I find the story Don't You Have Any Donkeys In Your Country very interesting and funny. When I first started reading the story, I was a little confused, but I started to understand the story when I got to the part where the peasants were selling fake antiques to the tourists.
I think that the American should have thought about his actions before he performed it. He learned about the peasants tricking tourists into buying fake antiques. Therefore, he could have thought about the peasant who had the priceless rug being as manipulative as other peasants. Instead, he thought the peasant was dumb enough to sell the old donkey along with the rug on its back.
My favorite part throughout the whole story was when the peasant with the priceless rug was telling the Turkish tour guide to translate to the American that buying the donkey isn't such a good idea. The peasant said that the donkey was old, mangy, male, and sick. Yet, the American still wanted to buy the donkey.
All in all, this story was really hysterical. I'm sure or at least I hope that the American learned a lesson about how Turkish peasants aren't as brainless or senseless as he thought they were.
I agree, the story was a bit confusing at the beginning, but I did think the way the author began it was quite good and funny, what with the man saying "I'm disgraced" over and over.
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point in your second paragraph. I actually hadn't thought about the fact that he should have anticipated this trick. I just think he should have tried to buy the rug first and save all this trouble, as I said in my post.
Nice response ~ Zoe
I think that Rachel has an opinion very similar to mine in that not all the peasents are dumb and poor. Obviously if he has been making money off the donkey business for five years, he probably has some tricks up his sleeves. After all, he said so much about nobody but stupid tourists buys their stuff. I agree, that the begining did not make much sense! Overall, Rachel, you're response made me think, and it was very good!
ReplyDeleteI also was very confused in the beginning of the story. I think it was very clever of the author not to complete reveal all the details of his main character till the very end, and also not to explicitly reveal the real reason for being so guilty till almost the very end too. While reading about how he helped sell a donkey for an lot of money, I couldn't believe he didn't realize right away what his American friend was going to do. I also agree with Zoe, I think he should have just bought the rug and saved himself all this trouble.
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