Lying at the crossroads between a children’s story and a part of the folklore-related legacy of a specific ethnicity, fables have a very special place in literature. With recurring characters and basic yet important life lessons to offer to their readers, fables serve as a shorthand for conveying important messages and often represent cautionary tales for their listeners. In “The Camel and His Friends”, a fable attributed to Bidpai, a legendary figure in Indian folklore, it tells a story of a careless camel who could not recognize evil being plotted against him and was careless when choosing his friends (“The Camel and His Friends”). Although the story uses very simple language and cannot be characterized as a narration with an intricate plot or characters, the nuance of the message and the shift of the focus from the main character to the side ones as the means of emphasizing the moral of the story represents a unique concept.
The main rationale for picking “The Camel and His Friends” as the subject of the analysis is the unique approach toward representing the main message to its readers. Although the use of the third-person narrator is hardly original, especially for stories designed for children, the focus of the narration is kept consistently on any character but the main one. Surprisingly, the specified technique does not make Camel any less sympathetic; in fact, the exact opposite seems to be the case. Although an experienced young reader can see the ending a mile away, the ending with the innocent camEl not being spared his fate still resonates with readers to a considerable extent, especially given the dry wording of the story that leaves a lot to the imagination: “And in no time he was killed by the three rogues, the false friends” (“The Camel and His Friends”). Thus, although seemingly underrepresented and being given only a couple of lines at the very end of the story, the Camel remains a sympathetic character.
Speaking of characters, one might expect rather straightforward ones in a basic children’s fable, yet the ones depicted in the fable are rather nuanced. None of the animals is portrayed as an outright villain, and the plight of the characters who are starving and have to make a decision is quite understood. Thus, for a modern reader, the fable approaches a morally grey area with its message, describing the dilemma as a legitimate one: “The lion got furious, ‘I can never kill an animal who is under my protection’” (“The Camel and His Friends”). At the same time, the message of the fable is kept concise and straightforward, which is also worthy of appreciation as one of the key elements of a traditional fable.
Consequently, the short story ponders over several complex themes along with the rest that appears to lie on the surface. The concepts of friendship and betrayal lie at the core of the fable, with the ending pointing directly to the harm that unfaithful friends can cause. The direction that the fable takes with its themes is rather unexpected. Given the nature of the conflict within the fable, one might have thought that the importance of being faithful friends would be emphasized. However, instead, the narrator chooses to tell a cautionary tale for the readers that might be a bit too trusting and careless. The specified perspective is much more reasonable and rational, yet also slightly more pessimistic. Since it directs its message at the potential victim of betrayal, it might imply that changing the minds of those that have disloyal friends is inherently pointless, hence the importance of preventing their harmful impact on gullible people.
Work Cited
“The Camel and His Friends.” K-State.edu, n.d., 2020. Web.