Reimagining Fables: Power and Intertextual Dialogues in Kalila and Dimna and Eggers’ Narrative

Abstract

This study examines the intertextual deployment of the fable in a contemporary narrative through a comparative reading of Kalila and Dimna and Dave Eggers’ The Eyes of the Impossible. Classical fables such as Kalila and Dimna have exerted a sustained influence on literary traditions across cultures, shaping moral discourse, narrative authority, and representations of power. Drawing on cultural theory, comparative literature, and close textual analysis, the study applies a Foucauldian and intertextual framework to examine how power is constructed, negotiated, and contested in both texts. Through allegory and anthropomorphic characterization, the two works explore hierarchical relations, social conflict, and the psychological dimensions of authority. The analysis demonstrates that while Kalila and Dimna foregrounds power through counsel, balance, and hierarchical order, Eggers reconfigures fable conventions to address modern mechanisms of control, including surveillance, institutional regulation, and habitus. By expanding the fable beyond moral instruction, Eggers transforms it into a critical narrative form that interrogates freedom, individual agency, and the relational nature of authority. The study concludes that both texts ultimately emphasize balance, consultation, and imaginative freedom as essential conditions for just and sustainable power