Week 11 Storytelling: The Lesson Learned

James came running into the house screaming and crying. I had just gotten done with the dishes and went to go see what was wrong with. When I found him, it looked like he had some dirt on his knees and shirt. It must have been one of those bullies.

He wrapped his hands around my waist and said, “Mommy! Charley hit me and kept pushing me down! In front of everyone too. It is not fair; he is bigger than me!”

“Did you  tell Mrs. Carter?” I replied.

“Yes. She sent him to the office, but he still will push me around on the playground. He will not ever just leave me alone,” James said.

“Listen, James, let me tell you a quick story that you will be able to apply in your situation.”

“In the old days, there was more jungle than there is today. No cities, or towns. Wild elephants were numerous. Once upon a time a red ant and a black ant were burrowing in the ground. Suddenly, a wild elephant appeared and said, “Why are you burrowing here? I will smash all of your work to pieces.”

“Why do you talk to us like this?” the ants replied. “Do not despise us because we are small; as a matter of fact we are better than you in some ways.”

The elephant laughed and told the ants not to talk nonsense. "There is nothing that  ants can beat me in," the elephant said. "I am the largest and most powerful animal." The ants weren't bothered by his speech, and they challenged him to a race. Whoever wins will declare to being the supreme creature.

Once the elephant heard this challenge, he became enraged. He shouted, “Well, come we will start at once,” and he set off to run with all its strength. When it got tired, it looked down at the ground, and saw two ants.

Off the elephant went again, and when it stopped and looked down, there on the ground were two ants again, so it ran some more. Whenever the elephant stopped, it saw the ants, and at last it ran so far that it dropped down from exhaustion, never to bother the ants again. The End.”

“Now, you see James, ants are more numerous in this world than any other kind of living creature, and what happened was that the two ants never even ran the race. They stayed where they were, but whenever the elephant looked at the ground, it saw some ants running about and thought that they were the first two, and so it ran away and fell from exhaustion.

The End."

This story teaches you, James, not to worry about the bigger and stronger bully. God knows why He made all of the different animals and people of all different shapes and sizes. Some boys are fools, and you just have to outsmart them. Be the ant and not the elephant!

Ant Colony - Wikimedia

Author's Note

This week I decided to base my story off of the "The Elephant and the Ants" in the Santal Folklore unit in the Un-textbook. The reason why I chose to write about this story is that I believe that this story has so much meaning behind it, and so many lessons came be learned from it whether or you are telling the story to a child or a coworker.

The elephant is seen as the bully in the story. He sees the ants, and threatens to destroy their home for no apparent reason. I wanted the elephant to be a parallel character for Charley. In the story that is being told to James, the ants are supposed to represent him.

I kept the story about the elephant almost exactly the same. The only major change that I had was that instead of the elephant running itself to death, I decided to make him fall over from exhaustion. The reason I chose to do this was because since this story was being told to a child, I didn’t want to use the explicit of the Elephant (bully) dying. This could create problems in the real world that James is in if he goes to school saying that James is going to die one day! I think that it was more realistic to exclude that part from the story. Most parents do not want their kid telling others that they are going to die. 

Bibliography:
This story is from the Santal Folklore unit.
Folklore of the Santal Parganas by Cecil Henry Bompas (1909).