Reading Notes: South African Folktales, Part A

For this week's reading, I did the South African folktales by James Honey. Nearly all of the short stories in this reading had the character Jackal. In all the stories that Jackal is in, he is very cunning and seems to outwit all the other characters that he comes into contact with. He does this in all of his stories and even when he is caught and condemned, he still finds a way out of his sentencing. 

For my future story-telling, I want to develop a character who is cunning and always gets away with whatever he's trying to do. Also, I'm going to keep the characteristics of Lion and use those characterisitcs in another character who is going to oppose Jackal's character. As for the rest of the characters, I'm still deciding on what to use their characteristics for. If anything, they will be supporting roles for either Lion's character or Jackal's character.

Additionally, I want to build on Lion's and Jackal's relationship to each other. In the short stories, they are usually presented as uncle and nephew, but there's not any real depth to their relationship besides this. In my story, I want to develop their bond so the deception and/or trickery is that much more heart-wrenching to the audience. I also want to build up the relationship of Jackal to his family.

Obviously, Jackal cares considerably about his family in order to betray his uncle (Lion). It seemed to me that Lion and Jackal had a pretty good relationship; they hunt together and share the spoils. Although Jackal does get the crappy end of the stick, it's still a decent long-term investment. With that being said, I want to make Jackal's reason(s) more believable for him to betray a decent deal that he had with Lion. It might make sense to make this into story that is set in the present day...




Bibliography: South African Folk-tales by James Honey

Image: Jackal, Wikipedia