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Revisiting the Ancient Fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper Adapted in Maugham's Short Story

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Revisiting the Ancient Fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper Adapted in Maugham's Short Story Journal of English Language and Literature Volume 12 No. 3 December 2019 "Comparisons are Odious?" Revisiting the Ancient Fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper Adapted in Maugham's Short Story Muhammad Reazul Islam Lecturer, Department of English, King Khalid University, KSA. mraleslam[at]kku[dot]edu[dot]sa Abstract- The article seeks to locate a comparative study of the meanings and the morals of a popular ancient fable, adapted by William Somerset Maugham in his short story, The Ant and the Grasshopper. The comparison and contrast in adapting the fable generated an intense academic debate about the appropriate policies of life, a human should undergo. Alike the ancient fable, the setting of the story opens with the conversation between an industrious ant and its reluctant counterpart, a grasshopper. Although the story of the fable is embodied with a moral where industry is rewarded and giddiness punished, we see a completely different scenario at the end of the story. Therefore, it is an irony of the moral conflict between two Ramsay brothers, namely George Ramsay, a man of ethics and Tom Ramsay, a man of a fantasy world. Throughout the story, The Ant and the Grasshopper, Maugham's effort to portray the themes of justice, trust, fear, morality, embarrassment, happiness and struggle is indeed praiseworthy. But, at the same time, it has aroused a hypothesis of seeking out the ultimate principles of life. The paper considers the development of the Greek fable from its origin to the later adaptations, including the version of La Fontaine, a French fabulist, and the final reversal to a counter-fable by Maugham. It also includes a web of researches in the corresponding fields, and a synthesis resulting from the causes and effects of indebtedness and unemployment that can eventually affect the economy through fluctuations in confidence. The further objective of this work illustrates the misconception and mockery of a man of letter and the eventual paradoxes he has to face in reality. Finally, it concludes with an inception that a postmodern world like ours needs not only a determined and preset humane policy, but also a new narrative, and liberal outlook to survive or live in luxury. General Terms- fable; counter-fable Key words- Maugham; ant; grasshopper; industry; giddiness; reversal William Somerset Maugham, well known as a pure (Zlobina 3) gentleman author of 20th century, has a superb mastery in In the short story The Ant and the Grasshopper Maugham making vivid characterization throughout his literary has brought a pair of Ramsay brothers before us, who have works. The characters in his stories seem to be very natural been symbolically playing the roles of the ant and the and most of the time, they have been picked from his grasshopper in the ancient fable, originated in Greece and surroundings. His vigorous clarity and deftness make the then adapted in many languages and literatures around the portrayal of the characters spontaneous. This is how Maya world. This article deals with the correlation between the Zlobina (1962) pointed out the magnificent techniques of morals of the fable and the short story of Maugham. Maugham's characterization in the article The Surprises in Besides, it points out the adaptation of the Greek fable and Somerset Maugham: its eventual reversal to a counter-fable. Moreover, it With characteristic candor Maugham contains a critical appreciation on the two different modes admits that human beings interest him of philosophy of life with a final justification. In brief, it only insofar as they furnish material for finds out the answers of the academic debates how his work. It would seem therefore that he Maugham is successful in switching a fable into a counter- collects characters as the stamp fable through his intellectual enigma. collector collects postage stamps. Thus The short story The Ant and the Grasshopper starts Maugham has long had the reputation of abruptly with a haunting memory of the narrator's innocent an astute, ironic and unerring master of childhood. He reminds the innate faculty of a young mind his art, a gentleman writer who with a when the child is offered with a moral tale by a mentor or certain aloofness and indulgence takes an elder of the family. In the setting of the story, Maugham stock of the vicissitudes of his fellow points out how carefully the moral of the fables of La men. © TechMind Research 1181 | P a g e Journal of English Language and Literature Volume 12 No. 3 December 2019 Fontaine have been explained to the narrator during his many classical authors named Aesop as the pioneer of early age. This is how the narrator mentions: fables. For instance: Herodotus (484-425 BC), the ancient Among those I learnt was The Ant and Greek historian in the time of Persian Empire, calls Aesop the Grasshopper, which is devised to a 'writer of fables' and Aristophanes (446-386 BC), a bring home to the young the useful comic playwright of ancient Athens, speaks of 'reading' lesson that in an imperfect world Aesop, but that might be a simple compilation of fables industry is rewarded and giddiness ascribed to him. This is how Sophocles, (497/6-406/5 BC) punished. In this admirable fable (I the Greek tragedian made an epigram with the light of the apologise for telling something which Aesop's fable North Wind and the Sun and addressed everyone is politely, but inexactly, Euripides, (480-406 BC) another contemporary tragedian supposed to know) the ant spends a for his adultery: laborious summer gathering its winter It was the sun, not the boy, who stripped store; while the grasshopper sits on a me blade of grass singing to the sun. Winter Of my cloak, Euripides; but the north comes and the ant is comfortably wind went provided for, but the grasshopper has an With you, when you made love to empty larder: he goes to the ant and another man's wife. begs for a little food. Then the ant gives You are not wise, when sowing another's him her classic answer: field, "What were you doing in the summer To bring Eros to court for being a time?" snatch-thief. (Sophocles, tr.Yonge) "Saving your presence, I sang, I sang all Again, while in prison, Socrates (470-399 BC) turned day, all night." some of the fables into verse which has been translated "You sang. Why, then go and dance." thoroughly by Benjamin Jowett in 1892. Some few verses (Maugham) have been quoted below. But we know, unlike the other common children, the The seen is the changing, and the unseen is the young narrator was not confronted with the moral of the unchanging. fable. Instead of praising the laborious ant, his young mind That may be also supposed. showed sympathy to the poor grasshopper. Out of his And, further, is not one part of us body, and the innocent enigma, he could not sum up the provided rest of us soul? meaning and moral of the story. Rather, he started growing To be sure. a kind of hatred towards the ant community in general. And to which class may we say that the body is This is how he expressed his immediate action to the moral more alike and akin? of the fable: Clearly to the seen: no one can doubt that. I do not ascribe it to perversity on my And is the soul seen or not seen? part, but rather to the inconsequence of Not by man, Socrates. childhood, which is deficient in moral And by "seen" and "not seen" is meant by us that sense, that I could never quite reconcile which is or is not visible to the eye of man? myself to the lesson. My sympathies were Yes, to the eye of man. with the grasshopper and for some time I And what do we say of the soul? is that seen or never saw an ant without putting my foot not seen? on it. (Maugham) Not seen. Prior to illustrate the applied approaches of the fable let us Unseen then? consider the origin and adaptations of it in the pages of Yes. literature. According to the recorded history, this is one of Then the soul is more like to the unseen, and the the fables first told by Aesop, the renowned ancient Greek body to the seen? fabulist, in the 5th century BC. The Ant and the That is most certain, Socrates. (Plato, tr. Jowett) Grasshopper, alternatively titled The Grasshopper and the Roman poet and playwright Quintus Ennius (239-169 BC) Ant is numbered 373 in the Perry Index, an official index also rendered few of the Aesop's fables in Latin verse, of of Aesop's Fables, also known as Aesopica. which some few examples still exist as popular parables. The Aesop Romance, an ancient episodic literary work, An example of Aesop's use of tetrameter verse is claims that Aesop was the sole author of these early fables remarkable in the adaptation in Latin by Ennius in his and he wrote them for the library of Croesus, the ancient Saturae. In a translation of Aulus Cornelius Gellius, Bill king of Lydia, who according to Herodotus, reigned for 14 Thayer very cleverly and gracefully mentions: years: from 560 BC until his defeat by the Persian king The following are the last two lines of that Cyrus the Great in 546 BC. Collections of what are version, and I surely think it is worthwhile to considered to be Aesop's fables have been transmitted by a remember them and take them to heart: series of contemporary Greek and Latin authors.
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