SOURCE: Barbara Mirel, "Tradition and the Individual Retelling," in Children's Literature Association Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 2, Summer, 1984, pp. 63-66.

[In the following essay, Mirel analyzes the treatment given to the Aesopic fable of "The Fox and the Crow" by various authors representative of ways of interpreting Aesop labelled as the instructive approach, the empathetic approach, and contextualized-example approach.]

In the past fifteen years, the noted children's authors Eric Carle, Jack Kent, Eve Rice, and Paul Galdone, and the less familiar writers Heidi Holder, Jack McFarland, Harold Jones and Ruth Spriggs have all published retellings of the ancient Works of Aesop. In addition, Joseph Jacobs' and Randolph Caldecott's collections have been republished. The existence of all these collections reaffirms that those writing and publishing for children still value these traditional fables; but as well as transmitting part of our cultural and literary heritage, each of these collections also engages readers in its own world view. Since readers get more from these collections than just a basic knowledge of some fables' storylines, any assessment of them must begin with an examination of the nature of an author's individual stamp on the retelling.

There seem to be three approaches to retelling Aesop. The first has traditionally occurred in a religious approach to fables. Even when stripped of religious overtones and set in a secular context, these instructive fables emphasize the authority of the "truth" shown in the fable's lesson. This approach uses our recognition of moral truth to direct our pursuit of individual betterment. The potential effect of such an approach is for readers to feel chastened, or at least cautioned, against foresaking "the straight and narrow," because of the consequences which the fable shows accompany moral failings.

A second type of retelling is lighter in tone. Fables using this approach convey the humorous side of human foibles. Instead of placing the focus on achieving moral betterment, such fables emphasize the shared nature of our human condition. Ideally, this type of retelling might move readers away from egocentricism, as they begin to feel a part of the larger human community in which we understand and accept our failings.

The third approach seems more akin to the classical Aristotelean vision of fables as they function in the context of "rhetorical argument." Here fables become examples which can clarify deliberations about larger social and political issues. When fables are presented in this manner, readers might be prompted toward an awareness of their own abilities to judge and act.

One qualification to make about dividing the retellings of fables along these lines is that humor is often present not just in the empathetic approach but in the other two also. But in the instructive group of retellings, humor often underscores the message of "just desserts," while in those with the contextualized-example approach it usually takes the form of social or political satire.

Holder, Rice, Spriggs and, to some extent, Jacobs fall into the "instructive" category. Kent, Jones, Lobel, Galdone and McFarland humourously highlight the human condition. As part of the third group of "contextualized" fables, Carle not only follows Caldecott's lead through suggestive illustrations, but also through a text that is somewhat more morally ambiguous than other retellings of fables.

Perhaps the most useful way to see how authors turn their literary choices to different ends is to examine the different treatments given to the same fable. "The Fox and The Crow," included in almost all the books under consideration, is about a fox who uses flattery to trick a crow out of its cheese. The fox's goal is to get the crow to open its beak so that the cheese will drop down to where the fox stands.

In her rendition of this fable, Ruth Spriggs presents a very balanced interchange between the fox and the crow, told equally from both points of view. Beginning with a focus on the crow who has stolen the cheese, it then shifts to the fox who sees the crow, desires the cheese, and acts to get it. The focus continues to shift back and forth, first to the flattering words of the fox, then to the proud reactions of the crow. The shifting perspective stops once the crow opens her mouth to prove she can indeed sing. Then the cheese, itself, becomes the focal point, and we see it falling right into the fox's mouth. The victorious fox then parts with words of instruction. "You may have a voice, but no brains," he tells the crow.

Throughout the fable, the even-handed presentation of these characters make neither of them altogether guilty nor altogether innocent. Thus, we are left honestly wondering if the fox is really any less entitled to the cheese than the crow, who obtained it by illicit means. In fact, since our perspective has been so equally balanced all along, our judgement can be easily swayed by the last word at the end. This judgement is pronounced explicitly by the fox: the bird lacks brains. An active wit differentiates the fox from the crow. Both are prompted by desire to commit unscrupulous acts—thievery in the crow's case, false flattery in the fox's. Yet it is not the means which we are to judge, but the ultimate consequence, and here the crow comes up short. The reason for the crow's failure is that she has not put reason to work alongside desire. The fox, on the other hand, not only has done a masterful job of combining the two but, even more important, in doing so has somehow avoided any kind of sullied representation of his desire. Unlike other renditions such as Caldecott's or Jacobs' where the fox "pounces on" or "snaps up" the cheese, the fox in Spriggs' story displays no such ravenous or base instincts (with the cheese conveniently falling right into his mouth). In this type of simplified narrative where cause and effect are so evenly developed, no extraneous details leave readers wondering if perhaps there is more than one way to interpret events. The judgement clearly goes against the crow, and the lesson to be learned is obvious: "Vanity is expensive."

Jacobs' treatment of this tale does not paint such an even-handed picture of the fox and crow; it achieves the effect of moral certainty through a different tactic. The focus of the fable is predominantly on the fox, and his character colors our interpretations of the course of events. We readily blame the fox for being callously desirous, scheming, and manipulative; at the hands of such a protagonist the fate of the crow's cheese is a foregone conclusion. So much is the focus on the fox that we never learn how the crow has gotten the cheese, and she is entirely passive until she "lifted up her head and began to caw her best." The fox snaps up the cheese and smugly imparts a bit of his "worldly wisdom" to the crow: "Don't trust flatterers." It little matters to him, or to readers, that implicit in his advice is a condemnation of himself. The fox knows the secret of all good con-men: his "sting" can only succeed if his "mark" suffers from a moral weakness like the crow's vanity. The lesson of the tale comes across through reference to the fox's point of view; we learn about the need to rectify our character flaws by means of our attention being drawn to the flatterer, not to our vanity.

Eve Rice also builds toward an irrefutable moral lesson: but she does so by tipping the initial balance between fox and crow to favor the fox. Rice effects this tilt in point of view when she writes, "Crow, of course, began to sing." In "of course" Rice subtly gears our interpretation of crow to accord with the fox's perspective. "Of course" enlists readers' tacit acknowledgements that, like fox, they knew all along that crow would inevitably fall for the ploy. Yet, more than just proving fox a crafty fellow, this "of course" affirms our right to judge crow harshly. Since no actual coercion is involved in fox's attempts to make crow sing, crow herself is responsible for the motives that result in her losing the cheese, and having to listen to the fox's words of mixed warning and advice. After the cheese falls directly into fox's jaws, he says, "Beware of those who flatter / and tell lies meant to please—/ and be glad, you foolish bird, / you only lost your cheese." The con-man threatens danger. Thus, the shift to the fox's perspective not only functions to show that the crow's moral flaws and foolishness have given the fox control over the situation, but also to suggest that underneath this situation lies a more violent universe. Allusions to physical danger never occur before this endnote; apparently, Rice is not willing to rely solely upon the way the body of the fable is developed to convey the important lesson. To insure that there can be no misunderstanding about the moral's urgency, she creates an additional level of instruction at the end.

Comparing Caldecott's retelling to those in the "instructive" group reveals the dramatic divergences that can be caused by slight differences. Like Rice, Caldecott interjects "of course" into the narrative to evoke a sense of participation by the reader; he writes, "The Crow … began to caw vigorously, of course dropping the cheese." This "of course" enlists the reader's agreement, not in judging the crow foolish, but in recognizing the inevitability of the cheese falling. The first entails a subjective judgement of cause and effect, the second an objective judgement based on observable natural laws: with nothing to hold it, the cheese will fall. The instructive edge built in by Rice's use of "of course" is absent.

Caldecott tells the whole tale in four sentences, with consistent alternations in focus between fox and crow. By revealing the outline of the scenario in such a manner, Caldecott's narrative becomes a model framework in which fits a number of like situations, so that readers are able to translate the insights from this tale to other relevant circumstances in a direct way. Because the storytelling is so sparse, it is the few specific details that determine the meaning of the actions. The crow has stolen the cheese; the fox resorts to hyperbolic lies ("he went so far as to say that she had the best claims to be made Queen of the birds"); and the fox reveals the predatory nature of his desires as he "pounced" on the cheese. The last sentence of the tale, which is the only direct dialogue between the fox and crow, belongs to the fox, who says, "My good friend Crow, you have every good quality; now try to get some common sense." Such a critique of the crow's foolishness, and the story's implication that her foolishness is a function of her vanity, are a far cry from Rice's condemnation. Rather it is in the spirit of "fair play." both fox and crow are thieves, crow able to come by her goods by her physical ability of flight, fox by his prowess of wit. He has earned the right to instruct her because he was more successful than she was.

Caldecott picks up on this somewhat open-ended message in his illustrations. Characteristic of his style are dual illustrations, on one page depicting the literal events of the story, on the next page showing how the tale relates to human society. His example here is a split frame set in a parlor which first shows a suitor in pursuit of a delicate looking woman while a heavy-set matron sits between the two, guarding the young woman from his advances. The suitor is directing his conversation to the matron, beckoning her to move to the piano, and we can imagine the flattering words with which he cajoles her to delight them with her musical talent. In the next frame, we see the chaperone thoroughly absorbed in her piano and song as the suitor, now placed on the couch next to the still demure young woman, kisses the hand of this object of his desires. In a word, the suitor's scheme is more "civilized"—and in the long run, more effective—than just resorting to grabbing what he wants, and perhaps, this can be said of the fox also. Thus we begin to see the interchange between fox and crow in terms of the varying levels of sophistication that mark people's behavior rather than in terms of moral prescriptions.

Eric Carle's efforts to contextualize fables also depend on relatively open-ended presentations of the stories. His retelling of "The Fox and The Crow" is unique among all the collections. The crucial cues for effect are not found so much in sentence structure as they are in the apparent liberties he takes with the whole storyline and the twists he weaves into it. In his retelling, we do not discover how crow came by the food, we find him in a tree, beneath which sit Mrs. Fix and her son on a park bench. Young fox is hungry, and mother fox lights on the idea of feeding him by tricking the crow out of its food. The park bench, a human contrivance, has no direct relevance to the events of the story (as, say, the presence of equally human eating utensils do in fables like "The Fox and the Stork"). Rather it functions to create a setting outside the natural kingdom, one which has a number of social connotations attached to it. In fact, Carle plays on the association between park benches and the outcasts of the world in his illustration, which shows the two foxes somewhat huddled together on the bench, mother wrapped in a shawl, son dressed in clothes a bit too small for him. The angle of the drawing, looking from the crow in the tree down on the foxes, gives them a size strikingly smaller than the crow's, a large bird even more commanding by his apparel of tail-coat and tuxedo pants, and by the fine spread of sausages and wine which he has laid out before him. The foxes' neediness is reinforced as mother casts her eyes above to the feast and son fixes his gaze trustingly on his mother. As text combines with illustration, the connection between tale and social relevance is inescapable. The relevance is too colored by humor to seem heavyhanded; the tail-coat is an outgrowth of the crow's anatomy and the shawl a tattered version of fox-fur.

Carle also switches the conventionally assigned sexes of the characters for effect. Instead of the usually male fox who preys on the weakness of a female, his fox is a protective, nurturing mother who plays on the vanity of a prosperous male crow. Reversing the traditional expectations which permit us to see consistency in the notion of a female's vanity enhancing a male's power over her, Carle provides an equally consistent scenario of a female's resourcefulness outwitting a male's pride and sense of self-importance. Carle's reversal underscores the importance that social and political contexts have in shaping our interpretations, be they based on sex roles or some other criteria.

Carle also splits the fox persona into the two aspects of mother and son, with son serving as the personification of the motivating desire and mother as the craftiness which will satisfy that desire. Once she succeeds in getting crow to drop the food down next to the park bench, Mrs. Fox hands it to her son, saying, "Didn't I tell you that you'd have something good to eat?" Our sympathies rest with the foxes, as we see Mrs. Fox flattering crow not for her own benefit but for her son's. Method is separated from selfish appetite, and desire, in turn, is attributed to a youth too little to fend for himself. By showing the "want" and the "getting of it" as directly related but occurring between two distinct agents, Carle can build into the "fox character" more socially acceptable explanations for its conduct than when it is but a single actor.

The conventional focus on the need for the crow to mend its character is as present in Carle's retelling as it is in others. But in the tale's conclusion the crow is left singing, with the foxes quietly removing themselves from this irritating voice. Unlike other retellings, there is no direct instruction to the crow by the fox. Perhaps once the crow realizes his assumed audience is gone he will begin to question both the sincerity of the fox's words and his own wisdom in believing them. Then again, he might not. Thus, the reader's insights occur outside of the inner workings of the story.

Finally, Jack Kent's version of "The Fox and The Crow" represents the third group of "empathetic" retellings. Kent directly recounts just the essentials of the plot, favoring neither the fox nor the crow's point of view. His lightness of tone injects simplicity and humor into the course of events; the simplicity creates the effect that these events could happen to anyone and the humor works to take the edge off a moral rebuke. The fox's simple words of flattery give him no aura of being a master of words. In fact, he repeats his adjectives rather than building to a more and more powerful appeal to the crow's vanity: "What a beautiful bird!" said the fox, loud enough for the crow to hear. "Surely such a lovely bird has a lovely voice. How I long to hear her sing." Such commonplaces are obviously sufficient to entice the crow to open her mouth to sing. Yet Kent narrates this fateful move on the crow's part with a humorous turn as he writes, "But all that came out was a "caw" and the cheese." Kent's syntax sets up the expectation that the "all that came out" will lead to some expression about her singing capabilities, and there is a verbal delight in seeing juxtaposed to this comment on her voice a reference to the cheese also.

Kent's illustrations add to the humorous nature of the retelling. The characters are cartoon-like, the crow wearing a derby reminiscent of Heckle and Jeckle, the fox wearing Groucho Marx-like top-coat and-hat. The illustrations conjure up images of lovable rogues. The fox's motions with his hat first parody motions of sincerity (with hat held at breast as he speaks) and then reveal true intent (as he turns the hat upside down, extending it to catch the falling cheese). The crow's expressions, too, effect exaggeration. Her ludicrous attempt to belt out a song is highlighted by closed eyes and wide open beak with a big read "CAW" painted in. Also, after losing the cheese, the crow is shown leaning down from her branch over the fox as she watches the wide-eyed disbelief him eating her cheese. On the same page the text gives the fox's concluding instruction: "I see you do have a voice Madam Crow. What you seem to be lacking is brains." Kent succeeds in cultivating readers' understanding attitude through the matter-of-fact and light-hearted nature of his presentation. We so readily find humor in the course of events not because we side with one character or the other, but in part because we too have experienced similar situations. Even if we have been on the losing end, we can see that there is a funny element in such situations. Not only Kent's illustrations show this comic element but his italicized moral at the end does too. Reinforcing the "practical joke" side of the circumstance, the tale tells us, "Don't be fooled by flattery." Thus, though there is a moral lesson which can be taken to heart about vanity, readers also come away learning not to lose their ability to laugh in the face of character lapses.

It should be clear from this analysis that there are particular world views in each of these retellings of a very simple story. In choosing versions of such stories we should be aware of the distinct nature of each one, and realize that young readers can be taught how to engage texts so that they see in them more than simple repetitions of the same story. The beauty of these works is that they have tremendous potential for use in refining young people's literary sensibilities. Beyond their traditional plots these tales offer young readers the opportunity to recognize such important literary aspects as detail, nuance, context, characterization, and writer's intent. None of these features in the fables are so subtle that children cannot begin to recognize them. By exploring the relation among such textual features children will begin to move toward a discovering of meaning through language. Treated in this way, fables can take on an exciting dimension well beyond the simple didactic messages usually associated with them.

References

Caldecott, Randolph. The Caldecott Aesop. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978.

Carle, Eric. Twelve Tales from Aesop. New York: Philomel, 1980.

Galdone, Paul. Three Aesop Fox Fables. New York: Seabury, 1971.

Holder, Heidi. Aesop's Fables. New York: Viking, 1981.

Jacobs, Joseph. The Fables of Aesop, illus. Richard Heighway. New York: Schocken, 1966.

Jones, Harold. Tales from Aesop. London: Franklin Watts, 1981.

Kent, Jack. Jack Kent's Fables of Aesop. New York: Parents', 1972.

——. More Fables of Aesop. New York: Parents',1974.

McFarland, John. The Exploding Frog, illus. James Marshall. Boston: Little Brown, 1981.

Rice, Eve. Once in a Wood: Ten Tales from Aesop. New York: Greenwillow, 1979.

Spriggs, Ruth. The Fables of Aesop. New York: Rand McNally, 1975.