Storytelling Week 7: The Repercussions of Entitlement

The daughter sat under her cream-colored, lace curtain as she heard a soft knock at the door. Her princess room was a dazzling shade of magical pink that made her skin look a little softer as the paint reflected off the walls. She opened the door to her father standing there as he scooped her up and asked if he was late to the tea party.

Delighted, she hurried to prepare a tea party for her handsome 'prince,' for she did not know he was coming today! She carefully set out the plastic china that she had received for her seventh birthday, and pulled out a way-too-small chair for her father to sit on. And so the tea party was in session!


The daughter wanted to make sure that her father had the warmest reception, so she offered up her finest Earl Gray, gave him the choicest of biscuits, and gave him her favorite lace handkerchief. He seemed pleased with the honor she showed him.

                                   

Earl Grey tea in raw form.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Conversation flowed, pleasantries exchanged, and the father asked his daughter if she had any books he could read her. She happily ran to her white bookshelf and picked up her favorite picture book, proudly holding it out to her father.


Little did she know that in the time it took her to pick out the book, something had shifted in her father, as it always did. He was no longer smiling.


"Not that book."


Terror entered as the tone shifted in her father's voice; she walked back to the bookshelf and picked up a different book, desperately hoping that he would snap out of it.


"You've got to be kidding me. No one wants to read that book to you. You have the worst taste in books."


She hated when he lost patience. She never knew when she would get her 'prince charming' or her 'worst nightmare' father. She tried once more to hand him a book they had read together a thousand times.


"Whatever, I'm done with you. You aren't worth my time."


Inwardly pleading for the prince charming part of her father to come back she fought back tears, praying that if nothing else he would at least leave before it escalated.


“Wwhat do you want fwom me, Daddy?” the daughter trembled.


“Oh now you ask what I want? I want you to shut up and stop bothering me.” the father boomed.


He took one more glance around and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. The daughter gasped a sigh of relief and desperation. She didn’t know what it was that he wanted, or how she was to please him; all she knew was that she was terrified and that she shouldn’t play around with her father.

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Author’s Note: This story is based off The Dragon-King story from The Chinese Fairy book ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens in 1921. In the original story, the ape king has secured his immortality and he goes to find a weapon worthy of his greatness. He goes to the dragon-king that lives nearby, and the dragon-king receives him well and shows Sun Wu Kung his best weapons. None of them satisfy Sun, and he demands better. He then finds a weapon he likes, and then demands a set of armor. This story really changed my opinion of Sun because I felt that he was extremely rude, showing up to a stranger and demanding that the stranger give him the best of the best gifts. The dragon-king did his best to satisfy, but at the end of the story he was left trembling in fear of Sun Wu. In my story, I set it up as a father and a daughter as the main characters. The daughter represents the dragon-king and receives her father (Sun) really well, but at the end he turns selfish, rude, and causes the daughter to fear his volatile actions.