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Tricksters and Treats? || Reading Notes: Week 2 Anthology

Story Information

Author: Joseph Jacobs

 For this section of reading notes, I chose The Tiger, The Brahman, and the Jackal from the Indian Fairy Tales collection by Joseph Jacobs. I've always enjoyed a clever trickster character in literature and the Jackal in this story was fun to read about.

Notes for this reading:
  • While the main characters for this story were a tiger, a brahman, and a jackal, these three fill archetypal roles and do not necessarily need to be these precise figures. Any combination of predator, prey, and trickster would work. All three characters could be human just as easily.
  • No mention is made of the person who set the trap for the tiger, but they could be an interesting or relevant character as well.
  • The others that the brahman asks for advice before the jackal all seem to project their own hardships in life onto the brahman, encouraging him to suck it up and accept his fate just because their own lives are miserable. This could a fun concept to change around or play with in different retellings. 
  • The story is also (somewhat) about the nature of a predator. The tiger and the others that the brahman asks for advise tell him that he is a fool to believe that a predator would be anything other than its nature. 
  • The jackal's use of feigned ignorance to trick the tiger was fun and witty in this story. However, it may be harder to believe that the tiger did not just eat the brahman or the jackal out of sheer frustration or boredom. Maybe playing with the method in which the jackal tricks the tiger in a retelling would be fun. 
Three Different Humans
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