the position of not holding power over him because he would have nothing the boy desires to return for. The withholding of information allows Uncle Remus to keep a string attached to the boy that he can pull at any time to make the boy come at his call or to puppet master his actions. The relationship between Uncle Remus and the boy is reflected in the folklore story of “the deluge and how it came about.” The story of the deluge concerns the reversal of power possession. The forest of animals in the story can represent the American black and white society, and the black folktale even supports this comparison and association to people by stating that the creatures “had the sense same like folks.” Also, the way in which the names of the animals are displayed as capitalized, such as Elephant instead of elephant, assigns a more human like characteristic because of the similarity to the presentation of human names. At the beginning of the tale while all the animals are holding an assembly a large elephant steps on and squashes a small Crawfish. The Elephant really pays no attention to his action because there “wuzn’t nuff er dat Crawfish lef’ ter tell dat he’d [even] bin dar.” In this situation the elephant can be looked upon as the “large, powerful, and important” white race while the crawfish can represent the “weaker, smaller, and less” important black race. The careless crushing of the crawfish executed by the Elephant may symbolize the constant slave repression and reprimanding because the elephant later steps on another crawfish. The only individuals that seem to care are the other crawfish, which is similar to the way that the slaves may feel towards one of their own that has been “squshed.” When the crawfish decide to speak, none of the larger animals regard their presence; only smaller and weaker animals, such as themselves, choos...
