Response on Native Tales:

From the get go I understood that this piece was written awhile back, since he openly states " White people might consider them inanimate objects, but to the Indian, they are enmeshed in the web of the universe, pulsating with life and potent with medicine." ( Ortiz, pg.2)  I found that offensive since I can think of many cases where I witnessed "white people" practicing homeopathic medicine, and finding serenity within nature. This statement directly took me back to the image of Pocahontas, it might seem odd but this movie attempted to do the same thing. Make the white people look like they only cared about industry and materialism, while destroying nature. Personally, I love nature and find mystical things to be quite intriguing.

   I know that there is more to this article than that but I thought I would point out what bothered me. Other than that I am excited to go more in depth with these tales. It was interesting to note that Spiderman, Coyote, Veeho, Rabbit all share a common theme. They embodied a particular theme of a tribe.
To me that is very interesting.

Wow, I am happy that I had the chance to gain insight into Porto Rican culture! Information such as this is interesting and useful at the same time. Learning about Porto Rican traditions, childhood games, and especially what they consider to be bad omens is very important. I found it so interesting that there was a common ground between some Russian superstitions and Porto Rican superstitions, salt=bad luck came up a lot. As well as the idea behind not throwing away bread, and putting on your socks inside out causing sadness. I think such silly things have a reason for being around, and it has a great deal to do with culture. 

Other things that I found interesting from the first piece, were the differences in meanings behind flowers in the USA as opposed to Porto Rico, a rose is a rose everywhere however. 

   Dream interpretations were a unit on their own, I am also a strong believer in the reasoning that everything in a dream is the opposite of it's representation. Porto Rican's take it one step further though... reading about exorcisms gave me the chills. Every culture has their own interesting stories...

Regarding "The Three Wishes" off the bat a common theme is noted, they mostly all imply the power of God. "The Ant In Search of Her Leg" tries to persuade the idea that there is no stronger force on Earth than God. He is clearly the almighty, and is greater than the sun, the wind and a person put together. "The Witch's Skin" is another example, it serves to enforce the idea that worshiping the Devil is noticeable, and will get you killed. The high influence of God in these folktales serves to imply that Porto Ricans are traditional and are very strong believers. 

I enjoyed these works very much! And look forward to reading about other cultures! 

           

    After reading "The Sociopsychological Analysis of Folktales" by J.L. Fischer I have a clearer understanding about myths and folktales in terms of what exactly they are, how they came about and for what purpose they were told. Something that really caught my attention was the statement regarding that in certain societies a myth might have held importance, while another society told it just for fun. This made me think about how biased myths were made to be in the first place, if some societies gave a myth importance- could it be because it taught something relevant to that particular community, or it was directed towards a specific audience. Fischer cleared up those thoughts, apparently "Myths may be more suitable for illuminating recent conditions." (242)
   The subtitle "Myths and Dream" also caught my attention since I love psychology and always look into reading about dream interpretations. It was always thought that dreams influenced myths, but this "myth" turned out to be false because as the author stated there were many limits to people's dreams- like remembering partial information, or having a falsified meaning. The only time dreams were transcribed into myths was when the community underwent an experience.

     This article was not only interesting but was capable of giving real insight that can be useful in life.

     It can be said that every piece of literature is written with a purpose, whether it is to teach a lesson or to inspire someone, or sometimes just to vent. Aesop's fables have more than one purpose, I agree with the perspective of this article. One of the main purposes is to entertain people, and this was evident in the scenario about Demades, who used the fables to capture the attention of the citizens who were not that enthusiastic to listen about politics. As was said, the fables were mainly meant for the lower class and with that in mind it served it's other purpose- to ensure that these particular people understood that aristocrats and the wealthy were well above them, in both status and power. This was easy to grasp even with the first fable "The Wolf and Lamb", which accentuated that despite the fact that the lamb was innocent, the wolf was able to do whatever he wanted because he possessed more power and strength. 

    Looking at our society today it can be easily noted that human beings do not change, no matter how much time will pass, status will still ensure power. Whether it is your boss ordering you what to do or the President  putting out new rules- we are the lambs and they are the wolves.