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Rudyard Kipling

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Rudyard Kipling – THE BUTTERFLY THAT STAMPED
The Butterfly that stamped is one of the stories from the collection Just So Stories, book written by Rudyard Kipling. The stories seem to be fairy tales but in all of them, we can find something human, something adult and enlightening. The main story is probably happening in the Kingdom of Israel, because of a King named The Most Wise Sovereign Suleiman-bin-Daoud – Solomon, the Son of the David, was a King of Israel around 950 BC .
The exposition part is quite confusing because of many foreign-sounding names and without knowledge of some history is almost impossible to understand what the writer wanted to introduce. Soon the narrator changes the mood and one very hilarious story begins. The entire story was written readable, but to understand the message you should little bit think about. On the other hand, thanks to usage of dialogue, I can imagine to tell or read the story to children as a bedtime story.
The story is showing us the relationship between men and women. All of the four important characters in this story are showing us something up-to-date. It is unbelievable because the book was written in 1902, the story is set to about 1000 BC and even now, in 2012, we can recognize the symbols and the old facts about people.
The main character, the most interesting, and the first person we meet, is the Suleiman-bin-Daoud. We can say that is could be the stereotypical sovereign of this age in this place with magnificent golden palace and nine-hundred and ninety-nine wives. But he is not so flat. Thanks to his name, we can anticipate one basic quality, of course that he is wise, but in the story, we learn about them many other things. For example, he understands the speaking of animals, the language of nature and simply everything. If we compare it to Czech fairy-tales – all of our heroes, even antiheroes, get their special magic abilities by some coincidence or buy it, change it with magicians or so. However, the Suleiman just has this gab of understanding. In addition, he has a ring which helps him to be even stronger (so not only wise), I was enough to turned it once, twice or three times and Djinns, Fairies and other supernatural beings appeared. When the King wants to feed all the animals, but because of his limited view of world, he runs out of food, he concedes himself to be showing off and promises not to do that anymore.
In this lovely garden is developing the main story; the story of understanding between women, between men, and between them together. The King goes to the garden secretly followed by his only true loving woman, Balkis, the Head Queen, so-called Most Beautiful Queen. And he, by sheer coincidence, overhears the exchange of views of a couple of butterflies. The male is (just as usual) flaunting before female. And she does not believe him, of course. The King starts giving counsels how to convince the male, and on the other hand, the Queen advises the female how to react. It shows to end just as other stories, but the King feels his chance to do something helpful for the Butterfly, to replay his fail in feeding animals, so he uses his magic power and helps the male to win this skirmish.
This is wonderful story; we can find there so many things, meanings and symbols of different kinds of relationship. One of my thoughts during the reading was about the living with so many women. So just try to apply our modern Europe view and look at their lifestyle. Everybody knows that more women, means more problems. Moreover, if they quarrel about one man it is even worse. Just think about the eternal triangle, so many problems, reproaches and streams of abuse. And in the triangle are only two women (or man, but stay still partly in the story). To adapt to the King, we have to multiply it 449 and add one more to somehow imagine his situation. I am not wondering he wants to run away far to the garden to repose in his wives, went out for peace and quiet. It is said that he did not want all of them; he had to, as a King.

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