The Trickster

The Maniac is a variant of a trickster figure, a character who acts mad or simple but who is actually invested with more sense than anybody around him. Tricksters fool those who are vain or who believe themselves cleverer than everybody else. Tricksters are quite often lesser societal figures tricked by those more elevated. They belong to the ranks of the common people, appearing in stories as an assertion of their worthiness in the face of an elite group's disdain and ignorance. Every nation has literary traditions employing trickster figures. One very well-known trickster series in the American literary canon uses animals as characters (as do so many trickster traditions). This series is Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus stories of Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox. Harris compiled these stories from those of African American storytellers, building on original African traditions. In the American context, these African American...