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The Days When the Animals Talked: Black American Folktales and How They Came to Be
Presents more than 20 Afro-American folktales featuring the escapades of Brer Rabbit and more than 10 tales describing the lives of Afro-American slaves.
- GenresShort StoriesAnimals
190 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 13, 2025
“Please tell us a story from the book that’s inside you.”
There has been a lot of criticism of the “Uncle Remus” Brer Rabbit stories, even though the stories themselves are decently accurate as far as reflecting the plot of these folktales. Partly this is due to how Disney chose to depict them and their narrator in ‘Song of the South’ (that minstrely-looking tar baby, OOF!). But the fact that Joel Chandler Harris was a white man who learned these stories while working for a newspaper owned by a plantation owner in the 1860s, wrote them in language that tried to capture an accent white Americans often mocked, and invented a fictional narrator who has a purely friendly relationship with a fictional white listener instead of crediting the enslaved people who actually told him the stories…yeah, I see why that doesn’t sit right with a lot of folks! So, if you want to get to know Brer Rabbit and his friends without that baggage – give this book a try!
Faulkner reports in the introduction that he learned these tales as a child from a formerly enslaved man named Simon Brown and that while he initially enjoyed them for the cheeky animals, as he grew up he realized they were allegories of resistance. And, certainly, if you compare these stories to some of their African progenitors – the tales of Anansis/Spider (The Adventures of Spider: West African Folktales) or Hare (When Hippo Was Hairy and Other Tales from Africa) – you will definitely see more emphasis on the underdog aspect of Brer Rabbit. A couple of these tales even include collective action, such as when Brer Rabbit organizes the other creatures of the wood to take down a resource-hoarding tiger! Faulker includes occasional dialect words (such as “gilyard” for “dragon”) but otherwise writes in standard English, as part of his goal was for Black oral literature to be treated with the same seriousness and respect as other storytelling traditions. And, while the idea that something has to be in standard English to be respected rubs me the wrong way a little…it IS certainly true that you don’t pick up a book of Norse myths and find the author trying to write in a Norwegian accent!
The connection of these stories to the struggle for Black freedom is made more obvious here because the first third of the book is actually Simon’s stories of living under slavery. In the very first, “A slave’s dangerous courtship”, he recounts how he wanted to marry a girl living on a nearby plantation, but the owners’ sons there kept trying to kill him because they wanted to keep her for themselves – which sets a pretty damn serious tone! But Simon is also clearly talking himself up, just like Brer Rabbit, and you can see how someone could find strength in almost impossible circumstances by comparing themselves to the trickster.
So, why isn’t this 5 stars? Uggh, in many ways I feel it should be. But I rate these on personal reading experience (bumped up a bit for more objective literary merit) and one aspect kept dragging it down: misogyny! And I KNOW we’re talking about stories told by a guy who grew up in the 1800s…but at least in The Adventures of Spider: West African Folktales we get Spider’s wife Aso giving him his comeuppance for being a freeloading partner! Brer Rabbit, on the other hand, first seeks a wife because he doesn’t want to do housework, and the happy ending is that he never had to wash a dish again! Moreover, because the collection tries to have narrative consistency, Brer Rabbit ends up having THREE nameless brides who just get handed over by their mothers because he won a contest – and did the first two just die? I mean, it wouldn't be unusual for the 1800s but treating them as so interchangeable - ick. The woman Simon was trying to marry in the first story does get a name (Ellen) but we never see any indication of how upsetting and dangerous the whole situation would have been for her - it’s written like Simon and the white boys are just in competition for her as property – nor do we ever find out what happened to her afterward. The stories are old, but the book was published in 1993; some footnotes or narrator interjections, at least, might have been nice!
There has been a lot of criticism of the “Uncle Remus” Brer Rabbit stories, even though the stories themselves are decently accurate as far as reflecting the plot of these folktales. Partly this is due to how Disney chose to depict them and their narrator in ‘Song of the South’ (that minstrely-looking tar baby, OOF!). But the fact that Joel Chandler Harris was a white man who learned these stories while working for a newspaper owned by a plantation owner in the 1860s, wrote them in language that tried to capture an accent white Americans often mocked, and invented a fictional narrator who has a purely friendly relationship with a fictional white listener instead of crediting the enslaved people who actually told him the stories…yeah, I see why that doesn’t sit right with a lot of folks! So, if you want to get to know Brer Rabbit and his friends without that baggage – give this book a try!
Faulkner reports in the introduction that he learned these tales as a child from a formerly enslaved man named Simon Brown and that while he initially enjoyed them for the cheeky animals, as he grew up he realized they were allegories of resistance. And, certainly, if you compare these stories to some of their African progenitors – the tales of Anansis/Spider (The Adventures of Spider: West African Folktales) or Hare (When Hippo Was Hairy and Other Tales from Africa) – you will definitely see more emphasis on the underdog aspect of Brer Rabbit. A couple of these tales even include collective action, such as when Brer Rabbit organizes the other creatures of the wood to take down a resource-hoarding tiger! Faulker includes occasional dialect words (such as “gilyard” for “dragon”) but otherwise writes in standard English, as part of his goal was for Black oral literature to be treated with the same seriousness and respect as other storytelling traditions. And, while the idea that something has to be in standard English to be respected rubs me the wrong way a little…it IS certainly true that you don’t pick up a book of Norse myths and find the author trying to write in a Norwegian accent!
The connection of these stories to the struggle for Black freedom is made more obvious here because the first third of the book is actually Simon’s stories of living under slavery. In the very first, “A slave’s dangerous courtship”, he recounts how he wanted to marry a girl living on a nearby plantation, but the owners’ sons there kept trying to kill him because they wanted to keep her for themselves – which sets a pretty damn serious tone! But Simon is also clearly talking himself up, just like Brer Rabbit, and you can see how someone could find strength in almost impossible circumstances by comparing themselves to the trickster.
So, why isn’t this 5 stars? Uggh, in many ways I feel it should be. But I rate these on personal reading experience (bumped up a bit for more objective literary merit) and one aspect kept dragging it down: misogyny! And I KNOW we’re talking about stories told by a guy who grew up in the 1800s…but at least in The Adventures of Spider: West African Folktales we get Spider’s wife Aso giving him his comeuppance for being a freeloading partner! Brer Rabbit, on the other hand, first seeks a wife because he doesn’t want to do housework, and the happy ending is that he never had to wash a dish again! Moreover, because the collection tries to have narrative consistency, Brer Rabbit ends up having THREE nameless brides who just get handed over by their mothers because he won a contest – and did the first two just die? I mean, it wouldn't be unusual for the 1800s but treating them as so interchangeable - ick. The woman Simon was trying to marry in the first story does get a name (Ellen) but we never see any indication of how upsetting and dangerous the whole situation would have been for her - it’s written like Simon and the white boys are just in competition for her as property – nor do we ever find out what happened to her afterward. The stories are old, but the book was published in 1993; some footnotes or narrator interjections, at least, might have been nice!
October 25, 2024
1st two hours was fine - last 1/2 of book was brer rabbit - never liked
October 2, 2012
Fascinating, powerful, and highly engaging, I was surprised to come across this collection of Black American folktales, collected by Faulkner from a former slave and friend/family employee who recounted them to him and influenced his storytelling future. It is one of the most important things I'll ever read.
The introductions are brilliant.
The introductions are brilliant.
February 16, 2014
When I was little, my step mom use to read to me. As I got older I had no idea what the stories were all about. I loved it as a little kid and love the stories now as an adult.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews