Friday Black

Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 2018

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“The Lion & the Spider”Chapter Summaries & Analyses

“The Lion & the Spider” Summary

The narrator of this story recalls a fable his father told about Anansi, the spider god of Akan-Ashanti mythology, and a lion who brags about eating three rabbit children. The telling of this fable is interspersed throughout the story. Although the narrator is upset that the Lion ate the three rabbit children, his father implores him to listen on. Anansi challenges the Lion to a race up a mountain, promising a magic potion should the Lion win. While the Lion suffers from bad stomach pains, he remains confident that he will defeat Anansi. The race begins, and Anansi remains in place, leading him to declare that the rabbit children have already been saved and that he intends to humiliate the Lion. After showing Mother Earth what he has done to nurture it, Anansi beckons the Earth to send him a breeze up the mountain. Riding a blade of grass, Anansi swoops past the Lion and reveals that he replaced the rabbit children with rocks that weigh down the Lion. Anansi thus wins the race.

Years later, the narrator is set to graduate from high school. However, his father’s sudden trip to his birth country, followed by his prolonged disappearance from home, has caused the narrator to become the family breadwinner. Preferring to remain calm over his situation, he works as an unload specialist at a home improvement store, which hinders his ability to proceed to college.

The narrator works largely with two other men: Cato, a Black man whom the narrator admires like an older brother, and Reese, an older yet persistent white man. Cato takes pride in his strength, a reminder of his promising athletic career in high school. Reese is often encouraging, though frequently inappropriate in his speech. Although the three work well as a unit, they are still susceptible to various challenges. The narrator recounts one incident when two stacked washing machines collapsed on Cato, prompting the other workers to rescue him.

Cato encourages the narrator to get out and move on with his life while he has the chance. Cato, Reese, and their manager, Carter, believe that the narrator is still deciding between schools, though none of them know anything about his family situation. Cato shares his suspicion that Reese is racist, but the narrator disagrees with him, citing his attitude toward them at work. To combat the tedious nature of his work, the narrator imagines discovering a baby in the truck. He goes so far as to picture himself as one of the baby’s three adoptive fathers, alongside Cato and Reese.

The narrator recalls an incident years earlier when his father reneged on a plan to bring him and a neighbor to the movies. Though the narrator was furious, his mother implored him to be patient with his father. In the present, Reese tells the narrator about his son, whom he suspects will attend community college. When the narrator suggests that his plans will likely be the same, Reese implies that he is destined for better things.

The narrator’s father reunites with his son shortly before graduation, reappearing at the store. The narrator thinks about how he has changed since his father left, allowing him to support their family and imagine a life without his father. The narrator quietly thanks him for it. Reese meets the narrator’s father and compliments his son. The narrator’s father tells him that he will wait in the parking lot to give him a ride home.

“The Lion & the Spider” Analysis

“The Lion & the Spider” unfolds over two parallel narratives—one following the retelling of an Akan fable and the other following the narrator’s time working in the home improvement store. Through their juxtaposition, the story invites comparison between the narratives. However, Adjei-Brenyah avoids making one feel like an obvious allegory of the other. In the second narrative, there is never a clear antagonist like the lion from the fable. Instead, the author uses the fable to characterize the narrator and inform his conflict. Anansi’s role differs depending on cultural context, but he is generally a cunning figure known for outsmarting his enemies. During the Transatlantic Slave Trade, he became a symbol of resistance and survival. These elements can be seen in the narrator, who is determined to succeed despite his circumstances.

The way the narrator’s father tells the fable of Anansi’s race with the lion is just as important as the fable itself, centering The Transformative Power of Magical Thinking as a theme. The narrator hangs onto every word that comes from his father, who uses both words and gestures to bring the story to life. When the second narrative begins, his father tells him another story that he believes in at first—that he will return in two weeks. The narrator characterizes himself as willing to maintain “a precise calm especially when angry, when hurt, when terrified” (115). His feelings are never explicated as the father’s absence drags on, yet one can extrapolate based on his circumstances: He is resentful of his father’s extended departure and the way it affects his path to college. Should his father fail to return, he will be stuck in the store for the rest of his life, an idea that resonates with The Plight of Retail Workers. To fight against that resentment, the narrator resorts to telling himself stories about his work life, including those of his coworkers and the ones he makes up to deal with the tedium of unloading trucks.

At the same time, the narrator exchanges stories with those who remain in his life. In parallel with the fable about Anansi, these interactions stress the power of storytelling to create hope and connect people. He and his sister craft a fictive family dynamic to cope with their loss; he acts “fatherly,” asking his sister about her school day, and she responds that she saw him there, maintaining a helpful illusion for his sake. His coworkers insist that he is destined for great things, a glimmer of hope for them amid the daily drudgery of retail work. They need to believe his grand future is certain, and he withholds the most important information—his status as the breadwinner—to help maintain this illusion. For his part, he envisions a baby left in a shipping container and raising it with his coworkers, symbolizing their found community. For the narrator, the stories are a coping mechanism, introducing a sense of magic and meaning to an otherwise brutal and senseless world.