Chinua Achebe wrote the short story "Why The Tortoise's Shell Is Not Smooth". It is about a very sly tortoise that deceives a group of birds. Thesis. The tortoise tricks the birds into helping him get to their party where there are masses of food. At the beginning of the story the tortoise tricks the birds and the readers into thinking he has changed his ways. In the end, the bird gets the last laugh and tricks the tortoise, causing him a great deal of suffering.
             The Reader is brought into the story while it is being told in an Okonkwo Indian tribe. An older Indian member is telling the young Okonkwo Indians about this story. Then the story brings the reader to the actual folk story. It begins with a tortoise noticing that the birds are getting ready for a big feast. The tortoise begins to think that he would like to be involved in this feast but has no wings to get to it. He wants to go to the feast because he has not eaten in a long time.
             The Tortoise then asks the birds if he can join them in their feast. The birds tell him no because they know he is very smart and will trick them into do something. Then the tortoise says, "I am a changed man. I have learned that a man who makes trouble for others is also making trouble for himself"(11). Although the tortoise sounds sincere he is just going back to his mischievous ways. Each bird that was there listening to the tortoise gave him one feather and from those single feathers the tortoise made two wings so he could fly with the birds to their feast.
             Finally, the day came that the tortoise would get to feast with the birds. The birds flew away to their feast, with a very happy tortoise with them. Soon the birds chose the tortoise to be speaker for the party because he was such a great speaker. Then, when the body of birds and one tortoise began to get close to the feast, the tortoise explained, "When people are invited to a great feast...