Fourth Meeting

Day/Date : Thursday, March 6, 2014
Time : 10.30 AM
Place : Listening Lab, English Department, UNP.

Participants:
Yuri Hardianti
Cayo Islami ME
Anisa Wahyuni
Novia Ertika PS
Ilhami Afnar Hijriah
Hany Rahmayanti
Alfi Rahmi Rusvid
Yusi Gusniati

Advisor: Ms. Leni Marlina

Reading Sources: Hero of the Mountain by Ivan Parvov

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Hello All.
We are the members of UNP Reading Circle Community (RCC) from English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Padang.

Now, we'd like to tell you about our activity in the fourth meeting.
In this fourth meeting, we discussed about the story by Ivan Parvov: Hero of the Mountain.

Before we tell you about our discussion, here's a brief story of Hero of the Mountain.

The story of hero of the mountain told about a little fox, Lulu, who was very excited to watch the big contest 'Hero of the Mountain'. He wanted to meet the most famous heroes in the world. So, he studied the map, and prepared himself well. He woke up early, brushed his teeth and ate breakfast quickly.
On the way to the contest place, Lulu met a beetle who had fallen to the river, he stopped and help the beetle. After that, he hurried to go, but he saw a bunny who lost one of its gloves. Lulu decided to help the bunny. Then, he hurried to the mountain, but then he met three firemen-ants who were carrying a new door which was too heavy. Again, Lulu decided to help them. When Lulu arrived at the mountain, the contest was over. He sat sadly. But suddenly, the owl magician, Boran, came and told him not to be sad. He gave Lulu the crystal 'hero of the mountain' award. Lulu was confused. Then Boran said that Lulu was the real hero of the mountain because he missed the contest that he wanted to see so much to help beetle, bunny, and ants.

In our discussion, we wondered why the writer of this story use a fox as the main character? We know that a fox is a sly and cunning animal, so why did the writer make the fox became a good and friendly animal in his story? Why didn't he choose another animal which already have a good impression in the first place, like the rabbit?
and then, why did the fox want to help the beetle, bunny, and ants when he really wanted to come and see the contest? Why did he want to face the difficulties to help them and waste his time? Why didn't he just ignore them and hurry to see the contest?

and also, why did Lulu become a winner when he didn't even register to join the contest? How did the owl know that Lulu had helped another animal and decide that he was the winner?

Those are some things that we wondered about.
Here are our interpretation.
We thought that the reason of the writer to choose a fox as the main character were:
First, the writer wanted to tell that even a bad animal could do something good. It's like 'something bad is not always bad, something good is not always good' or 'there is always a kindness in one's heart'. We could not always judge bad people as bad, and vice versa. We should be able to accept different side of a person.
Second, the writer wanted to mock us. By making a fox as good and friendly character in his story, it seemed like, the writer wanted to tell something like 'even an animal could be good, what about you as a human? Could you be good too? could you help other people who need your help?'

Then, about why the fox wanted to help others, we had different reason. Some of us thought that it's because we need to help the people who need our help even though we did not know them, but some of us thought we don't need to. Some of us thought that by helping other we might able to achieve our goal even though we have to sacrifice our chances to achieve that goal first. There is nothing wrong by letting our chances go if we really need to help others, like Lulu, who sacrifice her time to help others.
We need to realize that sometimes we just need to sacrifice something for the sake of others. But, we also have to believe that the things or chances that we sacrifice, they would definitely come back to us, perhaps in different way but it would be much better than we expected.

Here, our advisor, Miss Lina, also shared what she thought about that. She asked us to imagine that we were teachers, and asked what would we do if a students was late for class? Would we allow him to come in and join the class or be angry and kick him out?
One of us said that we should allow that student to join the class if the reason of his lateness was acceptable. Miss Lina agreed with this, but she still had better answer. She said, of course we had to allow that student to join the class, if we kick him out, he could not study. Why should we waste our energy to get angry? Wouldn't it just disturb the learning process? and what about his lateness was caused by something urgent or emergency? What about he is the only one who can help, say, a grandma crossing the street? Is that even worth-scolded? Doesn't it make us bad to get angry with that?
Thus, we can conclude that, if we are the only one who can help the people in need, we need to help them. But, if we know that there are some people who can help them, and our role is just as alternative, we need to prioritize what we need to do.

Now, about Lulu who unexpectedly become the winner of the contest, he got the award even though he did not join the contest. But the owl knew about his kindness in helping other and decided that he was the winner. It implied that even though nobody knows good things we do, there must be one who knows. It's our God. and He would give us the best award if we do good things sincerely.

That's our interpretation of the story.
We'd like to invite you to give some comments, opinions, critics, or suggestions for us.
And, for you who want to share what you think about the story, feel free to comment in our post. 
And, RCC always kindly invites you who are interested to join. 

Thanks (^o^)/

 

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