The Turnip

"The Turnip"
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sdressler/4151705186/in/photostream/

I thought this was going to be the regular 'huge turnip that needs the mother, father, brother, sister, granny, granddad, cat and dog to pull out' tale, but then it... wasn't. I’m not quite sure what to make of the second part of the tale. Tell me what you think!

The Tale:

There are two brothers, one rich and one poor (both were once soldiers). The poor one tries to make his own way in life and becomes a gardener. His luck changes when one of his seeds grow into a massive turnip that there “never was such a one seen before, and never will again”. The brother decides the best thing to do with the turnip would be to gift it to the king. The king finds the turnip wondrous and asks the brother about himself. The brother manages to soften the king's heart with his speech; “I have a brother, who is rich, and your majesty knows him well, and all the world knows him; but because I am poor, every body forgets me”. The king pities him and gives him gold and lands and other gifts to make him richer than his brother.

"The Turnip"
Unknown

The other brother becomes jealous of the first brother and decides to give the king a great gift of gold and horses, for if a mere turnip received so much in return, his much grander gift will be much better rewarded. The king, in his infinite wisdom, receives this gift graciously and tells the jealous brother that he will give him the most valuable and wonderful gift in return- the great turnip. The brother's jealousy turns to outright loathing and he vows to kill his brother. He tricks the first brother into coming with him in search of treasure. Ambushers jump on the first brother, tie him up, and are about to hang him when they here someone coming. They stuff the brother into a sack and hang him from the tree and flee.

This is where the story starts getting strange. The brother manages to make a hole for his head in the sack in time to welcome the newcomer, who is a merry student from the university. Then, instead of politely asking for help, the brother begins tricking the student. He convinces him that the sack is a sack of wisdom, and in it he has learned the most wonderful things about the world. The brother preteneds he does not actually want to leave the sack until the student actually begs him to let him into the sack. The brother then tells him to let the sack down and open it. Then he pushes the student in headfirst and hoists the sack with him inside into the air. Then he asks the student if he feels the wisdom flowing to him yet and tells him to stay there a while longer while he takes his horse and rides off, leaving the student to hang there until someone lets him down.

Discussion Points:

First of all, the ending, because that's what confuses me most. Why couldn't the brother have simply

asked the student to let him down? Why did he feel the need to make the student take his place instead of leaving the sack empty? The only things the brother could possibly gain out of it are:

1.The horse, which he clearly didn't need after that wonderful gift the king gave him.

2.Vengeance? A feeling of power? Did he feel so angry and humiliated at what his brother had done to him that he felt the need to take it out on any poor man who came his way? That does not match the brother's character as we see it throughout the story. He was always hardworking, though I suppose if you look closely, you can see hints of bad feelings towards his brothers success. After all, both brothers began as soldiers. The first brother probably felt he was more hard working than his rich brother and that life wasn't fair. Would this be enough to make him play such a cruel trick on the student?

"The Turnip"
George Cruikshank
(Who is in the sack at this point? The Brother or the Student?)

The Characters: I like the king in the story. He had good judgment and knew exactly what each brother deserved. He knew to recognize hard work as a virtue and reward it. The rich brother is obviously not such a nice guy. He must always be better than his brother, and he is always trying out outdo him. If he brother becomes rich because of a gift he gave the king, then he must give the king a better gift and get a better reward. When this does not happen, he actually attempts to kill his brother. I liked the first brother until he played that prank on the student and put so much effort into trapping him there instead. The student is interesting because of what he represents. As a learned man, he should have been wise enough not to believe the brother's tale of a wisdom giving sack. But the uneducated solider turned gardener was more intelligent than him, even if he wasn't as well versed in higher studies.

So, why do you think the brother felt it necessary to trick the student when asking to be let down would have been so much more simple? Are you still in favor of the brother's character after what he did?