Week 6, Reading Diary A,Week 6, Storytelling, Myth-Folklore Unit: Brer Rabbit,Reading Diary

Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit  leahstps.wordpress.com

Myth-Folklore Unit: Brer Rabbit

I have several reasons why I chose this unit this week. First of which is because I loved the Disney movie Song of the South when I was very young. Of course due to it's unflattering content, it has not been popular available in a long time.  So I thought as an educated  adult I would like to re-examine the story and view it not from the eyes of an innocent child that loved everything Disney animated. Also because I am not familiar with much of the Asian and African stuff. So I tried to do the Anansi stuff, which I recognized as something from my childhood also, but it was when it was a children's theatre who acted a lot of this stuff out with animals and props. I tried to read it and found that I might still need thee props to understand it. The words were too hard for me to really grasp. I found this unit easier to understand. I still had to read it out loud to get the effects, and it makes me chuckle...

The Calamus Root

This link will take you to the story I just sampled and pasted here...

Bimeby, one day, atter Brer Fox bin doin' all dat he could fer ter ketch Brer Rabbit, en Brer Rabbit bein' doin' all he could fer ter keep 'im fum it, Brer Fox say to hisse'f dat he'd put up a game on Brer Rabbit, en he ain't mo'n got de wuds out'n his mouf twel Brer Rabbit came a lopin' up de big road, lookin' des ez plump, en ez fat, en ez sassy ez a Moggin hoss in a barley-patch.

Wow, I am so amazed at the ability to write words as they would sound in broken English with a distinctly  thick Southern Plantation era accent. It is not often as a student that we get the opportunity to use such creative license to butcher up our language and things work out okay. That being said, I would like to try this,  and I will smile and watch my spell check do backflips. I always found it cool to read an author who had a style that they used that would set them apart in their writings, but my teachers always said I needed to know the rules before I could break them, become famous and then I could do it my way. This is cool though, because it captures a historical time in our country. The words used here bring such a visual, of course helped along if you have ever been to the south, or watched the Disney version, or read the books etc. 
All prior knowledge aside, the anthropomorphic characters remind me of the old cat and mouse routine aka Tom and Jerry. Another of my childhood favorites. The inner child in me still does, but the adult me is humored by the adult male friendship that is actually happening. These cartoons and stories share with us the  inner workings, psychologically speaking, of two grown men. 
This reminds me of my own personal experience when I was in my twenties. I worked at the Center for the New Age in Sedona at the time. Best job ever, for many reasons. One of which was the people I worked with. All women, they were so kind and brought donuts and were uplifting etc. One day I was leaving work and had stopped by to pick up my ex-husband from his place of work. He worked at a yummy  joint called Moondog's Pizza where the staff was all male. I sat like a fly on the wall waiting for Mick to be done and ride home with me. Watching the most appalling display of men smacking each other, calling each other names, just brutal. They were best friends. If my ladies acted like that to me, things would quickly end badly. If his guys had acted like my lady friends it would also take a strange turn. 
This story strikes me as such powerful imagery and subtle psychology of the times. The struggle for the alpha-male position in a group of animals. They are all part of the local community that enjoys the banter that men enjoy. If something actually did happen to one of the characters it would be sad, they would miss them, the sheer sport of the bantering. The counter psychology of telling Brer Fox not to throw him in the sticker bush, roast him or other horrible things instead is another example of using reverse psychology.

Brer Rabbit: Mr. Wolf Makes a Failure

Bimeby, one day wiles he wuz gwine 'long de road, old Brer Wolf come up wid 'im. W'en dey done howdyin' en axin' atter one nudder's fambly connexshun, Brer Wolf, he 'low, he did, dat der wuz sump'n wrong wid Brer Fox, en Brer Fox, he 'low'd der wern't, en he went on en laugh en make great terdo kaze Brer Wolf look like he spishun sump'n.
The animals who would otherwise be natural predators like a rabbit, bear, fox, buzzard,turtle and a wolf are exchanging pleasantries and inquiring on each others families. Quaint. I think this is a clever use of the pack to have a pecking order, yet familial ties. The little country community comes complete. Except the part where the rabbit cooks the wolf.