Reading Notes: West African Folktales, Part A

Why Spiders Are Always Found in Corners of Ceilings

I truly enjoyed this story because of the way everything was built up. I felt like I was riding a rocking wave because it would build me up to be excited for his farm then he would get robbed. Then it would build me up for making the rubber man to catch the robber, and then it would bring me back down when Anansi got caught. This made me take away the aspect of keeping the reader fully entertained. I was just seeking the climax but from multiple aspects which is something I want to try and resemble in my stories. At one point I forgot the title was why they are found in the corners because the author had me focused on other issues. I think the way this did it was through the detail in the hard work or the emotions of the different characters. I think as a reader you grew to have empathy for the different characters because their reactions were described so well. I normally focus on details in my reading notes because I think that is the most important thing for me to catch on to as a writer but this time I’m going to say the details in the reactions are truly what made this a better story. The descriptions of what caused things to occur like a chair reaction made it easy to flow with the story. Then as you were flowing it all came together and you realized why spiders hide in corners.

Honestly though this made me think of this story of an example of how to end the story as well. I think it could have gone more into detail with how he felt embarrassed to fully explain why he hid. I liked the ending by all means but as a writer I think I should focus on not leaving any descriptive nature out as this story seemed to do for me. 

A spider picture I found on Wikimedia Commons.

Bibliography:

This story is part of the West African Folktales unit. Story source: West African Folktales by William H. Barker and Cecilia Sinclair, with drawings by Cecilia Sinclair (1917).

The specific story link is above in the header.