The Elements of a fable The main characters are the animal characters, the actions, history and the moral behind the story.
A fable is a brief literary composition in which fantasy characters are used to represent a story, also fictional, with the aim of leaving the reader a moral lesson or a reflection on human behavior.
Because of its purely fanciful and somewhat pedagogical character, it is thought that in its origins the appearance of fables was closely linked to the way in which the superstitions, beliefs and rituals of a village were transmitted.
The fable Is particular in other similar genres, such as the parable, because it uses exclusively fantasy entities as characters, and these incarnate human qualities, such as ability to speak, write, or have personality.
Fables may have the intention of leaving a teaching to the reader, making a contrast between good and evil to indicate the"must be"of man's behavior.
However, although a considerable number of fables possess this quality, it is also possible to find those in which this is not a highlighting characteristic, but rather seek only to represent a particular behavior of human beings, in order to invite them to the reflection.
Main elements in fables
The fable as a literary composition is formed on the basis of the following elements, which are present in each of them:
Characters
The characters of the fable are the protagonists, and who perform the actions within the story.
These subjects are of a purely imaginary nature, so they are usually represented by animals, plants, objects, phenomena, creatures created by the author, among others.
Generally in a fable presents a protagonist, who represents the exemplary actions, and an antagonist, who offers resistance to exemplary actions, or generates an opposite reaction to them.
The antagonist is the one who generates a contrast many times necessary to bring the moral or the reflection to the reader.
The author of a fable often assigns particularities to the characters that are used as media To represent the ideas that build the general message.
Because the characters within a fable are fanciful, the author has a much broader range of characteristics than assigning his characters to use them as means of expression.
Actions
Actions are all events that take place throughout the narrative of the fable. Together with the characters, actions shape the story that is intended to express.
The dual composition of the characters of the fable embodied in protagonists and antagonists gives rise to a corresponding duality in actions.
The actions of the protagonist are called action , And those of the antagonist are called reaction .
In this way, the genre of the fable is characterized by its story as a game of action and reaction between both characters, through which the plot unfolds and the message of the composition is revealed.
As fables are short stories, the actions that take place within them are quite small, which is a very distinctive feature of this type of literary composition.
In the same way, the actions within the narrative of a fable are always located in the past tense.
History
History is the organized and sequential exhibition of actions and events, which in the case of the fable is specially designed to"demonstrate"a message or a moral.
Therefore, it is important that it be sketched in such a way that its message is easily recognized, otherwise it could not be considered as a fable.
The stories of the fable are compositions that have previously been conceptualized, and are composed of elements that together seek to demonstrate these concepts.
For example, certain animals are generally used to represent various concepts that are intended to be present in the message, such as the fox, which is used to represent cunning; The lion, to associate strength and leadership; And the donkey, to associate clumsiness.
Due to the nature of the fable, the authors have a great freedom of inventiveness that allows them to create very creative and original stories.
However, one should not exceed the limits of the imagination to a point where the story is incomprehensible, for it is important that the message can be clearly understood by all audiences, even among children, to whom many of these compositions are directed .
Morals or message
The moral is a distinctive element of the fable because its function is to leave a teaching and invite the reader to reflect, and it does so by demonstrating what an idea, principle or value of a general character means in practice.
In this way, it tries to bring attention to issues that demand attention and leave them to the reader's reflection in the light of what has been shown with all the previous elements.
The message of a fable may also be designed to reflect on an issue that deserves to be reconsidered, rather than to mark a value directly positive.
For example, it may seek to reflect on the recurrence with which the human being makes use of violence to resolve a conflict.
In that case, the story would not expressly mention what should be reconsidered, but rather, through the actions and characters, a story would be represented in which a situation is shown that leads the reader to reconsider the subject.
conclusion
For all the above, many describe the fable as"a story invented to tell the truth,"or as a short story in which action is natural and imaginary agents, devised to show something that is generally not sufficiently recognized Through a great diversity of resources.
In conclusion, one can think of this literary genre as a short, simple and direct way of encapsulating messages of great transcendence, whose usefulness lies in transmitting messages about life and the human being that invite him to reflect on the way to lead his life In the daily life with respect to values universally considered as good or desirable.
Sources
- BLACKHAM, H. (2013). The fable as literature [online]. Retrieved June 29, 2017 on the World Wide Web: books.google.com
- Dido, J. (2009). Theory of the fable [online]. Accessed on June 29, 2017 on the World Wide Web: biblioteca.org.ar.
- Encyclopedia Britannica (f.f). fable . Accessed July 4, 2017 on the World Wide Web:.britannica.com.
- Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed June 29, 2017 on the World Wide Web: wikipedia.org.