The Poor Turkey Girl explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Social Class and Poverty

  The Turkey Girl's extreme poverty and low social status contrast with the wealthy families of Mátsaki; her transformation and subsequent loss highlight the precariousness of her position.

• Transformation and Identity

  The turkeys magically transform the girl's appearance and clothing, allowing her to temporarily adopt a new identity as a beautiful maiden, but her failure to maintain her promise leads to the loss of that identity.

• Sacrifice and Consequence

  The turkeys sacrifice their own comfort to help the girl, but her neglect of them results in their permanent departure, illustrating the consequences of broken trust.

Characters to notice

• The Poor Turkey Girl

  A humble, impoverished maiden who herds turkeys; she is transformed by the turkeys but loses them due to her forgetfulness.

• The Old Gobbler

  The leader of the turkeys who speaks for the flock, orchestrates her transformation, and later laments her betrayal.

• The Turkeys

  The flock of turkeys that the girl herds; they help her dress for the dance but abandon her when she forgets them.

Key passages

• “So poor was she that she herded Turkeys for a living; and little was given to her except the food she subsisted on from day to day, and perhaps now and then a piece of old, worn-out clothing.”

  She was so destitute that her only livelihood was tending turkeys, receiving barely enough food to survive and occasionally a scrap of discarded clothing.

  Establishes the Turkey Girl's extreme poverty and lowly occupation.

• “If you will drive us in early this afternoon, when the dance is most gay and the people are most happy, we will help you to make yourself so handsome and so prettily dressed that never a man, woman, or child amongst all those who are assembled at the dance will know you.”

  If you bring us back early this afternoon during the height of the dance, we will transform you into someone so beautiful and well-dressed that no one at the festival will recognize you.

  The turkeys offer to help the girl attend the dance in disguise.

• “But if, in the excess of your enjoyment, you should forget us, who are your friends, yet so much depend upon you, then we will think: ‘Behold, this our maiden mother, though so humble and poor, deserves, forsooth, her hard life, because, were she more prosperous, she would be unto others as others now are unto her.’”

  But if you get so caught up in having fun that you forget us, your friends who rely on you, we will conclude that you deserve your difficult life because you would treat others the same way if you were better off.

  The turkeys warn the girl of the consequences of neglecting them.

• “At last the sun set, and the dance was well-nigh over, when, suddenly breaking away, the girl ran out, and, being swift of foot—more so than most of the people of her village—she sped up the river path before anyone could follow the course she had taken.”

  Finally, as the sun set and the dance ended, the girl abruptly fled, running faster than anyone else and escaping up the river path before anyone could track her.

  The girl returns too late, having stayed at the dance until sunset.

• “It is as we might have expected. She has forgotten us; therefore is she not worthy of better things than those she has been accustomed to. Let us go forth to the mountains and endure no more of this irksome captivity, inasmuch as we may no longer think our maiden mother as good and true as once we thought her.”

  Just as we feared, she has forgotten us. She doesn't deserve a better life. Let's leave for the mountains and end this tiresome captivity, since we can no longer consider her as kind and faithful as we once did.

  The old Gobbler declares the turkeys' decision to abandon the girl.