ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Brer Rabbit, trickster figure originating in African folklore and transmitted by African slaves to the New World, where it acquired attributes of similar native American tricksters (see trickster tale); Brer, or Brother, Rabbit was popularized in the United States in the stories of Joel Chandler Harris (1848–1908).

Detailed explanation-2: -Brer is a trickster and a hustler. He is a figure who always succeeds in outwitting his arch-enemy, Brer Fox, through his wit and cunning, but never through brawn. Brer Rabbit is an anti-hero – mocking the powerful and bending the rules. Brer Rabbit is not always right and he is certainly an amoral character.

Detailed explanation-3: -One such trickster is Brer Rabbit, who was introduced to North America through the folktales of enslaved Africans. On the plantations, Brer Rabbit, like Anansi in the Caribbean, functioned as a resistance figure for the enslaved whose trickery was aimed at undermining and challenging the plantation regime.

Detailed explanation-4: -He is a trickster who succeeds by his wits rather than by brawn, provoking authority figures and bending social mores as he sees fit. Popular adaptations of the character, originally recorded by Joel Chandler Harris in the 19th century, include Walt Disney Productions’ Song of the South in 1946.

Detailed explanation-5: -In the introduction to his first volume of Uncle Remus tales, however, Harris acknowledges the allegorical significance of the stories he was retelling. Clearly, Brer Rabbit is the enslaved African American’s alter ego and trickster-hero, and the so-called stronger animals represent the white enslavers.