The Elephant by Slawomir Mrozek

The story starts with a description of the zoo director. "He regards his animals simply as stepping stones of his career. He is careless about the educational value of his establishment." Being in a remote town the zoo is not funded and therefore was "lacking all the important animals"; basically all they had were surplus. Alas, the zoo's anniversary is vast approaching, for they are getting an elephant! Instead of rejoicing the director was thinking …

…better to tell the truth now, rather than suffer in shame later. After all honesty is the best policy. We as humans, especially Christians should strive to be Christ like and avoid lies. In conclusion, I find The Elephant to be very amusing and at the same time informative. This story is well written by Slawomir Mrozek. Like W.D. Valgardson, Mrozek uses a lot of symbolism which helps the reader to understand his message.