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MABONGA TRIZAH NASAMBU

E35/3968/2020

TLT 313

CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

DR.MUMIA USAJI

INTRODUCTION
In most of the African tales, the authors try to write a tale which tries to submit most of the
European tales as well as showing the history of the respect country to the children. It is this
perspective which helps the prominent writers to compete with the modern world as well as
keeping up with the tradition. In this chapter, I am going to analyse the tale of Achebe of How
the Leopard Got its Claws. This is a splendid tale which helps in showing both the effects of
colonisation as well as trashing the Western patriarchal aspect which is prevalent in most of the
Western tales.

SYNOPSIS OF THE TALE.

This tale is written by Achebe. It is a postcolonial tale depicting the true nature of colonial
entities in the nation of Nigeria. The animals lived together with a king, Leopard. He was strong,
but gentle and wise. He ruled the animals well, and they all liked him. At that time the animals
did not fight one another. Most of them had no sharp teeth or claws. They did not need them.
Even King Leopard had only small teeth. He had no claws at all. Only the dog had big, sharp
teeth. The other animals said he was ugly, and they laughed at him. This tale shows that the
animals all lived together as a unit. But soon it would be the rainy season, and the animals would
have no shelter from the rain. The deer took this problem to King Leopard. They talked about it
for a long time. King Leopard decided to call the animals together to discuss it. One bright
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morning…King Leopard beat his royal drum. When the animals heard the drum, they gathered at
the village square. The tortoise was there. The goat was there, too. The sheep, the grass-cutter,
the monkey, the hedgehog, the baboon, the dog and many others were there. King Leopard
greeted them and said, “I have called you together to plan how we can make ourselves a common
shelter.” The dog had refused to cooperate with the rest of the animals and soon the rain came
and all the animals having built the shelter went to the shelter that they had built. This shelter
was able to hold all the animals that had helped in building the house. The rain was rain so
heavily and at first the dog was confident in his dentist the rain continued. It left him no choice
but to go to the shelter where the rest of the animals were. This was not met with kindness. The
rest of the animals were shocked to see the dog and they demanded that he leaves. He refused
and starting to throw the animals out. The King Leopard was not around when all this was
happening. Due to the dog’s sharp teeth, he was able to throw all the animals out. The deer was
already there. He was surprised to see the dog enter the hall. “What do you want here?” said the
deer to the dog. “It is none of your business,” replied the dog. “It is my business,” said the deer.
“Please go out, this hall is for those who built it.” Then the dog attacked the deer and bit him
with his big, sharp teeth. The deer cried with pain. The dog seized him by the neck and threw
him out into the rain. The other animals came in one after the other. The dog barked and threw
each of them out. They stood together shivering and crying in the rain. The dog kept barking and
showing his teeth. The dog even started to fight with the leopard and he even defeated him.
Afterwards, the leopard has to leave the kingdom to find ways to find ways to fight the dog.
When he was back, he was so strong that he ended up defeating the dog who went to search for
refused from man. This why all the relationship of animals broke.

REWRITTING OF THE TALE HOW THE LEOPARD GOT

ITS CLAWS BY ACHEBE.

Focusing on the setting of this tale: this tale is set in the postcolonial
Nigeria. Nigeria was a British colony and they were oppressed by these British imperialist who
grabbed their land and made most of them slaves. In this tale by Achebe, we get to read it with a
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sympathetic tone on the animals who in this are just the representation of the Africans. In this
tale, which is simply a children’s tale, the book discusses a lot of saline features. In this part of
my term paper, I look at just how the tale of How the Leopard got its Claws is a writer’s way of
showing that Children stories should communicate more than just showing fiction in the eyes of
the children. And attentive reader will agree that this tale is a master of the work of art.

The title comes to the meaning that it is derived in the image of the struggle against concept of
colonisation. In this text, we see a lot of colonisation concept in it. The leopard symbolises the
African country, generally the leopard is always found in the savannahs of Africa. Achebe uses
this strategy to show the deeper meaning of the African country. The leopard is an aggressive
animal which would protect its territory. What about the dog? The dog is the coloniser.

The coloniser is shown as brutal and oppressive. He is ready to kill to get what he has not
worked for. The shelter that the animal build is an African wealth. The animals represent the
Africans. The author, uses the strategy of animals to show those who are affected by the fact that
the coloniser invade the African countries.

The author Achebe has managed to show prowess by making the European power more weak.
By making the dog the tale’s villain, then as Africans, we see that decolonisation is a possuble
entity.The allegory that has been used is that of quality because an attentive reader understands
that these strategies make the work more appealing and educative to the readers. The dog has
been known to be weaker than the leopard. This is to me a very wise placement of the villain. If
the weaker predator is the villain, then it would be easy to defeat it. Through this, we get to see
that the dog has all this weapons for body parts like the sharp teeth and claws. These are the
weapons of the coloniser.

In the tale of Crusoe, we get to see how he has ammunition which he uses to kill the savages and
to scatter the dangers in the island. This tale of Crusoe when Analysed deeper, one gets that
sense of colonisation in it. The same way Crusoe kills the savages and names the island his own
in as much as he is just a stranger here symbolise the aspect of land grabbing which the
Europeans did to the Africans. The European imperialist came with weapons and ammunition in
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order to take down the Africans. Indeed the dog uses this sharp teeth to tear down the flesh of the
other animals. These weapons are the ones which make the animals to bow for him and also
respect him. Dog chases the leopard out of the home and makes him a refugee yet he is the ruler
of this land. This is how the Africans were chased from their native lands.

The Africans were forced to go to lands which were not fertile. After the leopard gets the claws,
the sound of thunder as well as more strength, he goes to attack the dog whom he finds in his
throne and the animals worship him. This difference between the coloniser and how the coloniser
is chased out of the African soil symbolises the subversion of the European superiority. It is clear
that even the European is superior but also has limits. They are also as weak as Africans. The
Africans can be seen as those who are able to take back their honour.

In this tale, the animals are given the traits of human beings, generally, the animals are living just
like human beings. When the farming season came round, King Leopard led the animals to their
farmland. They all worked hard to prepare their plots. At the end of the day they returned home
tired. They sat on log benches in the village square. As they rested they told stories and drank
palm wine. These are the qualities that human beings have and practices that they do. The
animals are presented as a set which live in peaceful harmony. They even have one ruler, the
ruler who is King Leopard, but here King Leopard is not the king in the Western tales like
Cinderella. He goes to the farm with the animals and this make it possible to avoid the class
difference.

This aspect shows both the subversions of the class difference as well as the subversions of
animals and humans. The tale of How the Leopard got its Claws is very different in terms of how
the animals and humans behave, these two are totally different. In another aspect, the animals are
in peaceful coexistence with the human beings. The King Leopard goes to the blacksmith to help
him in coming up with claws. The leopard travelled seven days and seven nights. Then he came
to the house of the blacksmith. The old man was sitting at his forge. The leopard said to him: “I
want the strongest teeth you can make from iron. And I want the most deadly claws you can
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make from bronze.” The blacksmith said: “Why do you need such terrible things?” The Leopard
told his story. Then the blacksmith said: “I do not blame you.”

Achebe has rewritten the tale by showing how the wilderness is different from the civilisation.
The wilderness is portrayed as a space which has a comfort and goodness. In European tales like
Robinson Crusoe the hero dominates the land and is seen as exploiting it.

In the tale of How the Leopard Got its Claws the wild space is not a place to be dominated but
rather to be loved and learnt in a way that we can see its goodness. The wilderness that Crusoe
lives in is destroyed by overhunting and domestication of the wild creatures, here the animals are
not restrained in their shelters, they move freely without any fear. This underscores the issue of
subversion of the wilderness and civilisation.

In the African tale, the point of view does not lie with the hero but it can be seen that the point of
view of all animals is taken into consideration. The hero is not known in this tale because at one
point we see that the King Leopard is the hero but then again we see that he turns to be cruel.
This twist, leaves the reader to ask themselves if this story has any hero at all.

The palm wine in this story is a strong symbol of the Nigerian culture. This drink symbolises
the indigenous culture of the author. The author appreciate the indigenous culture and this is very
different from the European tales where the indigenous culture is ostracised and trashed. What
better way to enjoy the culture than to show the elements of culture in your story. This is what
Achebe has mastered in his art work. This story flawlessly depicts just how the culture of
indigenous races

The story discussed in this term paper shows that it is possible to retain the linear pattern of the
hero tale with its succession of exciting incidents without reaffirming the traditional dualisms
that have shaped our thinking. In this story the protagonists are not fanatical men of action, noted
for its outstanding prowess and courage, guided by single-minded devotion to their goals,
struggling against opponents whom they condemn as evil, and determined by asserting their
mastery. They are not constrained by an arid rationalism and they do not deny or distrust their
emotions. They are not invulnerable to doubt, disappointment and defeat. They are not
superheroes. They are like all the rest of us, and they include females, nonEuropeans and other
outsiders. They are impelled by the urge to survive, by love, and by curiosity the desire to learn
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and to understand themselves and the world about them better. Because their sensitivities are not
shut off by prior certainties they do observe and learn, and this process is at least as interesting
and exciting for the reader as the traditional tales’ accounts of hairbreadth escapes and fights
with dragons and other enemies, the outcomes of which are always predetermined. The story of
Achebe is one of the un-put-downable books that has shown just how most of the Western tales
can be rewritten.