A Monkey Objects To Criticism

Summary


"A Monkey Objects To Criticism" is a brief, stinging fable that cuts straight to a dark truth about wounded pride. A shivering monkey, caught in the rain without shelter, is observed by a small bird nestled comfortably in its own nest. When the bird dares to question why the monkey — with hands so like a human's — cannot build itself a home, the monkey's reply is chilling: not a promise to do better, but a threat. What follows is swift, petty, and irreversible.

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A monkey once sat on a tree, shivering with cold, as rain was falling, and a little bird sat in its nest on the same tree; and, as it sat, it looked at the monkey and wondered why a creature with hands and feet like a man should shiver in the cold, while a small bird rested in comfort.

At last it expressed its thought to the monkey, who replied: “I have not strength to build myself a house, but I have strength to destroy yours,” and with that he pulled to pieces the poor little bird’s nest, and turned it out with its young.


Credits

Alice Elizabeth Dracott was a British writer active in the early twentieth century, best known for her 1910 collection *Simla Village Tales*, which gathered Indian folk stories and fables from her time in colonial India. This story reflects the sharp moral economy of traditional fable — where a single exchange reveals character completely — drawn from the oral storytelling traditions she encountered and preserved.