Reading Week 9 Part A Notes: Brer Rabbit

 Brer Rabbit Notes Part A

Artwork by Kenket. (Source: Deviant Art )

The Calamus Root

-Southern Accent sounding

-descriptive in how Brer Rabbit looks

-third-person
-"looking just as plump, and as fat, and as sassy as a Morgan horse in a barley-patch."
-"mending his licks"-

-"confab"- conversation

-"holler from where you stad"

-"ain't"

-"calamus root"

The Wonderful Tar Baby Story

-Brer Fox mixed up tar and turpentine and made a contraption called a "Tar-Baby"

-"Brer Rabbit pacing down the road — lippity-clippity, clippity-lippity — just as sassy as a jaybird"

-How does your symptoms seem to segashuate?" says Brer Rabbit, says he."-means "how are you?"

-"but Tar-Baby ain't saying nothing."- repetitive sentence 

-Brer Rabbit hit the tar-baby and got stuck

-Brer Fox laughs at Brer Rabbit

Why Mr. Possum Loves Peace

-intro brer possum and brer coon

-"just as sociable as a basket of kittens"

-Brer Possum fell over like he was dead in front of the dog

-"skaddling through the woods like it was shot out of a musket."

-Brer coon calls brer possum a coward

-"And down to this day, Brer Possum's bound to surrender when you touch him in the short ribs, and he'll laugh if he knows he's going to be smashed for it."

How Mr. Rabbit Was Too Sharp For Mr. Fox

-Brer Fox plans to barbeque Brer Rabbit

-Rabbit repeatedly tells Fox not to fling him in the brier patch

-Because Fox wanted to hurt Brer Rabbit as badly as possible he flung him by his back legs into the brier patch

Mr. Fox is Outdone by Mr. Buzzard

-Buzzard was supposed to be guarding the tree where Rabbit was at

-Rabbit escaped and Buzzard tricked Fox into cutting down the tree still'

-"I done been tampered with till plumb down to the sapsucker'll sit on a log and sassy me."

Mr. Wolf Makes a Failure

-proverbs

-gossip about how Rabbit tricked Fox

- "they sort of palavered on"

-Wolf tricking Rabbit by saying Fox died

-"tear out the house like the dogs was after him."

Mr. Fox Tackles Old Man Tarrypin

-"terrapin"- turtle

-"you don't know what trouble is"-repetitive 

-tricks Fox into letting him go in the water

The Awful Fate of Mr. Wolf

-Folks what's always pestering people, and bothering about that what ain't theirs, don't never come to no good end.-life lesson

-"What you doing now, Brer Rabbit?" -repetitive

Bibliography:

Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings, by Joel Chandler Harris (1881).