrative style itself almost becomes another character.
• While it's enjoyable to read the dialectic writings of others, I don't think that I'll be giving it a shot myself. You have to be very careful with such dialects to make sure that they don't come across as malicious or mocking and that's a line that I don't want to have to worry about crossing. I'm not touching this one in my own portfolio.