Nala Frank Prompt 3 Dec 1, 2013 The Vigilant Rabbit David Sedaris’ The Vigilant Rabbit is a fictional contemporary fable. It includes very few characteristics of premodern fables as well as many new characteristics that separate this fable from traditional ones. Fables are generally terse fictional pieces that use anthropomorphism to give animals human like personas in order to embody them. Their sole purpose is to teach an ethical lesson and may even sometimes contain a moral after its conclusion. However Sedaris’ modernday fable differs in several aspects such as language, length, and child friendliness to name a few. Since fables are generally short and can even be as little as five sentences which was done in Aesop’s The Fox and the Mask, Sedaris’ lengthy fable beats that of Marie de France whose fables sometimes consisted of a little more than thirty lines. The use of language in this contemporary fable also differs in terms of the style it is written as well as in dialect that may not be appropriate for young children. Though both premodern fables such as The Little Red Riding Hood and modern day The Vigilant Rabbit were allegorically written, The Little Red Riding Hood was written with fundamental meanings and appealed to the innocent despite the fact that the wolf served as a predator who preyed on a naïve girl. However the Vigilant Rabbit used a more upfront approach and included violent scenes with blood and murders. What started off as a potentially good idea to build a gate and stand guard to anyone attempting to enter from the outer world, turned in to a fairly bad one displaying many gruesome events. The 1
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rabbit that serves to protect the land and people in it from outside dangers did so at any cost even if it meant harming others. If anyone laughed, questioned, or even used profanity towards him or in regards to his “NO TRESPASSING” sign they were killed. And instead of just disappearing from the fable, Sedaris made sure that readers knew what happened during their horrific death. After bashing the snake and magpie heads in with a stick for making inquiries of how secure the gate was, the rabbit did not stop. Instead he continued by using his stick as a weapon on the frog that uttered words of profanity and chewed off the horn of a unicorn that came to spread happiness throughout the land. Not only did the rabbit kill and destroy the features of these animals out of spite, but he also glorified his wrong doings by hanging the dead carcasses on the gate to exemplify his power. And following a conversation with the unicorn that tested the rabbit’s authority, Sedaris notes that the rabbit “spat on the bloodsoaked ground.” These vicious scenes and settings never took place in premodern fables. Though the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood may have eaten Little Red up or the lamb that was also eaten by a wolf in Aesop’s Always In The Wrong may have displayed death to conclude the fable, there deaths were never surrounded by gore. Nevertheless derogatory terms such as BS and stupid were never used in order to get a point across. Other than the fable of The Vigilant Rabbit using animals to tell Sedaris’ story, I cannot compare this fable to a premodern one because it has very few similarities. The fact that it is fictional can compare to premodern fables. However because this fable has a twisted idea of justice where the wolves possibly give the rabbit what he deserves does not correlate with the morals of pre modern ones. For example one of the morals of Little Red Riding Hood was a fair warning that you should not speak to strangers and had a hidden message of sexuality between young girls who can be taken 2
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advantage of by older men. Yet the Vigilant Rabbit, did not give off a general moral that could be easily interpreted or a valuable lesson from reading the fable. Instead it seemed to be surrounded by nothing but violence and gave off a message of if you disobey or question the rules of authority figures you would be killed. It even displayed vehemence in its illustration with a mean looking rabbit holding a big stick like he isn’t afraid to use it. Not only does this go against premodern fables who generally didn’t have any illustrations but for the ones that did such as Little Red Riding Hood was appropriate for all ages. It displayed a young girl with a cloak and a wolf dressed as her grandmother. However Sedaris changed the rabbit that is typically known to be a furry cute animal into a scary one that would make you rethink going to see one at the petting zoo. Overall Sedaris’ fable cannot be compared to premodern ones and are also not appropriate for children. Since his fable was concluded with the faith of the rabbit’s lives in the wolves hands, I can only guess that karma was a part of Sedaris’s moral and played a role in what may or may not have happened to the rabbit.
