Stone Soup Artifact Analysis

The Stone Soup story is a story that is incredibly short with an African background. It is a story that shares a cultural message of how people deserve to live in unison and share amongst everyone regardless of whether they are visitors or not. The story covers a young man who was walking home and who had been travailing in many parts of the African continent. He is a tired man after having walked for a long time, and he feels malnourished and thin. He also does not have a place to sleep, not just because there are no people in the locality where he is but because the people around him are not willing to give him a place to sleep. He, however, thinks of something that would attract people, make them share unconsciously which is a tactical and successful approach that makes everyone happy and fed in the village.

The short story communicates not just an occurrence that lives in the past but some quintessential message for contemporary parts too. It presents a story of not only how people lack compassion with strangers and people who deserve their help. In the first instance, it makes one think of a traveler who does not have a place to sleep nor something to eat. In the very first place, the sharing culture comes with a sense of compassion. It is a culture that concerns itself with empathizing with others and trying to reason from their position. The short story, therefore, teaches people about compassion in the very first place. Through compassion, people can have a way to share whatever they have with others because they can easily understand their problems. 

The story also sends a message of the necessity of being inquisitive when people come looking for help from them. The very idea of sharing comes with understanding. It is not just about thinking of how to help people but also evaluating whether the people who are seeking the help really need help. The author of the story expresses this thought in a rather peculiar manner that would be hard to grasp for the rational mind. While the young traveling man knocked from house to house, he never met someone who was reasonable enough to inquire why he needed food. The only people he met asked him to look for a job or told him that they do not have food to spare. No one inquired about the plight of the man probably because the culture of the people he was among could not condone laziness. However, the author in an indirect way proposes that there are people who need help genuinely and to share whatever one has with them, an inquiry is inevitable. 

The sharing culture in the story does not just highlight sharing when one is in plenty. It is also a story of sharing when one almost thinks that they do not have a share. Taking the story from the aspect of the young man, he was able to feed a whole village while he had nothing. He never knew that he had some intelligence that would help him to do it. Because of his desire to have food, he knew that cooking by the roadside could attract curious people who would like to taste of his food. It is that intelligence while shared that made him feed the village. For everyone that requested for a taste of the soup, the young man required that they give something in return. Whatever they gave was thus was used to make more soup and make it thicker. The story, therefore, culminates in a story of success, just because of sharing an idea with people and consequently, sharing with them something tangible.

Again the author uses the story to showcase that sharing is not about revenge and reciprocity. It is about sharing with people even when you understand that they would not love to help back. It is about being compassionate enough with people such that every evil act is reciprocated with a good act. In any case, it is about caring for them even when they would not care for you. The young man in the story, for instance, was kind enough to feed the same people who had denied him food. They are people who would not feel a pinch if he died due to hunger, yet he fed them. The sharing culture is, therefore, a story of kindness and not revenge nor reciprocity.

In conclusion, the Stone Soup story is an accurate story that teaches the culture for sharing amongst people. It highlights how not only how traditional people, but also modern people are unwilling to share even food with strangers who may be in problems. In a well-choreographed manner, however, the author engages the reader teaching them compassion, inquisitiveness, kindness and other virtues that are related to sharing.  The story is therefore nothing short of a well-established short story where the reader learns a clear message of sharing with the deserving people expect nothing in return. 

References

Brain, H. (2019). Stories | Nalibali. Retrieved from http://nalibali.mobi/stories/english/stone-soup