The Race Between Toad And Donkey By Roger D. Abrahams

Strength is typically defined as a beneficial quality of being strong . It is a word of many meanings that exemplifies what one may need to succeed. While there are both physical and mental strength, those who posses the latter, are more likely to accomplish their goals. Cleverness. Another word of many meanings that exemplifies what is even more important to succeed. By being clever, those will be able to outwit their opponent. In the stories “Two Ways to Count to Ten” by Frances Carpenter, and “The Race Between Toad and Donkey” by Roger D. Abrahams, the authors demonstrate the theme of success by comparing the actions of weak animals. In the text by Frances Carpenter, there is a contest in which the animal that can throw a spear up in the

In “The Race Between Toad and Donkey” by Roger D. Abrahams there is a race between a toad and donkey. The king’s instructions were that every time the animal reaches a milepost, they must yell out. The donkey boasts about how he will surely beat the toad, which results in the toad coming up with a clever plan. While the donkey is asleep, the toad takes his twenty children and hides one of them at each milepost. He tells them to listen for the donkey, and cry out whenever they heard the donkey. On page 752 it states, “And Donkey got so sad in his mind that he just gave up after a while, sad because he knew he had lost that race. So through Toad’s smartness, Donkey can never be a racer again.” As a result, because of the toad’s cleverness, the donkey is left in shock since he was expecting to win. Since the children cried out as soon as the donkey did, the donkey got extremely confused and starts getting upset. Although what the toad did was clever, he did it by cheating. Consequently, donkey was mentally affected and would never race again, thus demonstrating that cleverness can be taken too far, resulting in numerous repercussions. In conclusion, one can be successful by being clever, but one should not cheat in order to