Metaphor by Metaphor

Identify the differences between scene and summary in “The Zebra Storyteller” by Spencer Hoist below and in Lan Samatha Chang’s “The Eve of the Spirit Festival” in the PDF that follows.

The Zebra Storyteller

Spencer Hoist

Once upon a time there was a Siamese cat who pretended to be a lion and spoke inappropriate Zebraic.

That language is whinnied by the race of striped horses in Africa.

Here now: An innocent zebra is walking in a jungle and approaching from another direction is the little cat; they meet.

“Hello there!” says the Siamese cat in perfectly pronounced Zebraic. “It certainly is a pleasant day, isn’t it? The sun is shining, the birds are singing. Isn’t the world a lovely place to live today!”

The zebra is so astonished at hearing a Siamese cat speaking like a zebra, why—he’s just fit to be tied.

So the little cat quickly ties him up, kills him, and drags the better parts of the carcass back to his den.

The cat successfully hunted zebras many months in this manner, dining on filet mignon of zebra every night, and from the better hides he made bow neckties and wide belts after the fashion of the decadent princes of the Old Siamese court.

He began to boast to his friends he was a lion, and he gave them as proof the fact that he hunted zebras.

The delicate noses of the zebras told them there was really no lion in the neighborhood. The zebra deaths caused many to avoid the region. Superstitious, they decided the woods were haunted by the ghost of a lion.

One day the storyteller of the zebras was ambling, and through his mind ran plots for stories to amuse the other zebras, when suddenly his eyes brightened, and he said, “That’s’ it! I’ll tell a story about a Siamese cat who learns to speak our language! What an idea! That’ll make ‘em laugh!”

Just then, the Siamese cat appeared before him, and said, “Hello there! Pleasant day today, isn’t it!”

The zebra storyteller wasn’t fit to be tied at hearing a cat speaking his language because he’d been thinking about that very thing.

He took a good look at the cat, and he didn’t know why, but there was something about his looks he didn’t like, so he kicked him with a hoof and killed him.

That is the function of the storyteller.

Here is a link to Lan Samatha Chang’s “The Eve of the Spirit Festival.”

1. Identify fiction-writing techniques by quoting two examples (if you are taking this class as 3420) or four examples (if you are taking this class as 4420) you find in the story I’ve handed out.
2. Explain why each quotation from step one is an example of the technique you suggest.
3. Now write a new example of each technique. Do not merely quote your own work from earlier in the semester.
4. Email your finished exam to me.

Form small groups to address each of these sets of questions.

1. What sort of “contract with the reader” is created early in each story? What expectations are likely in readers as a result of the way each story begins?
2. Discuss the disadvantages of adding the sentence “And then she slowly blinked her third eye” to the end of each story. Why, specifically, would that probably be a poor choice?
3. Which story uses setting more? How do you know? Describe the advantages and disadvantages of the approach to setting in each story.
4. Describe the ratio of scene to summary in each story. Is there a range between scene and summary? If so, provide examples of extremes and middle ranges. How does each story control its presentation of time?
5. What does each story do to hold a reader’s attention? What gives each story tension? Provide quotations to support your answers.