Dadie's The Hunter and the Boa

Originally I wasn't going to post about today's reading, I was saving that for Achebe's Things Fall Apart since it seemed like what a lot of other people were doing as well, but I just HAD to rant about the way Dadie ended his story...well, it was more like a parable than a story, kind of an Aesop's fable slant. If there's one thing I hate hate hate when I read it's cliffhangers (affectionately known as cliffies), the kind that makes you mull over it for hours on end thinking about what the character would have done. In The Hunter and the Boa, a poor hunter sets traps along the river every day with no results. Then, one of his traps catches a boa but the boa promises to make him a very rich man if he would let it go. The hunter lets the boa go and it gives him two gourds, telling him to throw one of them to the ground as soon as he gets home and keep the other one so he can understand the languages of everyone who live on earth. After the hunter followed the boa's instructions, he lived happily and was able to understand the dogs when they talk. By listening to what the dogs say, he was able to profit from various natural disasters and became very rich.

 Ten years later, the dogs were talking and they said the hunter will die if he doesn't return the second gourd to the boa, thus forfeiting the ability to understand the language of everyone on earth. Furthermore, he will lose all the riches and be even poorer than before but he will have his life. The hunter is then put into a torturous position and tries to decide among the lesser evil all the while being tormented by the happy sounds of his family and the dogs teases him, aware that the hunter can understand animal speak, and they repeat, "What's wrong with your master? Does he know that he's going to die?" 

The fable ends with an open ended question, asking the reader what they would do if the tables were turned.  I have to wonder if anyone would really be able to choose between two equally important decisions.