He may teach humans the skills of survival, such as how to make fire, procreate, or catch or raise food, usually through negative examples that end with his utter failure to accomplish these tasks. Often the trickster serves as a transformer and culture hero who creates order out of chaos. The typical tale recounts a picaresque adventure: the trickster is “going along,” encounters a situation to which he responds with knavery, stupidity, gluttony, or guile (or, most often, some combination of these), and meets a violent or ludicrous end. Depending on the context, either a single tale or a series of interrelated stories might be told. Trickster stories may be told for amusement as well as on serious or sacred occasions. Simultaneously an omniscient creator and an innocent fool, a malicious destroyer and a childlike prankster, the trickster-hero serves as a sort of folkloric scapegoat onto which are projected the fears, failures, and unattained ideals of the source culture. Trickster tale, in oral traditions worldwide, a story featuring a protagonist (often an anthropomorphized animal) who has magical powers and who is characterized as a compendium of opposites.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |