Essay Sample on Fable Story: Hurry Hurry Has No Blessing

Introduction

A fable is a short allegorical story that usually involves animals as the main characters although natural forces, objects, and plants are sometimes used as characters. The main objective of a fable is to educate about a moral issue. As such, a classic fable ends with the protagonist learning from a dreadful mistake. Typically, a proverb or saying is used to sum up the moral lesson intended (Sneed & Aesop, 2003). Fables are common in almost every society. They are very common in the African societies as grandparents used to narrate them to their grandkids at night. In the Western culture, fables are believed to have originated in Ancient Greek (Sneed & Aesop, 2003).

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All fables use the concept of anthropomorphism, which entails assigning human characteristics and behaviors to non-humans like gods, plants, animals, and objects (Mastro, Aesop, & Wells, 2012). The use of anthropomorphism in fables enables animals to think, speak, and personify human values and vices such as kindness, greed, patience, honesty, and pride (Jones, 2003). To illustrate these features, the section below provides a fable story of the hare and the tortoise.

In the fable below, the hare is presented as fast and overconfident which leads him to make a mistake. He stops concentrating on the race and looks back to laugh at the tortoise who is moving slow but steady. That is intended to show that overconfidence and high speed lead to careless mistakes which results in the hare breaking his legs. On the other hand, the tortoise is moving slow but steady. As such, he is aware of his surroundings and gives the race full attention. He does not make the mistakes as those made by the hare which sees him emerge the winner. The fable teaches that it is better to be like the tortoise in this case than the hare.

Hurry Hurry Has No Blessing (Origin: Swahili)

A long time ago, the hare and the tortoise were close friends who did everything together. One day, the hare ridiculed the tortoise for his short feet and slow pace. In response, the tortoise argued that even though he was slow, he could beat the hare in a race despite being as fast as the wind. With pride, the hare accepted the challenge to race the tortoise because he believed it would be impossible to lose. The Fox was invited to act as the referee and chose the route and distance of the race. When the time for the race arrived, the hare and the tortoise started racing at the same time. Overconfident and eager to win the race in a short time, the hare dashed at a lightning speed and left the tortoise with a huge margin. Looking back and seeing how far the tortoise was, the hare was convinced of victory that he lost concentration. After a short time, the hare stumbled on a block on the road and being at a high speed, he fell down and injured his legs. The hare could no longer run the race with broken legs. All this time, the tortoise never stopped and moved on with a slow but steady speed. Even with the slow pace, the tortoise finished the race ahead of the hare. After emerging victorious, the tortoise called on fox who together helped to carry the hare home. On their way home, the tortoise advised the hare that while having speed is not a bad thing, he should know that hurry hurry has no blessing.

References

Jones, E. (2003). Classworks literacy year 5. Cheltenham, UK: Nelson Thornes.

Mastro, V. A., Aesop, ., & Wells, A. (2012). Aesop's 1st book of childhood adventures: Aesop's fables and other short stories. United States: Vangelo Media.

Sneed, B., & Aesop, . (2003). Aesop's fables. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers.