Academic literature on the topic 'Trickster'

Thesis (M.A. (Folklore Studies)) --University of Limpopo, 2013<br>The purpose of this study is to investigate whether human conduct and behaviour can be “seen” through the actions of trickster tales. This study focuses on how Bapedi people’s actions can be manifested in the actions of these tales. A variety of trickster tales will be used in trying to investigate the above claim. There will be some folktales that will be sampled from a variety of existing Literature. The sampled folktales will be brought together for analysis at the end of this study. The other folktales will be gathered from respondents. A number of respondents will be sampled through the snowballing technique. Each respondent will be interviewed through the face to face interview to gather more information in as far as folktales are concerned especially trickster tales. Gender sensitivity will be taken into cognizance when sampling the respondents in order to make the study more representative. Interviewees will be sampled from youth to senior citizens. Information gathered will thereafter be brought together with those collected from existing literature for creation of manuscripts. There manuscripts will thereafter be analysed through contend analysis technique.

Analyzing Chesnutt's fiction from the angle of the West African trickster tradition explains the varying interpretations of his texts and his authorial intentions. The discussion also illustrates the influence that audience and editorial concerns may have had on African-American authors at the turn of the century.

<p> This thesis interweaves the theories of Jungian psychology with the Native American Winnebago tribe&rsquo;s trickster mythology in order to identify what the role of the trickster is in the process of research. With an alchemical hermeneutic and heuristic methodological approach, the researcher becomes the subject of the thesis. In this intertwining of ideas and heuristic methodology, the trickster archetype traps the researcher in such a way that promotes assimilation of unconscious material through the use of dream work, shadow integration, and the exploration of countertransference and individuation. This thesis emphasizes the hermeneutics aspects of psychotherapy and explores the therapeutic relationship from a Jungian perspective. In documentation of the personal experience of the researcher, the trickster helps to illuminate that which is not understood.</p>

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Comparative Religion, 2003.<br>Title from first page of PDF document. Document formatted into pages; contains 72 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 69-72).

Bringing God into history is Jacob's task. Jacob the patriarch, the one who breaks through, is a powerful biblical figure who may have been a role model for Jesus and was considered eldest of the angels during New Testament. Medieval church frescoes depict Jesus and Jacob together wearing halos. Unfortunately, as a survey of commentary will show, Post-Reformation Jacob becomes the typical Jew ruthlessly taking advantage of his brother, repulsive, a vile deceiver. Cardinal Ratzinger questioned whether Christians still can claim in good conscience to be the legitimate heirs of Israel's Bible: to a degree Jacob, his narrative, and a viable hermeneutic has been 'lost' to Christianity. Decisively breaking with more traditional and literary approaches, the oldest hermeneutic has been rearticulated and brought back into play: verbal performing art. It is this hermeneutic - more intuitional and more capable of capturing ephemeral poetic moments - that can efficaciously attend to the biblical text's heterogene vivacity. It is well suited to explore inherent textual ambiguity. Loosely set within an ethnographic context where both narrative and character demand serious attention, the Jacobean narrative is approached closely. Seeking Jewish perspectives as well as Christian, it listens carefully for possibly dominated voices. There in the textual gaps, evidence will be found of a more hidden transcript with trickster discourse. Primarily a theological endeavour attempting to build bridges to the Tanakh for Christian readers, the goal is to discover fresh presences of Jacob, uncover narrative coherence for his actions and establish theological significance. A return to the biblical text will reveal that between the formative time and Sinaiic time lies Jacobean time. As will be demonstrated, Jacob is blessed by God only after Jacob recognizes his own amporphous disruptive and subversive abilities. As has been said of others, Jacob shatters convention by mastering tradition. Jacob is the liminal figure who grasps the nature of perdurance and is therefore able to conceive a nascent Judaism and ensure that at Sinai the covenant will be set in Halakah. Jacob's narrative can be conceived as a tribute to sacred trickster.

<p> Trickster humor is ubiquitous. Every society has some version of trickster and each society tells the stories of trickster over and over again to both enlighten and entertain. This thesis argues that trickster humor plays a fundamental role in helping society adapt by challenging social norms. Because trickster stories are humorous they are entertaining, because they critique social behaviors they are instructive. Tricksters break social rules, leaving society to remake them. This thesis examines the works of American Humorists Tom Robbins and Edward Abbey, particularly <i>Still Life with Woodpecker </i> and <i>The Monkey Wrench Gang</i>, arguing that these authors are contemporary trickster figures whose work not only entertains their audience but through their rule breaking offers them new possibilities in dealing with the unresolved conflicts American society is wrestling with in the last quarter of the twentieth century and beyond.</p>

Whereas scholarly malcontents and naifs in late Renaissance drama represent the actual notion of university graduates during the time period, scholarly tricksters have an obscure social origin. Moreover, their lack of motive in participating in the plays' events, their ambivalent value structures, and their conflicting dramatic roles as tricksters, reformers, justices, and heroes pose a serious diffculty to literary critics who attempt to define them. By examining the Western dramatic tradition, this study first proposes that the scholarly tricksters have their origins in both the Vice in early Tudor plays and the witty slave in classical comedy. By incorporating historical, cultural, anthropological, and psychological studies, this essay also demonstrates that the scholarly tricksters are each a Jacobean version of the archetypal trickster, who is usually associated with solitary habits, motiveless intrusion, and a double function as selfish buffoon and cultural hero. Finally, this study shows that their ambivalent value structures reflect the nature of rhetorical training in Renaissance schools.