"Aesop, The Fox, And The Grapes" Analysis

Name Course Professor Date Title: "Aesop, The Fox, and the Grapes" analysis The Author’s Background According to Anthony, Miller, & Muscarella, p. 34, Aesop is a legendary author of Greek fables. He was born around 600BC, and most stories developed in Greece were attributed to him. Aesop has created many fables which have immensely impacted essential lessons in the lives of many people around the world. Kennedy and Dana Gioia, p. 67, also argues that most of his fables use animals and things that have been personified and given human characters and features. It is, however, important to note that even though Aesop highly narrated these fables, there is no evidence that Aesop himself wrote them. The story in this paper chosen to analyze is “the fox and the grapes” which is one of the Aesop’s most famous fables in the literary world with moral lessons. Summary This short story is about a fox which tries to eat grapes from a vine. The fox is very thirsty, and he is determined to get some of these grapes. However, these grapes are beyond the reach of the fox, and the fox does not want to admit that he is defeated. After jumping desperately trying to reach them, the poor animal concludes with confidence that those grapes were undesirable and sour and thus, does not need them anymore and walks away. This story has a strong moral lesson, especially for people who want what they can never have in their lives (Aesop). Personification In the fable “The Fox and the grapes,” the author uses a fox as a protagonist. The anthropomorphic animal (the fox) tells the author’s story. The fox in this story can be referred to as anthropomorphic because physically, it is an animal, but has been given the qualities of human beings. For example, it can reason, talk, it has feelings, emotions and chooses. By providing this animal with human merits, the author wanted his audience to analyze themselves through the character of the fox in the story. At the beginning of the story, the audience learns about a bunch of ripe grapes that make the fox salivate and see them as the solution its thirst, but when it fails to get some, it dismisses these grapes as sour. This twist presented by Aesop is easy for readers to relate to because when frustrated, human beings have different ways of reacting. In most cases, when their goals, hopes, and dreams are frustrated, they console themselves by noting how unworthy it was, justifying the trouble one should go through to get what they want in life. Also, according to Festinger, p.54, the actions of the fox dismissing the grapes by terming them sour or unripe reveals the human tendency where they need to come to terms with their failure. Human beings typically do not want to admit that they are incompetent, thus start speaking negatively about something that they could not achieve when they tried Themes The dominant theme in this story is making excuses, a subject that the author brings out when the fox fails to reach the desired grapes and then decides that he does not want them after all. Like in the story, people make excuses to reduce anxiety, especially when there are conflicting cognitions. This paper can equate these observations to someone who simultaneously holds incompatible ideas, and when he ...