Analyzing Literary Text
Write an Essay
The story The Swallow and the Pumpkinseed is a folktale and Don’t Count Your Chickens is written in the style of a folktale. In many folktales, some characters are rewarded for their positive qualities or values. Other characters are punished or do not have success due to their negative qualities or values. The characters and events teach the reader a lesson about life. What life lesson or important values do you think the younger brothers in the two stories help readers understand? Write a three-paragraph essay that tells your response.
Paragraph 1: Write an introductory paragraph that identifies the main characters in The Swallow and the Pumpkinseed and Don’t Count Your Chickens. Tell what life lesson or important values the younger brothers in the two stories help the readers understand.
Paragraph 2: Explain how the qualities or values of the younger brothers in the stories are different from those of their older brothers. Use details from the stories to contrast the character traits and points of view of the younger brothers with those of their older brothers.
Paragraph 3: Explain what you think the authors want readers to learn from the younger brothers in the stories. Tell how the plot events and the authors’ use of language and literary devices to support your ideas. End your paragraph with a sentence that restates the lesson or values that the characters in the stories convey to readers.
Use details from the stories to support your ideas in the essay.
The Swallow and the Pumpkinseed and Don’t Count Your Chickens have similar plots and characters. Swallow and the Pumpkinseed is about two brothers, Heung Bu and Nol Bu, who live as neighbors. But on a spring day when the brothers were out planting, Heung Bu finds a wounded swallow. He nurses it back to health and is rewarded with a single pumpkinseed. Heung Bu plants the seed and is rewarded for his kindness. Nol Bu, jealous of his brother's good fortune, seeks out a wounded swallow of his own. Don’t Count Your Chickens is about three brothers that live together on a Caribbean island. Two brothers have dreams of German motorcycles and Japanese CD players, but only one brother, the youngest, does the work around the house. Drought and storms threaten to take away all that the youngest brother has worked for, but Grandmother's proverbs remind him that life and time will choose whether we win or lose.
In both stories the younger brothers are kind and caring, but the older brothers are more interested in gaining more wealth. In The Swallow and the Pumpkinseed, Heung Bu cares for an injured swallow and is rewarded for his kindness with a single pumpkin seed and plants it but when Nol Bu breaks open the pumpkin he is punished for his greed. In Don’t Count Your Chickens the two older brothers find the watermelon that their younger brother Juancho cared for, and they take it to the fair to get money.
I think that the author of The Swallow and the Pumpkinseed wanted readers to learn from Nol Bu that people shouldn’t do bad things to be better than someone else. I also think that Heung Bu’s point of view teaches readers to be caring and forgiving. In Don’t Count Your Chickens, I think that the author wants readers to learn that some people will always talk instead of work, while others work and get things done instead of only talking. The end of the story shows that even though the points of views of the brother and grandmother don’t change, they are still a family and the hard work of Juancho makes his family’s life better.