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Essays on James Thurber´s "The Sheep in Wolf´s Clothing"

The tale “The Sheep In Wolf´s Clothing” by James Thurber deals with two sheep that want to go among the wolves as spies to see what wolf life is like. After a day in Wolfland, they believe that every day in Wolfsland is like they have seen, namely that the wolves aren´t that dangerous, but just like the sheep. Both sheep want to write a book to publish their experiences but hide it from each other. Both of them compete to publish their text first. So they don´t investigate the real situation well enough and give a message to the other sheep that turns out to be wrong. For the sheep are suddenly attacked by the wolves, after they removed all protection. So the sheep are wiped out because of the futile competition of the two sheep.
This tale is a typical fable. It contains speaking and acting animals. The figures in the fable represent people in real life. In this case the two sheep stand for the aggressive journalism in our society. It often happens that journalists nowadays do not care if they have not examined their information carefully enough, but only want to achieve to publish their story first. This can cause that many people get injured. But this result does not matter to the journalists. Another characteristic of a fable is the moral that it contains. The moral of this fable is: Don´t get it right, just get it written. So it is aimed at the journalists. I guess that the meaning of the moral is actually the opposite, for the author uses sarcasm. What he really wants to express is a criticism of the behaviour of those journalists. Probably the moral he wants to say is: To prevent bad results, you have to get it right, not just written.
(X.C., 11d, Dec. 2006)

The fable "The sheep in wolf`s clothing" is about two sheep who dressed up like wolves to spy out Wolfland. After spying out Wolfland both of them wrote that wolves were like sheep and every sheep in Sheepland trusted them. So one day the wolves came to kill every sheep and no sheep reacted because they were not afraid anymore. Those two sheep had betrayed their friends and families, because they only wanted to make money with their stories. And because of this desire they did not think about any consequences. They only got it written, but they did not care if it was the truth, that is what the moral at the end of the fable means.
It is typical of a fable that there animals can speak and act, that it ends with a moral and everything is full of imagination but with a realistic background as if the actors were human. In a way those two sheep killed the others because of this big deception and maybe they were like wolves, not only dressed up like them.
I think that there are many similarities between the `sheep journalism` and our current journalism, because the main thing is making money and therefore journalists have to work faster, harder without looking for quality, because the most important aspect is the number of sold newspapers. (L.D., 11d, Dec 2006)

In the modern fable called “The Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing” by James Thurber two sheep disguise as wolves one day long and join the wolves’ society. Incidentally this day is a fete day, so all wolves are nice and seem to be peaceful. Because the silly sheep think that this is the “every-day-life attitude” of them, they want to sell this information in their country by writing a book. After a real competition between both sheep who would break this news earlier, one of the sheep sells it to a newspaper. When the other sheep read this (false) news they believe the author and do not pay attention anymore, so the “harmless” wolves attack and kill all the sheep.
The “moral” which Thurber wrote under the story is not to care about true facts but only to write something. In my opinion this is ironical, because it is absolutely the opposite of the real moral: The fable shows the way many journalists and newspapers are working. They are not informed very well, for example, they only rely on one source, and so they sometimes publicize things which are totally wrong. The fable also shows possible consequences for the readers (in an extreme way, of course). If we are influenced by such bad newspapers it can lead to dramatic consequences for us. The moral could be: Don’t get it written, if you don’t get it right! (L.H., 11d, Dec 2006)

• Leistungskurs 2 (Sep 2000 - May 2002)
• Leistungskurs 1 (May 2001)
• Grundkurs 1 (Feb 2000 - May 2001)
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• 8th Grade Results
• The Short Story Forum: Publish your own short story !
• Studying Abroad: Information for students planning a year abroad
• The Intercultural Times: Online Newspaper on Multiculturalism
• Literary Supplements to Salinger´s "The Catcher in the Rye"
• The Hemingway Project

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