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The Fox & The Lion - Summary and Analysis | Aesop Fables

the writing on the images says aesop fables on top and the fox and the lion in the middle. on the left there is a sketch of a red fox and on the right the sketch of a lion's head

Summary

There was once a young fox who had never seen a lion before in his life.

One day while he was out in the forest playing he heard a lion roaring.

The little fox was terrified. "Dear me", exclaimed the Fox, hiding  behind a tree, "I never saw a lion before. What a terrible creature! His voice makes me tremble.".

The fox happened to encounter the lion a second time. This time though he was not so much afraid. He was rather annoyed with the lion and thus thought  "I wish he would not make such a noise!".

The fox met a lion a third time and this time he was not afraid at all. Rather he felt completely at ease with the lion so much so that approached the lion and said to him "Hello, there, old chap."

The fable lets us know that the lion was so surprised with the fox’s audacity that he walked away without saying a word.


The fable



Analysis

In this fable we see how a fox, that had never seen a lion before in his life, feels terrified at first when he hears the lion’s roar. The fable tells us that the fox is young and that is something to keep in mind.

But gradually and after repeated contact with the lion the fox not only overcomes his fear but much more so comes to show impudence to a creature that continues to be stronger than him and still presents a danger to him.

I believe the fable wants to show that gradual and repeated contact with a difficult or dangerous situation can sooth original instinctive reactions of fear and worry. It also shows that naivety, the young of age, foolish thinking, lack of experience etc can lead to unwise decisions. For the fox was lucky to escape with his life on his last encounter with the lion. His behavior would have been fatal if only the lion wasn’t completely taken by surprise and left dumbfounded by the fox’s impudence.

The moral lesson of the story is that “Familiarity breeds contempt”.

And it is actually overfamiliarity that can lead to contempt, indecency, impudence and offensive behavior. Taking someone for granted, believing others to be inferior, ungrounded high self-esteem, egoism, narcissism, all that can lead to improper, unfounded, absurd behavior towards other people.

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