Reading Diary B: Aesop's Fables (Jacobs)

Here are my favorite stories from the second half of Aesop's Fables (Jacobs).

Birds, Part 2: The Cock and the Pearl is a fable I had never read before but was a happy edition to my previous knowledge. I tend to agree with those that think that the rooster is being practical by rejecting the pearl in favor of food. Honestly, what can a rooster do with a pearl? He probably can't trade it to another animal because other animals have no need or use for it either. Maybe in the make-believe world of Aesop he could trade it to a human for food (since in that world basically anything can talk), but I like to think of the moral (precious things are for those that can prize them) in terms of the real world. To a rooster, a heap of corn is a precious thing; to a person, corn would not be nearly so valuable as a pearl. Why should the rooster keep the pearl (something precious to others) when it is not of value to himself?

Crane's illustration of The Cock and the Pearl

Another story that I liked from this same section of reading was The Bat, the Birds, and the Beasts. The bat tries to be on both sides of the war between birds and beasts, but ends up being disliked by both sides, the moral being he that is neither one thing nor the other has no friends. This story reminded me of Wormtail (a.k.a. Peter Pettigrew) from the Harry Potter series. He really didn't belong to either side of the first Wizarding War; he was only trying to be on the more powerful side. He flip-flopped allegiances and then went into hiding when Voldemort was supposedly dead. When Wormtail met his old Hogwarts friends, he was despised and nearly killed. When he went running back to Voldemort, he was treated poorly because the Dark Lord knew he was not a true follower. Being neither really on one side nor the other, Peter was left with no friends. (I also wonder if he disliked that, for the most part, he was only called Wormtail and not Peter)

Insects, Snakes, Crabs: I'm particularly fond of The Ant and the Grasshopper because I could connect it with things in my own life. I am definitely the ant and my boyfriend would certainly be the grasshopper. I'm a big planner and go-getter. I want to know what needs to be done and when, and I get it done. My boyfriend likes to "fly by the seat of his pants;" he does everything at the last minute, hardly ever planning, and sometimes things just don't get done. While I might say, "It will get done whenever it gets done," he might say, "It'll get done or it won't get done." I also wonder if this story had any influence on the Disney movie A Bug's Life in which the ants are hard workers and the lazy grasshoppers use their size to intimidate the ants into gathering food for them. The more I think about it the more I think this might be true, but I will have to do some research to find out for sure.

Family and Friends: After reading this story and asking myself a crucial question, I decided that the story I will rewrite this week is The Bundle of Sticks. When I came to the end of the story, I couldn't help thinking, "Well, that's a nice message, but what would he say to his daughters, if he had any?" I don't know and it's not explicitly stated whether or not the dying man in the story has any daughters, but when I imagined he did have daughters that he didn't give this important message to, I was a little upset. I imagined him thinking that this was a lesson about strength, so it didn't pertain to his daughters who didn't need to be strong. In the recent trailer for the new, live action Cinderella movie, Cinderella's mother, while on her deathbed, tells her daughter to always be kind. While kindness is a great trait, it should not only be taught to girls but to boys as well; the same can be said of strength being taught to boys as well as girls. So in my story, the dying father will give equal advice to all his children (or something like that, the final story may be different than my rough idea here).

People Wise and Foolish, Part 2: The last story I really enjoyed was The Miser and His Gold because its moral echoes a feeling I have always had about greedy people: wealth unused might as well not exist. What's the point of having all that money if you're not going to use it for anything? Many portrayals of Ebenezer Scrooge from Charles Dickens' novel A Christmas Carol often depict the miser in plain close and living in a rundown mansion. He has piles and piles of gold but he's so greedy that he won't spend even a small bit of it to keep up his house and himself. I get that once greedy people have money, they usually aren't too keen to get rid of it quickly, but the whole point of having money is to use it to buy things you need or want. If you don't use it, you might as well not have it at all for all the good it does you. Sure, you can say that you're rich, but you don't have any of the benefits of having that money if you don't spend it. I may seem displeased, but I'm actually glad that somebody understands my annoyance with the flawed logic of misers.