(C) Alec Muffett's DropSafe blog.
Author Name: Alec Muffett
This story was originally published on allecmuffett.com. [1]
License: CC-BY-SA 3.0.[2]


“The Gruffalo” as Western anti-collectivist libertarian propaganda

2024-02-24 16:49:05+00:00

The correct, even obligatory place in society for an individual is inside a larger animal’s stomach:

Quote:

Donaldson has said that the story of The Gruffalo was inspired by a Chinese folk tale known as “The Fox that Borrows the Terror of a Tiger” (????).The folk tale is about a hungry tiger who tries to catch a fox. The fox is clever and tells the tiger that God has made the fox king of all animals. Whilst accompanying the fox, the tiger notices that other animals run away in fear. Not realising that they are actually running away from the tiger, the tiger believes that fox is indeed a feared king. Donaldson was originally going to have the beast in her book be a tiger, but was unable to think of rhymes for “tiger” so instead invented a new word—”gruffalo”.

The Taiwanese translator of The Gruffalo recommended the book for publication in Taiwanese because he noticed the story bore resemblance to the traditional tale. Teachers have used this translated book to demonstrate a modern retelling of the Chinese folk tale. In an article on the traditional Chinese translation of The Gruffalo in Taiwan, Chen-Wei Yu writes that the “resourcefulness” of the mouse in Donaldson’s story represents a Western association with “individual autonomy” and “self-achievement”, whereas the fox in the original fable is to be looked down upon because it does not accept its correct place in society nor an individual’s obligation to others. This latter interpretation of the story has led the phrase “The Fox that Borrows the Terror of a Tiger” to mean someone who makes use of another person’s power for their own gain.
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[1] URL: https://alecmuffett.com/article/109247
[2] URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

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