Caste identification of the hare in Wolof oral narratives

The literary figure of the hare in Wolof fictional narratives has attracted folklorists and literary scholars for over one hundred and fifty years. They interpret the hare’s tricky behavior according to psychological justifications or sociological interpretations, but fail to account for the particular social environments in which folktales were originally presented. This article analyses this literary figure in the context of the caste membership of the narrator as well as of the audience.