C'est Une Taupe by Adeline Adams

Name: C'est Une Taupe
Author: Adeline Adams

A group of Parisians spends a summer Sunday picnicking in the Bois de Meudon. Among them are the mason M. Petitpot, his wife, their baby, the grandmother, and their pale, bookish young son Pierre, who clutches his prized "Petit Atlas du Monde." A small girl from the Montrouge quarter discovers a limace, a slug, curled on a green leaf, and the gathered picnickers crowd around it, prodding it with sticks and debating aloud what sort of creature it might be. None of them actually knows. A pretty lady claims expertise in serpents but cannot help. Wanting to end the awkward pause, the grandmother pushes forward young Pierre, who studies the creature solemnly and, drawing on faith more than knowledge, declares it "une taupe" (a mole). The crowd seizes on his answer and repeats it in various tones, spreading the misidentification through the whole gathering, including people who never even looked at the creature themselves. The narrator watches this spectacle with a companion, laughing at how readily error is passed along as wisdom, and reflects that this same scene of false authority repeats itself everywhere on earth. Her literal-minded friend objects that it couldn't happen among the Esquimaux in their igloos, and the two continue the argument on the boat back to Paris. Meanwhile the grandmother and Mme. Petitpot exchange proud, tender glances over the sleeping Pierre, convinced that the boy alone among the company possessed true knowledge, and the grandmother tucks her skirt over his bare knees against the evening breeze.

By Adeline Adams · Genre: Allegory, Satirical Fiction, Fable · 2,188 words

First lines

I feel sure that everybody, at least everybody who _is_ anybody, really knows, in the bottom of his heart, just what a _taupe_ is. But in case there should be any person with such weighty world affairs on his mind that he could not possibly move them around to discover hidden among them an insignificant matter like a _taupe_, I will say that a _taupe_ is a small furry thing that burrows in the ground. By no means an unfashionable creature, I assure you! Its color is always modish. Its skins, when collected by hundreds and thousands, go to make up what I am informed are "among the most authoritative fur garments of the coming season. " In short, a _taupe_ is a mole, all told.

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Genres

Allegory — The entire narrative functions as an allegory for the spread of misinformation and the human tendency to accept and propagate unverified claims without questioning their validity.
Satirical Fiction — The work employs sharp satire to mock Parisian society, human nature, and the pretensions of people who speak with confidence about things they do not understand.
Fable — Like traditional fables, it presents a simple narrative with a clear moral lesson about the dangers of accepting information blindly and the responsibility of knowledge distribution.
Social Commentary — The narrative critiques Parisian bourgeois culture, their casual confidence, their tendency toward idle chatter, and their lack of substantive knowledge about the natural world.

What this Textopian page supports

C'est Une Taupe is listed on Textopian as a fable by Adeline Adams, dated Date unknown.

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Work type: Fable
Author: Adeline Adams
Date: Date unknown
Language: English
Genres: Allegory, Satirical Fiction, Fable, Social Commentary, Philosophical Fiction
Length: 2,188 words
Structure: 1 section, 16 paragraphs
Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)

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