Story Of The Bird That Made Milk Comparative Essay

For centuries, cultures have passed down tales of moral and creation, through books, films and, most commonly, word of mouth. It is clear to anyone that some of these stories have many shared qualities and points, despite the different places of origin. Hansel and Gretel is one such beloved story found across the globe, the “Baba Yaga” of Russia, the African “Story of the Bird That Made Milk” and the commonly told “Hansel and Gretel” by the brothers Grimm, to name a few. Each have quite unmissable connections to each other, where it be similar sets of characters,

The theme of greed shines through each and every one of these tales, and if we look through the history of these places of origin it’s quite clear why this is so. From the harsh

Nearly every story throughout time has had an underlying lesson in it’s depth that teaches children, guides characters and separates protagonist from antagonist with a very fine line. In Hansel and Gretel, we see an old woman lead the two children into her enticing home, caring for them with a good meal and two nice beds, only to be told that she “was a wicked witch, who was lying in wait there for children” after all. This reveals the overall morale of the tale, it being that not everything is how they appear. Through the African retelling, though, we see a different and less familiar message. As the two parents grow fat on the milk of the bird, Lonci asks her brother “Why does father get fat and we remain so thin?” and both clueless, they devise a plan to find this source of food, managing to catch their father feeding in the middle of the night. With this new discovery, the children accidentally let the bird free of it’s cage, leaving the entire family with nothing but the knowledge that if the parents only told their children the truth of the matter, they would still be happy and well