Sandra K. Friday
While The Parable of the Eagle, an African parable by James Aggrey, appears to be about an eagle that has lost its way, on a closer look, it is as much about the differences of opinion between two other agents, a farmer and a naturalist. This parable, because of its chronological progression, may be charted on a sequence of events, or cause and effect graphic organizer, or it is easily adapted to the story board.
Initially a farmer walking through the forest finds a young eagle and takes it home to his barnyard where he raises it on chicken feed, and conditions it to behave like the chickens around it. In the first two sentences of the parable one senses there is a potential problem. When the eagle is grown, along comes a naturalist and, seeing the grown eagle among the chickens, insists to the farmer that it is the king of birds and should not be confined in a barnyard among chickens. The farmer replies that it eats and behaves like a chicken and has never learned to fly. But he agrees to give the naturalist a chance to prove him wrong. The naturalist, taking the eagle in his arms, entreats the eagle to fly into the sky where it belongs. Looking around, the eagle sees the chickens feeding in the yard and hops down to feed with them. The naturalist asks for one more chance to prove that the eagle still has the heart of an eagle; the farmer, being self-assured, agrees that the next day the naturalist may try again.
The second day the naturalist takes the eagle to the top of the barn and again entreats it to fly from the roof top into the sky where he tells the eagle it belongs. The eagle looks around, somewhat confused and perhaps fearful about this unfamiliar location, and finally flutters down into the familiar barnyard where he sees the chickens feeding. But the naturalist refuses to give up on this bird that he knows has the heart of an eagle, and he pleads with the farmer for just one more chance to liberate this king of birds.
The third morning the naturalist takes the eagle out to the mountain, and lifting the eagle straight into the rising sun, he implores it to fly into the sky. The trembling eagle, looking straight into the rising sun, stretches its wings and soars into the sky with a triumphant cry, and never returns, even though it has been raised as a chicken.
The three agents, the actions, and the settings establish a literal relationship about an eagle domesticated and conditioned by a farmer to behave like a chicken until a naturalist comes along who believes in the intrinsic nature of the eagle, regardless of its conditioning. The relationship between the eagle and the barnyard, the eagle and the roof top, and the eagle and the mountain top are crucial to the literal and symbolic meanings of the parable. Once students have established the literal relationship between the agents, actions, and settings, they should be able to bring their imaginations to chart the symbolic meaning.
To imagine the symbolic representations it might be helpful to use another graphic organizer that lists the agents, actions, and settings at the tops of c olumns across the long side, landscape, of a piece of paper: Eagle / Farmer / Naturalist / barnyard: hopping down / roof top: fluttering down / mountain top: soaring into the sky. In each column students may imagine individually, at first, and then collectively, what the agents, actions, and settings symbolize.
Once they have determined the literal relationship between the agents, actions, and settings, they may be ready to venture the lesson which they can expand upon when they imagine what these symbolize, something along the lines of youth being conditioned (by the farmer who represents a controlling outside force) to believe they are something less than who they are, not yet knowing who they are. They settle for it, even find security in it, until someone (the naturalist) or some positive outside force awakens in them so that they can realize their own intrinsic potential, even though it may feel risky to be out of what has come to feel like their comfort zone. There is also political symbolism in this parable; South Africans conditioned to apartheid for so many years that it became a way of life, African Americans conditioned to slavery for hundreds of years, that some did not know what to do with their new-found freedom when it came. I am sure my students will surprise me with possibilities.
