Is It Worth It To Be Selfish

Authors Note: This piece was written for my District Assessment as a mandatory piece.

What would you do if your were working for someone who is way more powerful than you? Someone that controls the whole mass of land that you live on. A citizen under the power of one man. That man was the King of England, who tells you what to do, when to do it and how it should be done. Well in the story The Hundredth Dove by Jane Yolen that is just what Hugh had to deal with. Hugh was the best fowler in England, granted that is probably not the best title to have, but he embraced it anyway.

The king ordered Hugh to come the palace for a court session. Hugh was both nervous and excited because he had never been to the palace before. When he got there he went in a room with the king and his lady, Lady Columbia, who was very beautiful. She was slim and fair with black eyes. Hugh described her as he felt she was, "She was neat as a bird," he said. She and the king were to get married soon, so the king ordered one hundred doves in one week's time. Lady Columbia did not agree with the idea at all. She begged him not to have doves as the meal for their wedding, but he rejected the suggestion just as quickly as it was spoken. There was nothing for Hugh or Lady Columbia to do for themselves. Hugh would have to complete the job as told.

The white dove was the dove that Hugh wanted to catch the most. For a long time he wanted to catch her. The symbolism in the story shows me that the white dove was Lady Columbia. I know this because the way he described her and the dove were very similar and in some ways the exact same. He exclaimed that the dove and Lady Columbia both had black eyes, and were both slim and fair. This symbolism meant a lot to me, and made the story come alive.

The fowler had a motto that was extremely important to him. It was sown on his tunic. Servo is what it read, meaning ("I serve"). It was written on his heart. He would serve the king whatever he wanted and or needed. An order of one hundred doves was a large one by the king. It was definitely a high order but not too difficult for Hugh to manage. The first day he caught twenty doves. All blue-gray, but one was not. One of the doves was the white dove. The one dove that if it flew over head you would know because of how white she was. He said that even in the night sky she would shine brightly. This dove was normally not with the rest of the flock, so when Hugh caught it he was happy, but that happiness wouldn't last long because when he got them all home the white dove was gone.

In the end Hugh takes the white dove and kills it. At that same time Lady Columbia was killed because the dove and Lady Columbia were one. Hugh takes all the doves to the doves to the palace for the king. All one hundred made it to the palace for the king, but only ninety-nine of them were alive when they got there. The one thing stood out and helped me prove my theory. That one thing was that after he brought the doves to the palace the wedding was called off. They talked nothing about Lady Columbia afterwards. The king wasn't worried at all and didn't wonder about her which made me think, did the king tell Hugh to kill Lady Columbia. Why would he want to kill her? Then I thought again. Hugh wanted her dead because he wanted her to himself. He trembled at her beauty.

Hugh didn't listen to what other people had to say. Lady Columbia told him not to hunt the bird but he proceeded anyway which got Lady Columbia killed. It is selfish to not listen to other people and do whatever you please no matter who it hurts in the end. The lesson learned is that it is okay to be selfish sometimes but other times it is more important to listen to other people.