This story was interesting because two human girls also appeared in the story. I like how two girls were introduced to their animals. From the paragraph one, two girls claimed an eagle and a whale as their husbands. "one of the girls said, "I will have an eagle for my husband," and the other replied, "Thou mayst rejoice that thou hast already got a husband; I will have a whale for mine." It was interesting that both the eagle and the whale came up to the shore and took one to the sky and the other one to the bottom of the sea.
It was so interesting they understood what girls were saying and immediately took them as their brides. I like from the human's perspective, the eagle was nothing but a kidnapper. "One day, when the eagle was away, she tried the length of it and found that it reached down to the level of the sea. Another day she saw a kayaker rowing along the shore and, when he came just below, she called out to him to send a boat to rescue her." So the eagle might have thought the girl wanted to marry him, but to a girl, the eagle was nothing but a scary creature. Later the eagle got shot and died.
I think the most shocking part of the story was that the eagle and the whales were not real but a spirit of the bones that girls were playing with. "Then she threw her long jacket and before he could overtake them again, they had already landed, but when the whale reached the shore he was transformed into a piece of whale-bone."
Bibliography : The Eagle and Whale Husbands from Tales of the North American Indians by Stith Thompson
No comments:
Post a Comment