Tao Of Pooh Critical Analysis Essay, Research Paper

In The Tao of Pooh, Benjamin Hoff uses the characters from Winnie the Pooh to explicate the basicss of Taoism. By detecting the actions of Eeyore, Piglet, Rabbit, Owl, Tigger, and Pooh, he decides that the action of the character Pooh best describes Taoism. The most of import rule of Taoism is the Uncarved Block. Hoff uses Pooh to outdo explicate the Uncarved Block. The rule of the Uncarved Block is that things in their original simpleness contain their ain natural power, power that is easy spoiled and lost when that simpleness is changed. He uses these characters to demo how things can be spoiled and lost and besides how things can merely work out. Hoff uses Rabbit to demo that when you ever have to be on the tally making something and being busy, normally you miss things and you do non bask life. It can frequently sleep together up things to ever hold to calculate things out and ever experience like you are of import. He uses Owl to demo that when you are ever looking for a ground for something so it frequently makes things excessively complicated. Hoff uses Piglet in the sense that Piglet is ever scared and wavering things, if Piglet would non waver, he would acquire things done in a much more efficient manner. He should merely make, non believe. Hoff explains the character of Eeyore by demoing how he is ever worried about things ; he frets a batch. If he would non make that, so life would be much easier for Eeyore. And eventually, there is Pooh. Hoff shows how Pooh does non believe or chew over about things ; he merely does them. Thingss ever work out for Pooh because of this. Pooh works along with nature and he does non seek to interfere. Pooh leads a simple life. This can besides be explained as the life and actions of a Taoist.

Hoff & # 8217 ; s intent of this book is a didactic intent. He wrote the book to inform people of Taoism. He wanted to learn the ways and beliefs of a Taoist. He wanted to learn in a manner that everyone could understand or associate excessively, that is why he used Winnie the Pooh. Everybody understands Pooh. He thought that it would be an easy and simple manner to acquire the point across to non merely the scholarly, but the normal public. For illustration, Hoff provinces:

& # 8220 ; ? we won & # 8217 ; t seek excessively difficult or explicate excessively much, because that would merely Confuse things, and because it would go forth the feeling that it was all merely an rational thought that could be left on the rational degree and ignored. & # 8221 ; ( p. 10 )

He uses each chapter of the book to learn a new rule of the Uncarved Block of Taoism. In each chapter he tells a Winnie the Pooh narrative and so explains how it relates to Taoism. Hoff writes a chapter learning how inventiveness does non ever assist, but it sometimes destroys things and is the ground that things do non work out. Hoff teaches that the Taoist believe that if you understand Inner Nature it is far more effectual than cognition or inventiveness. He uses a verse form & # 8220 ; Cottleston Pie & # 8221 ; . The verse form explains how things merely are as they are and how people try to go against these rules with their mundane lives. He besides uses a narrative of Tigger and Roo. Tigger tries to be something he is non and he ends up merely sleep togethering things up and acquiring stuck in a tree. Hoff besides explains that working with Nature is best in the sense that you do non sleep together things up with a narrative about Eeyore acquiring stuck in the river. Everybody had been seeking to believe of clever ways to acquire Eeyore out of the river when Pooh said that if they merely dropped a large rock into it, so it would merely rinse Eeyore ashore. He did it without even thought, because believing wou

ld complicate things, and of class it worked. Pooh worked with Nature and things worked out for him. As you can see, Hoff uses many different Winnie the Pooh narratives to learn the unsophisticated ways of the Taoist.

The lone statements that Hoff truly presents is whether or non the Taoist manner is the best manner and whether or non it truly works. When you look at it from the point of Pooh and the narratives from The House at Pooh Corner you truly believe that what the Taoist believe is the best manner. Obviously if you do non believe that inventiveness and cognition are non of import, so you will non hold with anything Hoff is stating, but he makes you believe in demoing you how it ever works out with Pooh. He argues whether or non cleverness and cognition truly are of import. For illustration, it can be explained in the narrative when Eeyore gets stuck in the river. Clever ways do non work, but Pooh & # 8217 ; s simple manner works really nicely. Hoff besides argues how the Taoist believes that ever being busy is non a good thing. He uses Rabbit to explicate this theory of the Taoist. Rabbit is ever in a haste, being a Bisy Backson as they call it, and these Backsons are ever happening things to make to kill their clip. Hoff explains these so called animals like a shadow. Shadows are ever hotfooting along. Backsons are besides ever seeking to lose their shadows. They try to run from them non recognizing that they can non. Hoff argues that by merely sitting down and basking a nice cheery twenty-four hours, like Pooh would make, you can perplex things. You do non acquire the full fulfilment of your life. Hoff proposes legion statements about the ways of life, whether or non the Taoist manner is right, or the other manner is right.

I feel that the manner that Benjamin Hoff has chose to explicate the rule of the Uncarved Block is a really originative and effectual manner. This is a simple book and it does non take much thought or scholarly cognition to read ; merely about anybody can read and understand this book. I believe that he was seeking to learn the uninformed about the rules of Taoism and the Uncarved Block and I think that he successfully accomplished that by composing this book. How he decides to utilize Winnie the Pooh, stories that everybody is familiar with, is such a brilliant manner to explicate the rules of Taoism. He decidedly got his point across. I do non believe that he is seeking to do you believe in the rules of Taoism or the Uncarved Block, but that he is merely seeking to learn you or inform you of them. I believe that he does carry through that. Using Winnie the Pooh is a really cagey manner of traveling about that.

I loved this book. I can candidly state that I did non truly understand Taoism or where it was coming from before I read this book. Now I do. I think that by comparing the rules of the Uncarved Block to Winnie the Pooh characters and utilizing them to explicate it was a superb thought. It truly helped me understand it. I was non confused at all throughout the book. I was a small baffled in the beginning because I was reading excessively much into it. Then I realized that I did non necessitate to read into anything at all, but I merely needed to merely read the book. I am so used to holding to look into things when I read. I love how he chose such an easy manner to depict Taoism. It is such a complicated faith and he explained it so good by merely being simple. I like how he did non read to far into it and he did non seek to explicate things that merely merely did non necessitate to be explained to understand Taoism. In a sense I guess you could state that his book is besides an illustration of Taoism, it is simple and to the point.