Two Bad Ants

Two Bad Ants is a 1988 children's book written and illustrated by American author Chris Van Allsburg.

Two Bad Ants
Two Bad Ants
AuthorChris Van Allsburg
IllustratorChris Van Allsburg
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
GenreChildren's
PublisherHoughton Mifflin
Publication date
1988
Media typePrint (Hardcover)
Pages32 pp
ISBN0-395-48668-8
Preceded byThe Z Was Zapped 
Followed byJust a Dream 

Plot summary

The title characters, while journeying through a human home, decide to exploit a sugar bowl on their own rather than delivering the sugar cubes to the colony's queen (so each of the ants get one sugar cube and so does the queen ant). They experience misadventures: they land in a cup of coffee, almost get toasted on an English muffin, fall into a sink, get threatened by its garbage disposal unit, and are nearly electrocuted when they enter an electric outlet. Chastened, they rejoin a line of ants carrying sugar cubes back to the colony.

Interpretations

In Philip Nel's analysis, a conflict between the book's plot and its illustrations leads to artistic tension. While the ants' return to the colony suggests "a victory for the bosses" and the narrative could be considered a "capitalist parable", the comparatively huge appliances in the kitchen, which terrify the ants, imply conspicuous consumption. Nel likens the book's resulting ambiguity to the works of Magritte.[1]

References

Footnotes


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