Week 6: Essay - The Trickster/Fool

Studying recurring archetypes in literature has always been a source of great interest to me such that I frequently find myself trying to identify the different archetypal roles in whatever I am reading. The West African Folktales unit provides a rather elegant example of the archetypal "trickster" in the character Anansi, also called "Spider." In this case, the role of trickster in in conjunction with the role of "the fool". These archetypes can and do exist separately in many examples of literature, but I believe the roles to be more impactful and significant when used together due to both the paradox the roles create and to the two-fold lessons one is able to derive from the single character. The significance of these two aspects of the Trickster/Fool role is illustrated throughout the stories involving the character Anansi.

 The Trickster/Fool (image source: Smith Music Online)

Anansi is a recurring character throughout the West African Folktales. He is the classic fool, constantly getting himself into comical predicaments which often result both he and the reader/listener learning a lesson of some sort. What is different, however, about the character Anansi's role as the fool is that he is repeatedly described as crafty or clever, which is a distinct trait of the archetypal trickster. Herein lies the paradox the merging of these two roles creates: how can anyone be a clever fool? To answer this, one must consider what it means to be a fool. When first brought to mind, the personified fool resembles something of a court jester (see above picture), or maybe a child with a dunce cap on his head. The term fool is often associated with lack of intelligence or sense, but it is certainly true that a so called intelligent person can make a foolish decision or act in a foolish manner. And if that person continues to conduct himself in said manner, he runs the risk of being labeled a fool, despite his above average intelligence. All this to say that a fool can be anyone who not only does foolish things repeatedly, but seems not to learn from the consequences of foolish behavior. One will observe time and time again how Anansi's greed or jealousy lead him into some convoluted plot that, in a sort of dramatic irony, the reader can be sure will lead to ruin, simply based upon the outcome of other stories. This impending sense of doom seems to elude Anansi no matter how many times his world is brought down around his ears, and he presses on with whatever clever trickery he has devised to get himself ahead in a particular story. One knows exactly what to expect from Anansi, and that is because he refuses to learn from his past mistakes.

 

One can derive some important lessons from the double faceted archetype that is the Trickster/Fool, especially from one such as Anansi. First, it is immediately apparent that one does not need to lack intelligence to be a fool. This is clearly evidenced by the ever crafty Anansi frequently falling into sticky situations. To see clearly the second lesson one can learn from a character such as Anansi, one must delve a little bit into what exactly makes a character like Anansi tick. Why, exactly, does Anansi never seem to learn from his mistakes? If there is one thing the reader learns quickly about Anansi is that he is a very prideful character. The first story in the unit, How We Got the Name "Spider Tales", talks about how Anansi thought that the stories of the land should be named after him rather than after a god. In Greco-Roman Mythology, this would be referred to as hubris or excessive pride that, more often than not, leads to untold misery. Anansi's excessive pride prevents him from correcting his faults because in his head, he does not have any faults. It is generally accepted that only the extremely arrogant and/or foolish truly believe that they are free from faults or vices. The lesson the reader learns from this portrayal of the Trickster/Fool is one that warns against arrogance and pride. It is not a bad thing to take pride in oneself as a person or be proud of one's accomplishments, but when pride begins to distort reality and promote delusions of grandeur, it becomes reminiscent to hubris, and any Greek tragedy will explain why that is an extreme detriment.

I believe that the use of the trickster or the fool in any sort of storytelling serves the purpose of teaching the reader/listener a lesson. Separately, the roles of both the trickster and the fool teach their own lessons, but when combined, the lesson these roles teach is two-fold and the way the two roles contradict one another is central and significant to the overall purpose of this role in a story.