The Ant
antagonist · insect
She carried grain into the bank every day of the summer and counted the pile every evening. She had worked out in June exactly how many days there were, and she was right.
What they are like
- Kind
- 2/10
- Brave
- 8/10
- Clever
- 8/10
- Honest
- 10/10
- Curious
- 3/10
- Patient
- 10/10
How we meet them
Underneath him, in a line, carrying something heavier than herself. We meet her as a load before we meet her as a voice, and she is never once shown resting.
Personality
Not cruel and not warm. She does arithmetic where other people do feelings, and her arithmetic is correct. She has never once said anything she did not mean, which is why the one sentence she says at the door lands as hard as it does.
What they want
Enough for the nest, counted, before the frost.
How they change
She does not change. That is the point of her. She makes the same decision in December that she was making all summer, and it costs somebody else everything.
How they speak
As little as possible, and never a word that is not true. She speaks six times in the whole story and uses thirty-one words doing it. The shortest of the six is the one everyone remembers.
How the story treats them
Most of the last two thousand years has been on her side. Not all of it. A 1692 English edition praised her for reproving him and then said in the same breath that she did ill to refuse him.
One surprising thing
Aesop has a second, much rarer fable, Perry 166, in which the ant was once a man who robbed his neighbours' fields at night, was turned into an ant as a punishment, and carried on doing exactly the same thing.
If they were real today
She would be the one who read the terms, made the spreadsheet, and is not going to apologise for either.
Things they say
- “I know what month it is.”
- “With what?”
- “Then dance.”
- “We have enough for us. That is what enough means.”
Key moments
I know what month it is
Invited up to look at the view on the best day of the year, she answers in six words without breaking step. She is not being rude. She has counted the days and he has not.
“I know what month it is.”
Then dance
She opens the door a few inches, asks him two questions, gets two honest answers, and gives him back his own summer as a punishment. Then she closes the door.
“Then dance.”
Counting the pile
Asked by the young ant whether they should have given him something, she takes the grain, puts it back on the pile, and counts the pile, which she does every evening whether anybody asks her anything or not.
“We have enough for us. That is what enough means.”
Who they know
The Grasshopperneighbour
One of them spent the summer above the other, and neither of them thought about it much until the ground froze.
The Young Antcolleague
The one who decided a long time ago, and the one who has not decided yet, standing in the same warm room.
Characters like The Ant
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