Literature is something we’ve all heard of. We, as humans, know of the literacy genres. One of them is trickster tales. They have existed for a while, and are usually short stories who serve great life lessons. This genre is very interesting, since many countries have their own definition of what a trickster tale is, and it’s also great to see the different, yet similar ways this genre is represented. Two great examples of trickster tales are The Toad and the Donkey, an African trickster tale, and Doc Rabbit Bruh Fox and Tar Baby, an American trickster tale. The Toad and the Donkey by Toni Cade Bambara talks about a toad and a donkey having a running race. It is obvious that donkey would win, since he is so fast, but this was not the case. Toad used the help of his family to pretend he was much faster than the donkey. Doc Rabbit Bruh Fox and Tar Baby by Virginia Hamilton talks about a rabbit and a fox who are building a house together. Fox has been preserving a sweet cream for ages, but rabbit secretly drinks out of it. Fox finds out, and he gets rabbit back by attacking him with a Tar baby.
In trickster tales, there's always two roles; the trickster and the opponent. The trickster is usually the one who is at a disadvantage, and uses their brain to solve their problem. The opponent is typically the one who is at an advantage, but is not very smart, so loses in the end. In The Toad and the Donkey, the trickster is the toad, and the opponent is the donkey. Their conflict is the race. They both wanted to win, but for different reasons. Toad wanted to win because he thought that this would be a great opportunity to prove that toads aren’t stupid, and donkey, well, he just wanted to not lose his dignity. Now we can see why toad clearly won. In Doc Rabbit Bruh Fox and Tar Baby, believe it or not, the trickster is actually Bruh fox and not Doc rabbit. Their conflict was the fight over the sweet cream and the revenge. Although it may seem as if Doc rabbit is the trickster, he is not. He was the creature to start the conflict, and the one who ended it in a way we would call ‘trickster-like’ was Bruh fox. In this story, although Doc rabbit seems to be the trickster, it is actually Bruh fox.
These stories are very interesting, because they lead us to wonder; how do the tricksters outsmart the opponents? In The Toad and the donkey, the toad wins because of various reasons. One of them being because he has family support. While the donkey is working individually, the toad is using help from his family, which is actually very smart. This is because, in life, we will come to see that working as an individual is less efficient as working in a group. Also, toad has a strong will to win. Toad was very much at a disadvantage, but he wanted to win, and he tried his best, which lead him to victory. In Doc Rabbit Bruh Fox and Tar Baby, Bruh fox won because at the end, he outsmarted Doc rabbit. He used Doc rabbit’s disadvantage, which was that he had anger issues, against him, and that is why Doc rabbit was outsmarted. What may have seemed as an advantage to Doc rabbit became a disadvantage. That is why, although it seems as if Bruh fox lost, he actually won. And so even though it was clear that fox was much weaker than rabbit, he thought outside of the box, so he won the ‘battle’. Also, these tricks are how the tricksters outsmarted the opponents.
In the stories, we will begin to see some patterns that we will realize, are things we must learn in humanity and simple democracy. In The Toad and the Donkey, the themes are perseverance, family, and difference. Perseverance means to keep going even if one is already aware that another is at an advantage. This describes the toad’s perseverance to win the race. The toad valued his family, and that is partially why he won. Family is something we all should value in life, and good things will come. Then, there is difference. The toad is much more determined which really helped him in the process of winning unlike the donkey, who was arrogant and vain. This shows how different they are and how this will impact their results of the race. In Doc Rabbit Bruh Fox and Tar Baby, the themes are karma, skill, and change. Karma means getting a taste of one’s own medicine. This indicates that if one is sneaky and mean, like the rabbit, they will receive bad karma, and bad things will come to them. Skill basically means what fox did to win the fight. The skill in the book was thinking outside of the box and outsmarting the ‘already very smart’, which was, in this case, the rabbit. And change, which means the roles that changed, from the rabbit being the trickster, to him being an opponent.
These two books are trickster tales. They mainly talk about two characters in each story; the trickster and the opponent. Trickster tales were first made a while back and exist to carry out many motifs and are sometimes expressed through mythology. These books teach us to be perseverant, to think outside of the box, to value our family, to not be vain, and to watch out for karma. These things all add up to make us a great person like the trickster. I believe trickster tales exist for the sole purpose of explaining what to do and what not to do through characters and stories. Although it is true that trickster tales aren’t the most popular genre for readers, I still think it is beneficial for them to be read. These two stories, The Toad and The donkey and Doc Rabbit Bruh Fox and Tar Baby, are great examples of trickster tales I would recommend to everyone because they are educational and come from different countries, so it would be nice to be able to compare them.
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