Week 7 Story Planning: The Panther

The Panther:

• Characters: The mother, the son, two daughters, the panther, needle-vendor, scorpion-catcher, egg-seller, dealer in turtles, man who sold wooden clubs

  

  The Panther: WebSource

• Summary: This story was very much like little red riding hood. In this story, a mother and a son went to visit their grandmother, upon their journey in the woods they came across a panther. The panther would not leave them alone and eventually convinced the mother to rest  a while, upon resting, the panther convinced the mother to let him "brush" her hair. This led to him pulling out chunks of skin and eventually eating her and her son, placing the sons small bones in a basket the mother had with her. The panther then stole the mother's clothes. He decided to dress up like the mother and return to her home. When he returned he knocked on the door, but the daughters were questioning him about how he looked different. They first said, Our mothers eyes are not as large as yours, the panther replied that he had saw hens laying eggs at the grandmothers and he was pleased. Then they said that their mother did not have spots on her face. The panther replied that the grandmother had not spare bed so he had to sleep on peas. The girls then said our mothers feet are not that big. Frustrated at this point, the panther said it was from walking for so long. He had an explanation for everything and eventually the two daughters decided it had to be their mother. As soon as they opened the door, they knew it was not so. Later on, they saw the panther eating and asked if they could have some. You see, the panther had saved the little brothers bones for later and that is what he was eating. He gave the daughters a small finger and they immediately knew what had happened. They escaped the house and climbed a tree. They lured the panther out by saying they were watching a neighbors wedding. The panther said he could not climb, so they decided to throw him a basket. When the panther was in the basket on the way up, the girls started rocking the basket and hitting the tree. This caused the panther to fall out and this revelaed his true identity. He then ran away. The girls were terrified and knew he would be back to eat them. They did not climb down from the tree until morning. The next morning, the sat on their door step sobbing, when a needle-vendor passed by. When he saw the distraught girls, he asked them why they were sad. When they told him, he gave them needles to place in the cushions of the arms chair. Next a scorpion-vendor can by and after hearing what had happened he gave them a scorpion and told them to place it next to the torch. Next an egg-seller came along and after hearing their story gave them an egg and told them to put it in the ashes. Next came long a turtle-dealer and when hearing their story he gave them a turtle and told them to place it in a water bucket. Next came a man who sold wooden clubs, when hearing their story he gave them clubs and told them to hang them over the door to the street. When the wolf returned he first sat in the needles, which poked him, when he ran to grab a torch the scorpion stung his, when he looked down into the fire the egg exploded blinding him, he then ran to the trough where the turtle bit him, and when he ran out the door the clubs fell on his head and killed him.
   
• My idea: For this story, I want to retell it in the panthers perspective. I want to know what made him choose the mother and her son. Were they the first humans he came across? Why did he decide to go to the house? Was he starving and in need of a lot of food or was he just pure evil. I also may change the story ending. Maybe make the panther learn his lesson and make him friends with the daughters. But could they ever trust him? Could the panther ever go against his instincts? Why could he not just eat animals? I am not sure which way I would go with, but we will see
• Research: 
• The Panther: As in most stories, animals have a meaning, so to begin my research I started by looking up the meaning of panther in Chinese culture. I found this quite ironic, in Chinese culture, the panther typically represents taming of cruelty. In this story, the panther was anything but tame. He devoured a mother and a son, and then tormented the daughters. Knowing this information, I could retell the story and maybe make this the story where the panther earns his representation. Maybe in the story, the family's love for one another could have been so prevailing that the panther decided to swear off eating humans, causing this to be taming of cruelty.
• Chinese Folklore: From researching chinese folklore, I learned that most folklore is relating to human nature, love, historical events, the supernatural and stories explaining natural phenomenon. This makes perfect sense. All the stories I read this week from the chinese fairy tales unit involved these things. I believe that this unit did a really good job of portraying all the variety of story types that can be told.
• Bibliography: 
• Wilhem, R. Chinese Fairy Tales Unit: The Chinese Fairy Book: The Panther. 1921.
• “Animal symbolism in Chinese art 兽 shòu.” Symbolism of Animals in Chinese Art.
• “Chinese folklore.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 Oct. 2017.