THINKER'S ALMANAC - November 25

How did Tom Sawyer persuade his friends to not only do his chores for him but to also pay him for the privilege?

Subject: Work and Play - “The Ant and the Grasshopper” and Tom Sawyer’s Fence

Event:  Pixar releases A Bug’s Life, 1998

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise. -Proverbs 6:6

On this day in 1998, the computer-animated film A Bug’s Life was released.  The film was produced by Pixar Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios.  The film, which was directed by John Lasseter and co-directed by Andrew Stanton, featured the music of Randy Newman and the voices of Dave Foley, Kevin Spacey, and Julia Louis-Dryfus (1).

                                                                Image by joni hidayat from Pixabay 

The plot of the film is based on a retelling of one of Aesop’s fables, The Ant and the Grasshopper:

One bright day in late autumn a family of Ants were bustling about in the warm sunshine, drying out the grain they had stored up during the summer, when a starving Grasshopper, his fiddle under his arm, came up and humbly begged for a bite to eat.

“What!” cried the Ants in surprise, “haven’t you stored anything away for the winter? What in the world were you doing all last summer?”

“I didn’t have time to store up any food,” whined the Grasshopper; “I was so busy making music that before I knew it the summer was gone.”

The Ants shrugged their shoulders in disgust.

“Making music, were you?” they cried. “Very well; now dance!” And they turned their backs on the Grasshopper and went on with their work.

There’s a time for work and a time for play. (2)

No one knows for certain if Aesop actually lived, but some ancient historians report that he was a slave who lived either in the 5th or 6th-century B.C.  Whether he actually lived or not, today we have over 300 fables, each with a plot that centers on animals and a moral that applies to the human reader (3).

Walt Disney made a cartoon-short of “The Ant and the Grasshopper” in the 1930s, but when Pixar got ahold of the story in the 1990s, they turned the short fable into a full-fledged film, featuring a full colony of ants and a rowdy gang of grasshoppers.

Another classic work of literature with the theme of work and play is Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.  In a classic episode from the novel’s second chapter Tom is given a thankless task to complete by his Aunt Polly on a sunny Saturday.  Instead of going off swimming with his friends, Tom must whitewash a fence. 

Rather than just grumble and complete his arduous task, Tom applies his imagination to his situation and comes up with a plan to reframe the “work” ahead of him and to transform it into “play.”  

If he can convince his friends that the task of painting the fence is play rather than work, he might just pull it off.  By climbing into the skin of his peers, he visualizes the psychology of the situation from their point of view.  If he is going to move them to action, he needs to truly sell the idea.

To truly sell the idea requires sincerity, so Tom begins by changing his own attitude.  As soon as Tom hatches his idea, the narrator proclaims, “He took up his brush and went tranquilly to work.” The task is still “work,” but by doing it “tranquilly,” Tom is beginning to make it play.

Thus, as his friends begin to arrive, they are persuaded by the fun that Tom is having.  And since there is only one brush, they pay for the privilege of painting.  There’s no greater illustration of how moving an audience emotionally is a great precursor to moving them logically.  Without the proper framing of the situation, paying to whitewash a fence on a sunny, summer day would be insanity to a young boy.  Tom’s strategic reframing made it not just a reasonable act, but also a highly desirable act.

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  How does the theme of work and play apply to both ‘The Ant and the Grasshopper’ and Chapter 2 of ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’?

Challenge - Work and Play:  Do a search for quotations that deal with the relationship between work and play.  Select one quotation you like, write it out, and explain why you find it insightful.

Sources:

1-Pixar. A Bug’s Life. 2000

2-Aesop Fables. The Harvard Classics 1909-14. Bartleby.com.  Public Domain. 3-University of Massachusetts Amherst. Aesop’s Fables.