The Tortoise and the Hare
Have you heard of the fable about a tortoise and a hare? Let me recap it for you.
Two animals decide to race for some reason. And they aren’t doing a hundred-meter sprint. Apparently, they are both fans of long distances. When I hear the story it always feels like they ran a marathon or at least a 10K, although the fable doesn’t specify the length of the race.
But no matter how long the race is, here’s how the story ends: The tortoise wins.
That’s an odd way to summarize the fable, for anyone who is familiar with it. The story is basically about the hare—not about the tortoise. The hare gets out to such an early lead that he has all sorts of sojourns and adventures along the way. What the listener or reader hears about is the hare getting up to all sorts of fun. Occasionally, there is a very unexciting update about how the tortoise is just plodding along, trying to catch up. It’s the same update every time.
Basically, the tortoise only wins because the hare gets all tuckered out from having so much fun that he falls asleep. He naps for so long that the tortoise has crossed the finish line by the time he catches up, something like that.
What’s the point?
Well, as someone who identifies with the tortoise most of the time, it was pretty funny to have someone else remind me that the tortoise is the winner. Because it doesn’t look like it for the large majority of the story.
I thought about this weird dissonance, how logically I knew that the tortoise won and yet he really doesn’t feel like a winner. I think the crowd does cheer him on after he wins, though, so that’s nice. Victory for the tortoise!
(Sidenote: I honestly think a modern retitling of this fable would be just The Hare. It’s his story. Even though he loses, I’m pretty sure everyone thinks he only lost on a technicality.)
With the launch of The Writer’s Cat under my belt, which took a while to get to, this just felt relevant. I don’t know if I have a point, actually. Maybe to celebrate the wins, because otherwise it’s so easy to lose sight of them.
Also…
It’s fun to retell a well-known fable, fairytale, or legend. Trust me, lots of writers do it.
Later, reader!