Fictional Text Analysis – Group Analysis
The piece of literature from India that we analyzed is a folk tale called “Teasing the Almighty.“ The story has been passed down through generations, not to teach the audience a lesson, but purely for entertainment purposes. The Indians, according to the story, eat goats, chickens, buffaloes, eggs, and buffalo milk, meaning that they can’t be very serious vegetarians. The clothing of the characters is poorly described, but we can guess that they were wearing layers because they were logging for firewood. Since they used firewood as a source of fuel, we could presume that their house was not made of wood, or else it could catch on fire. Instead, they might have used hardened mud, bricks, or rocks. We could infer that the character’s belief was Muslim, because he prayed to Allah, the name for God in Islam.
The story takes place in a jungle, as the character was cutting firewood. The cutting of the firewood tells us that he was in some kind of forest; the text actually says he’s in a jungle. If it was freezing, it would definitely be mentioned since it would’ve affected the way the woodcutter bribes his way to God, as well as his mood. There were few issues that affected the character’s actions; maybe the lack of education, for the character wouldn’t have cut off the branches below him. The environment could have also affected the people, due to the cool weather the people would have needed firewood, which provided jobs for the uneducated. Global warming and deforestation can’t be issues in India yet, or else they wouldn’t be cutting down trees. Outside of the forest, it probably takes place in a rural area, because the more fortunate people with proper jobs work in urban areas. The character’s language was distinct when he talked to Allah, because he talked to God in a non-formal speech, showing little respect to the almighty. We can assume that the characters do not see the betrayal or mutiny as a crime. However, since the woodcutter turned to Allah for help in getting out of the forest, we see that this character used his God as a tool, rather than a figure of admiration. Also, since the original tale was told in Hindu, it probably contained more respect which got cut in the translation. Other than that minor detail, there wasn’t much, if any hints about dialect or language. Those were the things we were able to pull out of the tale, and from that we were able to find out a few things about their culture.
