Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Ferguson, Rebecca

Titel

Of Snakes and Men: Toni and Slade Morrison's and Pascal Lemaître's Adaptations of Aesop in "Who's Got Game?"

Ist Teil von

• Melus, 2011-06, Vol.36 (2), p.53-70

Ort / Verlag

USA: Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States and the University of Connecticut

Erscheinungsjahr

2011

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Oxford Journals 2020 Humanities

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Toni and Slade Morrison and Pascal Lemaître's reworkings of three of Aesop's fables, collected in a combined edition under the title of "Who's Got Game?" in 2007, were first published as individual children's books in 2003, each bearing a main title relating to the ancient original but framing its title significantly as a question: "The Ant or the Grasshopper?" "The Lion or the Mouse?" "Poppy or the Snake?" The first of these is probably the best known of the fables attributed to Aesop. The second, which reflects upon the use of power and clemency, the code of gratitude, and the situational definition of power, has been adapted in many versions. This essay examines how the fine line between the "moral" and "moralistic" is handled in the Morrisons' and Lemaître's reworkings; how the authors draw upon different source materials and mythic associations; and how the stories are directed to the interests of the contemporary child reader in such a manner as to sustain inquiry and provoke interrogation (not just in their endings, but throughout). Nothing in these adapted fables is as expected, and the way in which "Poppy or the Snake?" uncoils its subtle meanings is wholly surprising. An assessment of the interrogative and graphic power of the books entails giving close attention to their use of idiom and the vernacular, to the complex interplay between words and the visual medium, to the distinctive settings in which the stories are placed, and to the cultural references which form a significant part of their communicative framework. African American culture has an important place in this field of reference, but it is not paramount as an explicit theme; rather, it forms part of the wider dialogue about individual and communal values, responsibility and freedom, and different formulations of "child" and "adult" status.