Aesop's Fables

Fighting is always easier than forgiving, for placing blame brings no tarnish to oneself. As humans (and seagulls) we cannot hope to move forward without leaving what holds us down behind us. In Richard Bach’s novel Jonathan Livingston Seagull, forgiveness is weaved throughout the tale of a seagull, daring to go beyond the norm, facing the consequences for the pursuit of happiness. Despite his banishment from the rest of the flock, Jonathan begins the discoverence of the secrets of flying by…

this liminal phase of life makes the wrong decision and chooses to go off into thevast world with Arnold Friend. While the ending and the moral of the short story are obscure, this tale has many archetypal characteristics that classify it as an Aesop Fable or Grimm Fairytale. The archetypal elements,…

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s The Three Feathers (1819) is a fairy tale about the underdog in society that gets lucky. The motif of this fairy tale is society; the underdog can get lucky. This fairy tale is about an underdog who is underestimated and undervalued, but in the end he ends up succeeding even though he did not deserve it. Just because an underdog gets lucky it doesn 't mean they deserve the outcome over others. In this fairy tale’s it is questionable to whether or not the main…

“Win the Fiery Antidote”: a Feminist Approach to Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market In a time when women did not have major roles in literature or their daily lives, Christina Rossetti’s powerful poem Goblin Market is published to empower women of the Victorian Era. This poem is about two sisters, Lizzie and Laura, who live alone in the middle of the woods. They go into the woods every day to get water from the river, where they encounter goblin men selling fruits. After Laura tries…

The short story, “The Dead Boy At Your Window” is about a stillborn baby boy who is given to his mother to hold; his mother refuses to believe her child was dead. The boy begins to kick his legs (even though he is actually dead) and his parents take him home and raise him as a living boy. Since the boy is dead, he does not eat, grow or have hair; he also has leathery skin, a raspy voice and his parents “stretch him” to make him as tall as children his age. When the boy turns six years old, his…

It is impossible to write anything new. Everything has already been done, already been said, but writers take inspiration where they can get it, read what other people have written, and this encourages them to write something of their own. They add to the ongoing conversation. Sometimes, experimentation with writing happens as writers feel the need to, maybe not say something completely new, but to say it in an innovative way. This is how new genres, such as American fabulism, are born, coming…

Growing up, I always read fairytales or mythical stories that I could relate to. I would always search for the truth, for the meaning--for significance in many of the myths or stories that I read regarding heros.When a hero’s adventure is read, human beings are always told a about a hero’s life that signifies a touch to modern day reality. A hero’s adventure is also a clue to the spiritual potentialities of a human beings life. Many concepts of an archetypal character or image are within a…

Stories are well suited for discussing moral values because stories help readers learn where our moral beliefs and foundations came and continue to come from. Each story has a lesson to be learned or something that can be taken away from it. Stories teach us lessons about life and everything in between. Stories that are told at a young age started developing our morals and views and as people get older they pass those stories on to their children and it becomes a trend. All stories have meaning.…

Children all have one thing in common: a desire to have fun. Play is an activity that is chosen purely for recreation and pleasure, rather than for a serious purpose and it is an essential part in the development of children. While some children benefit from strict and forced learning, John Locke’s essay of “Some Thoughts Concerning Education” encourages the idea that most children learn and behave best when they are educated through a playful state. Through the teaching methods offered in…

maid: “For Bessie now frequently employed me as a sort of under-nurserymaid, to tide the room, dust the chairs” (Brontë 653). With such similarities, it is clear that Brontë made Jane Eyre to be a different version of the traditional “Cinderella” fable possibly to show the…