mesier stronger than the elepahnts

Candice McCarty

Professor Morgan Peters

English 200-08

December 15, 2011

                     Siblings will fight, whether it’s over who has the better car or who has the nicest hair, whose job is better, and pretty much anything else you can turn into a competition I know because I have a sister. Siblings just want to be better than the other, and the story Mérisier, Stronger than the Elephants is no different than this. The story begins when a father is dying and asks his three sons, when he dies how each of them would bury him. They all move along the ladder of who would build him the better coffin from mahogany to brass until the third son says that he would bury his father in the drum from the King of the Elephants, to which his father is more than delighted.

Once the son realized that not only did he win his father’s approval, he just told his father he would bury him in the drum of the King of the Elephants, and just like you might be saying to yourself, he had no idea what that was. So he sets out on his journey to find this impossible drum, and along the way he meets Mérisier with from great magical possessions, aids Brisé the son on his journey.

            As the story is told, Brisé is given four wari nuts with which he uses to gain access to the drum. However once he finally has the drum in his hands, it breaks into a million pieces, and all the elephants sent to protect it are turned into tiny drummers taking a drum with him. So he returned with no drum but a lesson to learn. Don’t promise things that you cannot give.

            However not only is this the lesson on the story, but there is also one topic that is touched upon in the story, and that is of migration. This might seem a little bit farfetched however, but think about it, why else would you explain how traditions of one culture are the same to an extent in a village miles away? This story was a way to explain how drums are found everywhere and not just in one single village. This story shows how people and traditions move on from place to place and spread throughout the world, a concept that to this day holds true.

            This story also goes into great detail on the emphasis of magic that people once believed in. You find stories of magic to this day, Harry Potter may be the first to come to mind, but do you really think that there is a school of magic hidden around somewhere? For most of us this is known to be untruthful, yet for the people of this time and culture, magic was very strongly believed to be real, and stories like this would not only be a way to teach but a way to fascinate at the wonders, and powers that magic can possess. Voodoo priests are commonly seen throughout not only this text, but other stories around this time, and it was something that was taken very seriously to the people, at times even feared.

            So how can you relate to this story you might be asking yourself? Think about it one day when you go off and get married, you will have children and you are going to teach them not only the traditions of your culture, but those of your spouses’ culture. You are migrating traditions of each of your home countries and bringing them to wherever you settle. You are blending cultures, just as this story suggests. Integration is great custom to have, and to have a variety of culture is a gift nonetheless.