The Ant and the Grasshopper - Stop Comparing or You Will Never Be Happy!
Stop Comparing or You Will Never Be Happy!
Aesop’s fable “The Ant and the Grasshopper” is a famous moral lesson about how hard work and austerity pays out at the End. While the grasshopper sings and enjoys himself in the summer, the ant is hard working and preparing for the winter. At the end, the grasshopper cannot find food to survive the hard winter. Whereas, the ant is well prepared and has no worries about the upcoming winter. The grasshopper begs the ant for food but the ant refuses to help him. In his modern adaptation, W. Somerset Maugham provides us with a setting of two brothers. While the older brother, George, is hard working and saving money for his retirement. The younger brother, Tom, is enjoying himself and his life. Tom has no permanent job or relationship. Even though, he tried to be like his brother George, he soon recognizes that he is not like his brother and that he will no longer compare himself with his older brother. On the other hand, George always compares himself with his younger brother and sees himself as a superior. As soon as Tom regains his luck and becomes rich in the end, George cannot bear this and is envious of his Brother. For me the story of Mr. Somerset Maugham is different from Aesop’s fable. It is a story about comparing yourself to someone else and to despair of it. In the following essay, I will try how the writer is characterizing his protagonists and how my perception of them changed during the story.
Firstly, the author draws a kind of negative picture of Tom and a positive of George. He describes George as a respectable, hard-working and loving family father, who has to care for “his unfortunate brother” (Line 21). Moreover, Mr. Somerset Maugham shows some compassion for George. “I was sorry for him.” (Line 20). On the other side, he describes Tom as, the black sheep of the family (Line 30), first trying to be like his brother and then leaving his wife and children to enjoy himself. What is more, Tom, has just
Aesop’s fable “The Ant and the Grasshopper” is a famous moral lesson about how hard work and austerity pays out at the End. While the grasshopper sings and enjoys himself in the summer, the ant is hard working and preparing for the winter. At the end, the grasshopper cannot find food to survive the hard winter. Whereas, the ant is well prepared and has no worries about the upcoming winter. The grasshopper begs the ant for food but the ant refuses to help him. In his modern adaptation, W. Somerset Maugham provides us with a setting of two brothers. While the older brother, George, is hard working and saving money for his retirement. The younger brother, Tom, is enjoying himself and his life. Tom has no permanent job or relationship. Even though, he tried to be like his brother George, he soon recognizes that he is not like his brother and that he will no longer compare himself with his older brother. On the other hand, George always compares himself with his younger brother and sees himself as a superior. As soon as Tom regains his luck and becomes rich in the end, George cannot bear this and is envious of his Brother. For me the story of Mr. Somerset Maugham is different from Aesop’s fable. It is a story about comparing yourself to someone else and to despair of it. In the following essay, I will try how the writer is characterizing his protagonists and how my perception of them changed during the story.
Firstly, the author draws a kind of negative picture of Tom and a positive of George. He describes George as a respectable, hard-working and loving family father, who has to care for “his unfortunate brother” (Line 21). Moreover, Mr. Somerset Maugham shows some compassion for George. “I was sorry for him.” (Line 20). On the other side, he describes Tom as, the black sheep of the family (Line 30), first trying to be like his brother and then leaving his wife and children to enjoy himself. What is more, Tom, has just