Themes+for+Analysis

=Thematic Analysis =

//**Cottleston Pie **//





Cleverness!
Hoff begins his theory by entrance of Kanga and Roo, and how Rabbit did not like them, simply because of the fact that they were different. “Cleverness, after all, has its limitations” (Pg 37), this quote explains the fact that the mechanical judgments and “clever” remarks tend to be inaccurate, because it does not go into things very deeply. Also, author states that the characteristic of being truly different cannot be understood by cleverness. This whole idea of criticizing cleverness ties in back with our previous readings in The Tao of Pooh, and how Hoff is biased AGAINST the Confucian ideas.

A fly can’t bird, but a bird can fly!


Cottleston pie, as interesting as the title seems, cottleston pie actually means inner nature, and also could be interpreted as “Things are as they are”. The song that Pooh sings, the Cottleston pie, states that “A fly can’t bird, but a bird can fly,” and the meaning is as it writes out, obvious. However, Hoff states that numerous people tend to forget this simple fact in their lives. An example of this idea stated above would be that a person is trying to put in an uncooked egg into a bottle. It is virtually not possible. Hoff states that in the end, everything has its own purposes and function; therefore trying to apply something that doesn’t match is simply absurd. This whole idea of “Things are as they are” and “everything has its own place and function” supports the idea of Taoism, and how nature is the one that decides. By understanding the whole idea of inner nature, according to Hoff, a person can find his/her own place and function in the society. Failing to realize such a thing will result in confusion. With the little anecdote of Chunag-tse, it resembles the same idea of inner nature. Prince of Ch’u offered Chuang-tse a relatively high position at court. Chuang-tse goes into saying that he knows of the tortoise that the prince keeps in his royal house, covered by silk and valuable materials. The prince agrees, and then Chuang-tse asks the prince that if the tortoise is given a choice to choose between trapped in a box with silk and valuable materials, or live inside the mud. The prince chooses the mud, and Chuang-tse says that he also preferred the mud, and left. This anecdote says that tortoise, an animal that is suppose to live in mud-like places, is forcibly trapped inside the box filled with silk, and the trapping the tortoise, or taking it away from where it actually belongs, is same with the idea of “failure to realize the inner nature”. Tortoise is fit to live in mud, not in a box filled with silk. Therefore, Chuang-tse thinks the same, that he is not fit to be a worker at the court.

A fish can't whistle and neither can I!
The second line of our lovely Pooh’s song, “A fish can’t whistle and neither can I”, to put this simply, it is “Realize your limit”. And realizing this “limit” that one holds will lead to the better. Failure to realize one’s limit, in this case of the story of Pooh, is Tigger. Tigger is a tiger that has a tail that curls up like a spring and bounces with it. Unfortunately, Tigger fails to realize his limits, and often times gets into trouble and gives troubling times to his friends around him. Tigger is a character unlike pooh, owl and rabbit, is a character who fails to understand its boundaries, by saying things such as “Tiggers can… fly as well as owls, swim, and they can do everything” (pg 44)

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According to Hoff, scientists, represents Confucian scholars during the old times in Confucian society. Questions such as “Why do birds fly south for the winter?”, would be answered by eight letter word, instinct. Hoff says that Instinct means, “We don’t know”. However, such things don’t really matter to us, so we don’t really need to know, however for the scientists, who seek to find answers to anything given are narrow-minded. Those scientists will never bring the answer to the question asked at first, however they will bring more “QUESTIONS” instead of “ANSWERS”. ======

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Hoffman concludes that brains can be fooled, but inner nature cannot. Brains, in this case, simply means Confucianism. Confucianism and its ideas are inaccurate and always takes the long way around to answer a simply question. The inner nature, can be meant as Taoism. This conclusion strongly states that Confucianism is bad, Taoism is right, although indirectly. ======