While
reading the second half of the West African Folktales unit, one of my favorite
stories was How the Tortoise Got Its Shell.
I thought it was fun story that I imagine, people told to their children
growing up. I liked how originally, he
was just a tortoise without a shell and after all those months of lying
underneath the trees, he had collected so much dust and earthenware pot that he
formed a shell on his back. I enjoyed
the way it ended too, with the tortoise coming back to life but never being
able to walk upright again due to his newly formed shell.
There
was a quote from another story that I found to be pretty true. It was from The Hunter and the Tortoise and
it read, “It is man who forces himself on things, not things which force
themselves on him.” The stories always
seem more appealing to me when they contain a message that I feel I can relate
to. Like this one, I agree that it is
man or woman who forces themselves on things and not the other way around. Not only did I just like this quote but I
also enjoyed the story overall, too.
I
thought that the story of The Leopard and the Ram was an unlikely one. Typically, you don’t think of Rams and
Leopards getting along, let alone living together, in this case. But I thought that it was fun how they
unknowingly picked the same site to build a home. I definitely liked the first half of this
story better than the second but still enjoyed the writing.
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| Gopher Tortoise Source: fws.gov |
I also really enjoyed the story of How the Tortoise Got Its Shell. I love reading stories about things like this because they're stories that seek to explain things we have in our everyday lives that we often may not think about. Like you I can absolutely imagine this as a story that parents would tell to their children. I also enjoyed the ending and thought it was very fitting for the story with the tortoise returning to life but now being forced to move slowly and not able to stand upright.
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