Cliff

’s Papper Essay, Research Paper

The Sword in the Stone

The Sword in the Stone is a book about an adopted child named Wart.

He is of royal blood and does not know this. One day when Wart is in

the

forest, he finds a magician named Merlin. Merlin comes home with

Wart and

agrees with Sir Ector, Wart’s guardian, to become Wart’s tutor.

Merlin

goes about educating Wart by transforming him into different

animals.

Through each transformation Wart experiences different forms of

power, each

being a part of how he should rule as king.

The first transformation plunges Wart and Merlin into the castle’s

moat as fish. They proceed to meet the largest fish in the moat, who

is

the ruler. This fish takes what he wants because of his size. In a

speech

about power, he tells Wart that, “Might is right,” and might of the

body is

greater than might of the mind. Because of the way the fish-king

rules, his

subjects obey him out of fear for their lives. Wart experiences this

firsthand when the fish-king tells him to leave. He has grown bored

of

Wart, and if Wart does not leave he will eat him. The king uses his

size

as his claim to power, therefore his subjects follow him out of

fear.

In Wart’s next transformation into a hawk, he soars into the

castle’s

mews. All the birds in the mews have a military rank. Their leader

is an

old falcon, who Sir Ector keeps for show. The birds who rank below

the

falcon, hold her in highest regard because of her age. She applies

her

power over the other birds with no concern for their lives. In one

instance, Wart is ordered to stand next to the cage of a crazy hawk

who

almost kills him. On the other hand, her seasoned age brings

respect,

since she had not been released once she outlived her usefulness as

a

huntress. This allows her to maintain a powerful grip over all the

birds

she rules through fear and respect.

Next, Wart is transformed into an ant and posted within an ant

colony.

There is a single leader of the ants, and she is the only thinking

individual in the whole nest. All the ants are manipulated and

overseen by

her. Each ant has a specific task, which it completes repeatedly.

The

absolute power exerted by the leader destroys all individualism,

leaving

the ants with no creativity. Instead, they use trial and error to

complete

tasks that should take only a small amount of thought. Wart sees

this

occur when an ant tries with difficulty to organize three cadavers

in a

small burial chamber, when a small amount of reasoning would have

solved