Reading Notes: West African Folktales, Part A

Thunder and Anansi

This one was one of my favorites of the unit, and perhaps of the semester thus far. This story was not only entertaining, but had several great themes! Anansi suffers from hunger, and by a fortunate sequence of events, ends up receiving a magical pot that makes him any food that he wishes. Though he contemplates sharing the food with his family, Anansi takes a selfish turn and decides to keep the pot for himself. One day, his family discovers the pot, but they manage to lose it while providing meals. When Anansi discovers that the pot is missing, he returns to the original location in hopes of receiving another magical gift. Instead of more favor, he receives a stick that beats him, presumably because of his selfishness!
I appreciate the themes in this story. First, we see a subtle theme that a father should provide for his family. However, another message proves even more apparent - that being the selfishness of Anansi. It originally serves him well, but eventually comes to hurt him. His hiding the pot and its magic from his family eventually causes him to lose the pot. I love this theme, which asserts that though selfishness may seem appealing, it never leads to positive things. Another theme that we see is a consequence for Anansi's actions, when the man in the sea gives him a stick that punishes him!

I am fairly certain that I will use this story for my storytelling this week, so I want to explore several different options for how to tell this in my own terms.
On one hand, I would like to make the story a little more extreme. In this version, Anansi's family finds the pot before they are seriously affected, and Anansi only gets a slap on the wrist for his actions. However, what if there were serious consequences for his selfishness? For example, what if Anansi's family was so impoverished from their lack of food that some family members began to die? This would dramatically change the plot, and through that manner of storytelling, it would be interesting to see if Anansi would have changed his behavior or if he would even have felt bad for keeping the pot from his family.
Through another lens, this would be an interesting story to tell in a modern day setting. Anansi and his family could live in the slums, or in a setting of poverty. Through a series of fortunate circumstances, Anansi could find a series of Chick-Fil-A gift cards (or something to that effect). His family would find out and would end up using the gift cards to feed themselves. Anansi could then receive some sort of reprimand for keeping the food from his family, such as them receiving a gift of food and not being allowed to share with him instead.


Bibliography:
"West African Folktales: Thunder and Anansi" by Barker and Sinclair: online link

Image Information: A container of food.
Image link: Pixabay