The Significance Of A Name

The Significance Of The Name of “A Hare In The Elephant's Trunk’?

  In the first few chapter of the story we hear that not only Jacob’s mother, but his friends constantly refer to him as a hare. In the later pages of chapter 13 we are told a story that one of the boys shares. In this story the boys tell us of the story about an elephant. One day the elephant is is about to cross a river with a sack of honey on his back when a hare stops him and asks for a ride across the river. The elephant doesn’t hesitate to take the hare over the river with him as he is a kind soul and figures that the hare is harmless. As the hare is riding on the back of the elephant he very stealthily puts his back foot in the honey so that he can eat it without the elephant knowing what's really happening. You would think that after the stealing of the honey and the weight of the sack decreasing that the elephant would know that the sack of honey is empty, but the hare has a plane to make sure he is far away when the elephant discovers the truth. As the two travel across the river the hare asks the elephant to pick up rocks from the river so he isn’t bored and can play with them to sooth his boredom. After the elephant sets the hare down so that he can continue on his trip with his honey he accidentally cuts off the hare's tail so the hare decides to go back to all the other hares and tells them that the elephant commands that all the hares cut off their tails. The hare that originally had stolen the honey and had gotten his tail cut off only told the others this so that when the elephant came to the hares to find the one who stole his honey he wouldn’t recognize the thief. This story that the boys tell us is of a smart minded hare that I believe the author was trying to let us know that the smallest or most unexpected people are the trickiest and smartest. The title we can speculate is telling us in advance of Jacob and his courage during the hard parts of leaving his home and helping the other boys stay smart and become a leader figure. The fact that Jacob is given the nickname hare is proof of this foreshadowing in the title. Perhaps another part of the significance of the title is that in the story the elephant is highly respected by the hares as we can see when they do indeed cut off their tails as they believe it was the elephants wishes. The title can maybe possibly that the boys are protected by other forces or that they are being protected by in what can be called the elephant. These few factors can help us have a better understanding of what the title maybe trying to tell us as when I started the beginning of the story I didn't personally understand the title of the story as it is a term that we may have not have heard before or not understood the significance of if we never would have found out the tale about the hare and the elephant.  In my opinion I believe that as we read more of the book we can possibly see other examples of how jacob compares to the hare. We may also receive more of an insight as to why the author truly did name the book the way he did.