The Three Wishes by Ricardo E. Alegria "and Juan Bobo: A Folkloric Information System" by Sarai Lastra

 I enjoyed reading one of the reading texts name The Three Wishes By Ricardo E. Alegria since it contained three folktales are were interesting to read, and the moral each one taught was clear and precise. We see how many folktales in the Puerto Rican culture have either Taino,African, or Caucasian. In the first folktale we see how this foolish kid named Juan Bobo commited many mistakes when protecting the animals, while his mother was in church. As a result the author ends in the end saying that that day, Juan received a whipping that he still remembers till today. I believe that the main lesson to be learn in this folktale is that foolishness and disobedience take you to bad consequences. In the second folktale, I noticed how it had more of a religious background to it. We see how the little ant loses her leg due to the snow, and then she asked the snow to please give her the leg back, and then the snow said to ask sun, since sun is stronger than snow, and so did the chain continue untill it reach the highest and most powerful element which was God. I believe that this maybe was written to those that didn't believe or have a strong connection with God, since it shows in the folktale how God is the most powerful out of everything he created. In the third folktale we see how this beautiful woman who was really a ugly witch covered in beautiful skin, She ended up marrying the most bravest and handsome man, without him knowing the truth. One day the husband decides to not take the coffee that putted him to sleep in order to see what his wife did at night, and discovered that she was a witch when removing her skin. As a result, he decided to put some hot pepper and chili, so that when she putted it back, it will start burning her skin. As a result, sunlight came out and she ended up turning into ashes. I believe that the main moral to be learn here is that you never get away with lying, and that one day, sooner or later you will pay for your wrong doings. All these folktales had and still have an important meaning to the Puerto Rican culture and its people.

Post #2: Living Folklore by Martha Sims

I agree with the author when she states that the average person believes that folklore is just another term for something untrue or not real, or just a  story or an old-fashioned belief. She also states that people believe that the only kind of people that had connections with folklore where those of less sophisticated class or simpler groups. In reality, folklore is the learning of different knowledge about how the world, our own communities, families,culture, etc express their creatively through art which include music, words, arts etc.  There is not group that doesn't practice some kind of folklore in their everyday life since folklore played and played an important role in every human that once and currently exist in this world. I have seen how many different cultures in this world use folklore in order to let the other different cultures know what their society is all about and what they can offer to these other societies, The customs of Japanese culture, or their unique food preparing techniques and their music with certain dance moves are all part of their folklore fashion, since they are informing their own knowledge to other cultures that wish to learn their traditions, Tradition is basically the act of passing down through generations certain customs or beliefs that are important to that certain group. As Martha Sims explained, tradition is a branch of folklore in a way that it uses materials, customs, verbal expressions to express their practices, but this must be a continuous practice, which then proof that it is vital to this certain group or culture, I enjoy learning about different traditions other cultures do, since you can learn and see how they view the world.

Post #1: Aesop's Fables and Clayton Essay

As I was reading the  Aesop's fables, I noticed how important these kind of fables play in our everyday life. People normally think that fables are meant to be read by children or people of young age, but what they don't realize is that there is no specific age to have fun and learn a life lesson through fables. They teach important life lessons that can be beneficial to both adults and to children in a way that it open the eyes to what is evil and good,and what will be the best decision to make. I believe that if it wasn't because of these kind of literature existed, a lot of children and young adults will make way more mistakes in their life, since they wouldn't have never seen the consequences of decisions certain characters made in the fable stories. It was interesting to see how in "Aesop, Aristotle, Animals: The Role of Fable in Human" he mentions how fables were used in past civilizations as a way to portrayed how society worked according to the social level status you standed on, reflecting that those with more power or money, had more advantages than those that were poor or slaves. The connection they make with humans and animals was really vital to these ancient societies since it gave a more clearer image of who were the "predators" and who were the "preys", resulting in keeping the society as a whole under control. Even though we have some similarities with animals such as eating or sleeping, there is one huge difference between us and them: conscience. While animals acts for survival, we humans have conscience which tell us what is good or evil.