The Ant Story

Talk That Talk is an anthology of African American Storytelling written by several authors. In this anthology, we come across a short story called “The Ant Story” written by Constance Garcia-Barrio. The main character, Ant, finds a huge piece of crumb and decides to take it back to the anthill for the others to eat as well, but he realizes that it will be a tough task to accomplish. Ant faces his biggest opposing character yet, himself. He believes he doesn’t have the strength to drag the huge crumb alone, therefore asks for help, but neither the bee nor the beetle were able to help him. Then he runs into a spider, who had been watching the whole time, and offers to help. She says “I’m going to wrap this crumb up and take it home to my children.” Angry, the ant grabs the crumb and starts pushing and pulling and before he knows it he’s reached the anthill.

As I read this story, three values came to mind: challenge, hard work, and determination. The challenge was the ant’s struggle to reach the anthill. It was an act or statement of defiance, a call to confrontation. He was confronted with this dilemma of trying to drag the large crumb to the anthill. Ant was challenged by the spider who told him she would take the crumb so the ant with all his might went for home. Ant put hard work and determination into reaching for the anthill. He didn’t want the spider to take his crumb so he was determined to get home no matter what and he did it, he reached the anthill. We can say that the values of hard work and determination come hand in hand. It is universally agreed that hard work and determination are two key components to success in life and work. Without them we can’t succeed.

When I come across a difficult situation I often find myself whining and moaning saying to myself that I can’t, just hoping to catch a break, when in reality I know I have what it takes to overcome any tough situation presented in my life and continue with my task at hand. Sometimes all I need is that little extra push to accomplish whatever it is that I want in life. Sometimes life gives us hard lessons which give us the chance to grow as a person and learn from these experiences. In reading this story, I learned that we shouldn’t underestimate ourselves, no matter how small or weak one can be, everyone can accomplish their goals in life even with the huge obstacles ahead. Like the spider tells the ant at the end “You can do a lot more than you think you can.” Each and everyone one of us can push and pull that crumb with hard work and determination to the anthill.