The Elephant (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Sławomir Mrożek
- First Published: 1957
- Type of Plot: Fable, allegory, satire
- Time of Work: The 1950's
- Setting: A provincial town in communist Poland
- Principal Characters: The director, A party of schoolchildren
- Genres: Short fiction
- Subjects: 1950’s, Communism or communists, Twentieth century, Truthfulness and falsehood, Ambition, Elephants, Eastern Europe or eastern Europeans, Poland or Polish people, Students or student life, Bureaucracy or bureaucrats, Zoos, Fables
- Locales: Poland
The Story
This third-person narrative focuses on the ambitious and self-serving director of the Zoological Gardens in a provincial Polish town. The zoo is substandard in this communist society in which appearances mean everything and in which major inadequacies are overlooked because they would, if articulated, reflect badly on the bureaucracy governing the country.
The zoo's animals are distinctly inferior. The giraffe has a short neck, the badger has no burrow, and the whistlers seldom whistle. The director cares little about the educational function of the zoo, which...
[The entire page is 1460 words long]
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