Reading Notes: Native American Marriage Tales, Part A


(Female Fox
Flickr)

Hello everyone! I read the Native American Marriage Tales this week and enjoyed the stories. At times, I was confused by the writing and the plot when there was a transition or a shift in the story. Compared to my other readings, these stories are much longer in length. For this reason, the stories had great amounts of detail and many twist and turns. Some of the endings were unexpected also.

I will be discussing the Fox Women story in Part A's reading notes. This story was the shortest one in Part A and that is one of the reasons it stood out to me. The story was quick and direct without abruptly ending the story. The ending was quite surprising. It explained a natural phenomenon: why foxes and humans are not compatible with each other.

Once again, I had a few thoughts about the story. Why was the Fox Women attracted to this hunter in particular? Why did she help him? Did she need something from him or was she just happy to help?  Since the story mentioned that the Fox Women was a women wearing fox skin, I wondered if she transformed into a female fox in the end. That would explain the ending and explain why she ran away. This leads into some other questions. Why did the Fox-Women quickly run away after the hunter said she smelled bad? Did the hunter not accept her and her smell? Or was the Fox Women insecure about herself? I was not sure if this was the case, because the hunter's thoughts and the Fox Women's thoughts were not included. Dialogue could be added here to showcase their relationship. In addition, the story could be developed further to not only show their relationship, but also to see the character's background in depth. Learning about the Fox Women's background would be interesting to explore. Therefore, these are the things I am curious to explore!





Bibliography:
The Fox-Woman by Stith Thompson (1929) from the Native American Marriage Tales Unit

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