The Importance Of Obligations In The Grateful Foxes

The definition of an obligation is the bind a person has for acting legally or morally within society, laws, and nature. This definition will be challenged by the works thoroughly analyzed in this essay. The influence obligation has on one’s innate desire to act kind is expressed through the fable “The Grateful Foxes” by Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford. It portrays obligation as a merit to one’s character and explores the world of good karma. By contrast, the obligation can be a detriment to one’s character as The Fox Woman by Kij Johnson explores the depression caused by societal expectation. The novel explains the fault of obligation on one’s character through seasonal metaphor and the conflicts between characters and themselves. The enforcement

Humanity fantasizes the act of kindness through the hope of a ripple effect that will create a domino of kind acts. “The Grateful Foxes” actualizes this effect as a part of life. The man who rescues the fox because of his moral obligation is rewarded his son’s life (Freeman-Mitford). The lesson of the story is to pursue the obligation of human good—it explains that a kind act is the means for having kindness in one’s life. “However, good deeds can be engaged in for either altruistic or egoistic motivations” (Kulow 560) and this raises the argument whether pursuing this obligation is true. In a study done by Katina Kulow called “In Pursuit of Good Karma: When Charitable Appeals to Do Right Go wrong” the pursuit of good karma is brought into question. The studies did conclusively argue the link between the belief in karma and one acting for future rewards (Kulow 560). The choice to act to be rewarded is deemed as egotistical—the choice to act kind for the benefit of one’s self is a fault of one’s character. Contrasting, the thesis of the study is the reasoning behind the man’s kind act in “The Grateful