This is the story of a
poor young lamb who happened to come across a wolf.
The wolf is trying to
give a reason why he should eat the lamb and thus accuses it of eating in his
pasture and drinking his water.
The young innocent
lamb explains to the wolf that none of his accusations is true. The wolf then
eats the poor lamb without second thoughts saying “Well! I won’t remain
supperless, even though you refute every one of my imputations.”
The fable
Analysis
The moral lesson of
this fable is that “The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny.”
In fact the wolf meant
to eat the lamb all along, but was trying to justify the act to his victim.
The fable comments on
the behavior of cruel people and people with no morals who find pretexts to
justify their atrociousness to themselves and/or to the world. This is often
seen in people who know that what they intend to do is wrong, to begin with.
But this is of no consequence to them and they have no pricking of their
conscience, no hesitations to go forward with their actions even when they
don’t have the agreement of their victims or the public. This is something
often seen. That such people try to
elicit their victims’ “blessings” or that of the society. And no matter what, they
will try to have the last word and the upper hand, as the wolf does when he is saying
that he won’t remain supperless. The wolf is excusing himself to his eyes and
to that of the world by actually saying that “I will kill you because I want to
eat”. He’s not saying that he is hungry, he’s not saying that he is sorry, he
only says that he’s not prepared to remain supperless.
Notice on this fable
how the victim is pictured by a lamb, expressing innocence and purity.
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