TricksterFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaIn mythology, and in the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a god, goddess, spirit,
man, woman, or anthropomorphic
animal (often a
Rabbit or Hare) who plays
tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and conventional behavior.
The trickster, in later folklore or modern popular culture,
is a clever, mischievous person or creature, who survives in a dangerous world through use of trickery.CharacteristicsHynes and Doty, in Mythical Trickster Figures (1997) state that every trickster has several of the following six traits:
1. fundamentally ambiguous and anomalous
2. deceiver and trick-player
3. shape-shifter (You are not allowed to view links.
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4. situation-inverter
5. messenger and imitator of the gods
6. sacred and lewd bricoleur
Examples of fictional trickstersAnansi - the spider trickster of African origin
Brer Rabbit - a slave trickster of African origin
Harvey the pooka - a large anthropomorphic rabbit who can be seen only by the protagonist
Reynard - a You are not allowed to view links.
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Peter Pan - regularly plays tricks on his enemies, specifically Captain Hook
Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain's famous troublemaker who surprises
everyone at his own funeralHuckleberry Finn -
He fakes his own death and is constantly assuming different identities
Bugs Bunny - a rabbit trickster, in some respects similar to Brer Rabbit
Felix the Cat - a "transgressor of boundaries" (in the most literal sense)
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Mythology The trickster deity breaks the rules of the gods or nature, sometimes maliciously but usually, albeit unintentionally, with ultimately positive effects. Often, the rule-breaking takes the form of tricks or thievery. Tricksters can be cunning or foolish or both; they are often funny even when considered sacred or performing important cultural tasks. An example of this is the sacred Heyoka, whose role is to play tricks and games and by doing so raises awareness and acts as an equalizer.
Frequently the Trickster figure exhibits gender and form variability, changing gender roles and engaging in same-sex practices. Such figures appear in Native American and First Nations mythologies, where they are said to have a two-spirit nature. Loki, the Norse trickster, also exhibits gender variability, in one case even becoming pregnant; interestingly, he shares the ability to change genders with Odin, the chief Norse deity who also possesses many characteristics of the Trickster. In the case of Loki's pregnancy, he was forced by the Gods to stop a giant from erecting a wall for them before 7 days passed; he solved the problem by transforming into a mare and drawing the giant's magical horse away from its work. He returned some time later with a child he had given birth to—the eight-legged horse Sleipnir, who served as Odin's steed.
In some cultures, there are dualistic myths, featuring two demiurges creating the world, or two culture heroes arranging the world — in a complementary manner. Dualistic cosmologies are present in all inhabited continents and show great diversity: they may feature culture heroes, but also demiurges (exemplifying a dualistic creation myth in the latter case), or other beings; the two heroes may compete or collaborate; they may be conceived as neutral or contrasted as good versus evil; be of the same importance or distinguished as powerful versus weak; be brothers (even twins) or be not relatives at all.
ArchetypeIn modern literature the trickster survives as a character archetype, not necessarily supernatural or divine, sometimes no more than a stock character.
In later folklore, the trickster/clown is incarnated as a clever, mischievous man or creature, who tries to survive the dangers and challenges of the world using trickery and deceit as a defense. He also is known for entertaining people as a clown does. More modern and obvious examples of that type are Bugs Bunny and You are not allowed to view links.
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Charlie Chaplin) and Pippi Longstocking.
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The trickster's literary roleModern African American literary criticism has turned the trickster figure into one example of how it is possible to overcome a system of oppression from within. For years, African American literature was discounted by the greater community of American literary criticism while its authors were still obligated to use the language and the rhetoric of the very system that relegated African Americans and other minorities to the ostracized position of the cultural “other.” The central question became one of how to overcome this system when the only words available were created and defined by the oppressors. As Audre Lorde explained, the problem was that “the master’s tools [would] never dismantle the master’s house.”
In his writings of the late 1980s, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. presents the concept of Signifyin(g). Wound up in this theory is the idea that the “master’s house” can be “dismantled” using his “tools” if the tools are used in a new or unconventional way. To demonstrate this process, Gates cites the interactions found in
African American narrative poetry between the trickster, the Signifying Monkey, and his oppressor, the Lion. According to Gates, the “Signifying Monkey” is the “New World figuration” and “functional equivalent” of the Eshu trickster figure of African Yoruba mythology. The Lion functions as the authoritative figure in his classical role of “King of the Jungle.” He is the one who commands the Signifying Monkey’s movements. Yet the Monkey is able to outwit the Lion continually in these narratives through his usage of figurative language. According to Gates, “[T]he Signifying Monkey is able to signify upon the Lion because the Lion does not understand the Monkey’s discourse…The monkey speaks figuratively, in a
symbolic code; the lion interprets or reads literally and suffers the consequences of his folly…” In this way, the Monkey uses the same language as the Lion, but he uses it on a level that the Lion cannot comprehend. This usually leads to the Lion’s “trounc[ing]” at the hands of a third-party, the Elephant. The net effect of all of this is “the reversal of [the Lion’s] status as the King of the Jungle.” In this way, the “master’s house” is dismantled when his own tools are turned against him by the trickster Monkey.
Following in this tradition, critics since Gates have come to assert that another popular African American folk trickster,
Brer Rabbit, uses clever language to perform the same kind of rebellious societal deconstruction as the Signifying Monkey. Brer Rabbit is the “creative way that the slave community responded to the oppressor’s failure to address them as human beings created in the image of God.” The figurative representative of this slave community, Brer Rabbit is the hero with a
”fragile body but a deceptively strong mind” that allows him to “create [his] own symbols in defiance of the perverted logic of the oppressor.” By twisting language to create these symbols, Brer Rabbit not only was the “personification of the ethic of self-preservation” for the slave community, but also “an alternative response to their oppressor’s false doctrine of anthropology.” Through his language of trickery, Brer Rabbit outwits his oppressors, deconstructing, in small ways, the hierarchy of subjugation to which his weak body forces him to physically conform.
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