Reading Notes Part A: The Stupid Monkeys

For Part A reading I focused on the story of the The Stupid Monkeys. I actually really enjoyed this story because it holds to true to how people view monkeys.  Monkeys are often thought about as not being the smartest animal on the planet and what they do with their daily live as boring.  Often in media Monkeys are depicted as dumb and incompetent and that is exactly what this story does with the monkeys.  It is funny to see that stories way back in the day have the exact same thoughts on how monkeys should be portrayed the people in this day and age do. Monkeys aren’t always known for being the most intelligent creatures and I am interested to know why. The rest of the stories in this section are quite entertaining and maybe next time I will focus on them.

What I was various about is why are monkeys always made to be looked at as the village idiots? It seems in some media and cultures they are regarded as wise so why do we make them look dumb? If I were to write a story I’d flip it and make the humans look like the dumb ones and the animals the wisest. What I didn’t like about this story as well is the fact that it was rather short. When you get to the climax of the story all the Monkeys did was pull up trees and they ended up dead.  That doesn’t really seem to make the monkeys stupid just not careful. Overall, I thought that this story was really lacking when it came to make the monkeys look stupid. I think what the story did, was in fact make sure that everyone is careful when doing a tsk because if they aren’t then there could be consequences, like killing a tree.

Monkey. (May 23, 2018)

Thomas Shahan. Source: Wikicommons

Bibliography: Babitt, Ellen. The Stupid Monkeys. The Stupid Monkeys