-Elliot(Your local pyschoanylist)
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Aren't There Any Donkeys In Your Country?
I thought the authors purpose was almost a pyschological study on people. Throughout the bargaining for the donkey, The wealthy rug collector uses his methods to try to convince the owner of the donkey to sell him the donkey for a low price. Unfortuanatly he has encountered someone just like him who is trying to rip him off what is a useless donkey,because he knows that the rug collector does not want the donkey. The peasant told the rug collector all the bad things about the donkey, that it was mangy, limping, old,sickly, and male but the rug collector still wanted it for the cloth on its back. From that, the peasant deduced that there was some special about about this donkey that the rug collector wanted, therfore the rug collector would pay well for it. The rug collector is very annoyed because he just encountered someone that uses his same methods of selling and buying and as realized that he is being swindled. The author clearly shows how people can be very creul and unfair without realizing it and then become hippocritical and sour when they do realize it. From a pyshcological viewpoint, this is what happens when someone encounters their own personality and then either hate that person for being ridicolous or hate themselves for being ridiculous. While the story is on how tourists and other exploit the poor, the first part of the story is about how the natives swindle the tourists by making "ancient artifacts" to sell. They do this because they live near a dig site and their country has banned the selling of historic valuables. In this story both sides are ripping each other off but the tourists side is winning because of their bigger pool of money.
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i was totally thinking the same thing. The high and mighty rug collector was traveling around, thinking he is the greatest because he can buy priceless rugs dirt cheap from their poor owners. Yet when he found the king of all rugs, the owner brings a challenge. the rug collector thinks nothing of the donkey seller at first, believing he is just another dumb peasant who wants too much money. yet the donkey seller is really a man of equal and even better wit, and also has a trick up his sleeve. Eliot totally pointed out that the donkey seller realized early on that the American was not after the donkey after all. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the posh rug collector getting massively ripped of by a dirty old peasant. Then, as Eliot said, the hypocritical American goes on saying he has been disgraced when really he disgraces poor peasants when he buys their valuable rugs for basically no money. You could learn a lot about people from this story.
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