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Read the narrative below and answer the following questions `THE TORTOISE AND THE ELEPHANT’

      

Read the narrative below and answer the following questions
`THE TORTOISE AND THE ELEPHANT’
Along time ago, the tortoise would cheat the elephant until the elephant was
tired of being cheated, the tortoise thought out once more what he would do
to the elephant.
Early one morning, the tortoise went to the home of the elephant. When he
got there he asked the elephant to go out for a walk with him, and both of
them went off to the forest. When they got to the forest, the tortoise said to
the elephant, `elephant, I have a good idea;; ``What idea tortoise?’’ asked
the elephant? ``I think we should have a riddle contest. You first ‘’, said the
tortoise. The elephant posed the first riddle and said, ``my house has no door
and no window, what is it? ``The tortoise said. ``An egg.’’ The tortoise said,
``A large bird sings a small bird steals. ``The elephant tried to think of the
answer until he nearly went out of his mind and then said, `` I cannot solve
it’’
The tortoise said, ``come, let us go, and I will tell you the solution. But this
riddle requires that a person should eat plenty of honey first, and I know
where we can get such honey’’
So the elephant followed the tortoise until they came to where the honey
was. They went to the bee hive and the tortoise said to the elephant. ``Put
your trunk into the hive and get some honey for us to eat’’ The elephant put
his trunk into the hive, and started to scoop as much honey as he could..
The tortoise waited anxiously. The elephant removed his trunk and gave all
the honey to the tortoise. The tortoise started eating the honey hungrily. He
said to the elephant, ``the honey is so sweet but this will not be enough for
both of us. Put the trunk in the hive once more and scoop some more
honey.’’ The elephant obeyed and put his trunk into the hive and started to
scoop some more honey.
Before he could remove his trunk, the hive slipped and trapped the
elephant’s trunk. He cried out to tortoise, saying, ``please help me. I am
going to die here?’’ Put the tortoise laughed and refused to help him remove
his trunk.
Meanwhile, the bees inside the hive were disturbed and stung the elephant
furiously. The elephant was stung until he died as the tortoise walked away.
The tortoise is very cunning.

Questions
a. Classify the above narrative and give a reason for your answer.

b. What did the tortoise ask the elephant to do early one morning?

c. What `good’ idea did tortoise have? Do you agree it was a good idea?
Why?

d. Do you find the elephant foolish? Explain your answer.

e. Identify and illustrate four characteristics features of the above narrative.

f. What moral lesson is evident from the narrative?

  

Answers


Kavungya
a. - Trickster narrative.
- The tortoise tricks the elephant into getting honey

b. The tortoise asked the elephant to go for a walk with him

c. - The tortoise suggested that they have a riddling contest
- No this is because the tortoise knew that the elephant would never
know the right answer

d. Yes he was tricked into putting his trunk into the hive to scoop honey
several times and when the bees began to sting him, the hare did not help.

e. - Opening formulae-A long time ago…
- Has animal characters only-elephant and tortoise
- Use of fantasy i.e., animals talking
- Moral lesson-e.g., the tortoise is referred to as cunning hence we learn that
we should choose our friends.

f. - when the idea is too sweet, think twice.
- we should choose our friends wisely.
- the size does not matter but the wits, i.e., elephant, despite being big in
size gets tricked by tortoise which is small but smart.

Kavungya answered the question on November 21, 2022 at 06:43


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