Why We See Ants Carrying Bundles As Big As Themselves
Worker ant carrying a leaf. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
There are three main parts to this story: Anansi's greed leading to destruction of a good thing, his attempt and failure to hide his wrongdoing, and his manipulation and trickery of a kind person. His selfishness and foolishness are exposed over and over in this story, even though he gets away with it at the end.
Even though Anansi sees how well his son's crops are doing, it's not enough for his crops to do just as well. He can't be happy with simply a successful harvest because he is so greedy, which is why he beats the dwarf harder than he should have.
The dwarf selflessly helped Kweku Tsin over and over, and he was willing to extend this same help to Anansi, and probably to anyone who asked for it. He didn't even ask for anything in return, but willingly gave of himself to help strangers. It makes me so mad that Anansi took advantage of and killed a man who only helped him, especially when there was no need for a bigger crop than Kweku's.
I liked the trick that Kweku played on Anansi. I thought Kweku was going to get in huge trouble, but he knew that Anansi was up to something and took advantage of his greed to make him turn himself in.
There seems to be an idea of karma in many of these stories, and in this story karma is shown in the king's punishment for Anansi. I liked the idea of the wicked man carrying the man he killed forever. However, karma doesn't quite catch up to Anansi, because he passes the body off to a kind and helpful ant.
Anansi has a habit of manipulating people who are kind and naïve. I think it's the worst type of person who takes advantage of those who try to help him!
Bibliography: West African Folktales by William H. Barker and Cecilia Sinclair. Link to the reading.
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