"The Three Wishes" By Ricardo E. Alegria& "Juan Bobo: A Folkloric Information System" By Sarai Lastra

“The Three Wishes” by Ricardo E. Alegria was a very enjoyable read. It was really straightforward in telling the folktales of Juan Bobo, The Ant, and The Witch. Of the three folktales that were told, I favored “The Ant in Search of Her Leg” the most. I preferred this one the most because unlike the other three, it felt as if this one tried to give a message. That message would be that “God is the strongest of them all”. Juan Bobo and The Witch seemed to not have much of a message to give to readers. They were very direct and explicit in simply telling a story to for readers.

            Sarai Lastra’s “Juan Bobo: A Folkloric Information System”, was a very strenuous piece of writing. This article is definitely way more informative than it sounds, was also clearly a piece that deserved more than a glance. As a reader I really fancied the way Lastra introduces her topics and supports them with the use of Puerto Rican culture. In addition, I truly admired Lastra emphasis so much about the folklore collection, which her entire piece almost completely revolves around that one idea. For example, Lastra uses quotes from numerous influential Puerto Ricans and multiple tables to cite the claims that she was making. The tone that I received from Lastra’s writing is a tone of passion an eagerness to thoroughly explain her case. More importantly, the way Lastra had finished her essay had left me in a bit of awe. It is incredible that after all that informative text that Lastra is capable of concluding her piece in such a dignifying way. “Bearing in mind that in any language our stories define who we are”. This had really caught me as a reader of what exquisite writing truly is.

Martha Sims "Living Folklore"

Martha Sims’s “Living Folklore” gives us multiple perspectives on the term “folklore” and the different ways that it can be interpreted. “Living Folklore” was a very helpful piece of writing simply because Sims put explaining “Folklore” in a much unsophisticated method. Sims also gives us examples to distinguish folktales from non-folktales. Sims gives examples and directly gives back up to her claims. For example, she would give background information from famous folklorists, such as Richard Dorson, Alan Dundes, and Mary Hufford. This gave off the feeling of reliability and credibility for readers to truly believe what Martha Sims was talking about. It truly felt that the way she was writing allowed readers to understand what she was expressing with ease. However, it was very unusual that Sims’s writing was giving off a tone in which felt like she had something to prove. This feeling of the need for validation truly manifested Sims’s ideas upon the reader.

One of the more interesting texts in “Living Folklore” was when Sims’s had said:

“The discipline of folklore has evolved into a way of thinking about how people learn, share knowledge, and form their identity. Studying Folklore is a way of learning about people, of thinking about how we communicate and make meaning.”

This was one of the more interesting texts that I had picked up as a reader because it ultimately shows how folklore isn’t always real but tends to live in our everyday lives. In addition to giving readers a clear point of view of what folklore is, Sims also gives readers the origin behind folklore. Not only does she explain how folklore derives form tradition, Sims also gives readers multiple definitions of tradition and how it correlates to folklore. Though “Living Folklore” was a bit too extensive for me as a reader, it ultimately was very successful in being an informational piece of writing. 

Response Aesop's Fables and "Aesop, Aristotle, and Animals: The Role of Fables in Human Life"

Aesop’s fables were very wonderful to read, as a child growing up my parents would also relay numerous amounts of morals to me. It is safe to say that without these morals, the way I’d act and think would not be the same today. Without a doubt, Aesop’s fables truly teaches people lessons that they will never forget.

Edward Clayton’s “Aesop, Aristotle, and Animals: The Role of Fables in Human Life” was a very well-coordinated piece describing how fables correlate to the way humans act in society. Clayton argues that within fables, lies the similarities between humans and animals. Clayton provided readers with an excerpt of a fable, and then proceeded to remind us how the fables would directly relate to the reasoning behind human logic today. In addition, Clayton provided readers with an immaculate amount credibility. Clayton consistently provided descriptions of how fables affected ancient Greece and Athenian culture in order to back up his argument. The way he structured his writing allowed me to understand that Clayton truly knew what he was talking about.

For example, Clayton uses the fable of Hesiod’s “Work and Days”, where the moral is that “the weak suffer at the whim of the stronger”. This explains how dominance in the animal world correlates to the power hierarchy in the world of humans, which furthers the argument that Clayton is trying to make. As a reader, I always believed that the motive behind fables was to teach readers of morals. However, Clayton has brought to me a new perspective of how fables can also relate to “democracy, equality, and justice”.

I also very much agree with Clayton that human beings can live differently than animals because of our “unique capability of reason”. Clayton backs this up using Aristotle and how he states that “It allows them to redefine their environments and themselves, which animals cannot do, and in doing so they can create a city and citizens that are compatible with principles of equality and justice”. This had been nothing less of a revelation to me, to learn that fables can be so much more complex and sophisticated than just a story and a lesson. Clayton really did a well rounded observation on how fables play a contributing factor to the human world and changed how I will perceive the next fable I read.