Jealousy and deception are powerful actions that can hurt and tear apart relationships, especially among friends. Jealousy is defined as “an unhappy or angry feeling of wanting to have what someone else has” (Merriam-Webster). Deception is defined as “the acts of making someone believe something that is not true “(Merriam-Webster). The power of jealousy and deception can lead to death figuratively and literally, as it did in the Nigerian folktale Why the Bat flies by Night. The themes of deception and jealously are strongly portrayed by Emiong the bat.
In friendship we all share commonalities such as hobbies, movies, books etc. You never really expect your friend to be jealous of you. In this folktale the bush rat Oyot and the bat Emiong are good friends. Emiong makes a really good soup and Oyot wants to know the secret of how he gets the soup to be so good (561). Quite naturally as friends you share recipes and different cooking tips.
You don’t deliberately give your friend the wrong ingredients or the incorrect way to prepare a dish. However, Emiong knowingly gives Oyot the wrong way to prepare the soup. Emiong tell Oyot “he jumps in the boiling water and since his flesh is so sweet it makes the soup taste good” (561). …show more content…
As a friend Emoing had a duty to tell Oyot the truth about the correct temperature of the water. Instead, Emiong allowed his jealousy for Oyot to get the best of him and he chose to lie. Since Emiong had shown Oyot how to prepare the soup, Oyot wanted to make the soup for himself. “He boiled a pot of water and jumped in and died” (561). Emiong already knew what he had done was wrong “as he expected trouble he flew away into the bush and hid himself.”
In friendship we all share commonalities such as hobbies, movies, books etc. You never really expect your friend to be jealous of you. In this folktale the bush rat Oyot and the bat Emiong are good friends. Emiong makes a really good soup and Oyot wants to know the secret of how he gets the soup to be so good (561). Quite naturally as friends you share recipes and different cooking tips.
You don’t deliberately give your friend the wrong ingredients or the incorrect way to prepare a dish. However, Emiong knowingly gives Oyot the wrong way to prepare the soup. Emiong tell Oyot “he jumps in the boiling water and since his flesh is so sweet it makes the soup taste good” (561). …show more content…
As a friend Emoing had a duty to tell Oyot the truth about the correct temperature of the water. Instead, Emiong allowed his jealousy for Oyot to get the best of him and he chose to lie. Since Emiong had shown Oyot how to prepare the soup, Oyot wanted to make the soup for himself. “He boiled a pot of water and jumped in and died” (561). Emiong already knew what he had done was wrong “as he expected trouble he flew away into the bush and hid himself.”