La Fontaine follows ancient sources in his 17th century retelling of the fable, where the ant suggests at the end that since the grasshopper has sung all summer she should now dance for its entertainment.
However, his only direct criticism of the ant is that it lacked generosity.
The Grasshopper had asked for a loan which it promised to pay back with interest, but "The Ant had a failing,/She wasn't a lender".

The readers of his time were aware of the Christian duty of charity and therefore sensed the moral ambiguity of the fable.
This is further brought out by Gustave Doré's 1880s print which pictures the story as a human situation.
A female musician stands at a door in the snow with the children of the house looking up at her with sympathy.
Their mother looks down from the top of the steps.
Her tireless industry is indicated by the fact that she continues knitting but, in a country where the knitting-women (les tricoteuses) had jeered at the victims of the guillotine during the French Revolution, this activity would also have been associated with lack of pity.

Other French fabulists since La Fontaine had already started the counter-attack on the self-righteous ant.
In around 1800 Jean-Jacques Boisard has the cricket answering the ant's criticism of his enjoyment of life with the philosophical proposition that since we must all die in the end, Hoarding is folly, enjoyment is wise.
In a Catholic educational work (Fables, 1851) Jacques-Melchior Villefranche offers a sequel in which the ant loses its stores and asks the bee for help.
The ant's former taunt to the grasshopper is now turned on himself:
Are you hungry?
Well then,
Turn a pirouette,
Dine on a mazurka,
Have polka for supper.

But then the bee reveals that it has already given the grasshopper shelter and invites the ant to join him since 'All who are suffering/Deserve help equally.'

La Fontaine's fable also had a number of translations into Russian, in most of which the word used for the grasshopper is strekoza.
Though that word means a dragonfly today, at the time it could be used for a grasshopper as well.
Ivan Krylov's best known "The Grasshopper and the Ant" (Strekoza i muravej, 1808) follows the French original closely, but in the 1782 variant by Ivan Chemnitzer, simply titled "The Grasshopper", there is an alternative ending.
This comments on the ant's final words that they were only spoken for the sake of teaching the grasshopper a lesson, after which the ant really did feed the grasshopper out of pity.

In the 20th century the fable entered the political arena.
Walt Disney's cartoon version, The Grasshopper and the Ants (1934) confronts the dilemma of how to deal with improvidence from the point of view of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal.
The Grasshopper's irresponsibility is underlined by his song "The World Owes us a Living", which later that year became a Shirley Temple hit, rewritten to encase the story of the earlier cartoon.
In the end the ants take pity on the grasshopper on certain conditions.
The Queen of the Ants decrees that the grasshopper may stay, but he must play his fiddle in return for his room and board.
He agrees to this arrangement, finally learning that he needs to make himself useful, and 'changes his tune' to
Oh I owe the world a living....
You ants were right the time you said
You've got to work for all you get.

In recent times, the fable has again been put to political use by both sides in the social debate between the enterprise culture and those who consider the advantaged have a responsibility towards the disadvantaged.
A modern satirical version of the story, originally written in 1994, has the grasshopper calling a press conference at the beginning of the winter to complain about socio-economic inequity, and being given the ant's house.
This version was written by Pittsburgh talk show guru Jim Quinn as an attack on the Clinton administration's social programme in the USA.
 In 2008 Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin also updated the story to satirize the policies of 'Barack Cicada'.
There have been adaptations into other lan
La Fontaine follows ancient sources in his 17th century retelling of the fable, where the ant suggests at the end that since the grasshopper has sung all summer she should now dance for its entertainment. However, his only direct criticism of the ant is that it lacked generosity. The Grasshopper had asked for a loan which it promised to pay back with interest, but "The Ant had a failing,/She wasn't a lender".
The readers of his time were aware of the Christian duty of charity and therefore sensed the moral ambiguity of the fable. This is further brought out by Gustave Doré's 1880s print which pictures the story as a human situation. A female musician stands at a door in the snow with the children of the house looking up at her with sympathy. Their mother looks down from the top of the steps. Her tireless industry is indicated by the fact that she continues knitting but, in a country where the knitting-women (les tricoteuses) had jeered at the victims of the guillotine during the French Revolution, this activity would also have been associated with lack of pity.
Other French fabulists since La Fontaine had already started the counter-attack on the self-righteous ant. In around 1800 Jean-Jacques Boisard has the cricket answering the ant's criticism of his enjoyment of life with the philosophical proposition that since we must all die in the end, Hoarding is folly, enjoyment is wise. In a Catholic educational work (Fables, 1851) Jacques-Melchior Villefranche offers a sequel in which the ant loses its stores and asks the bee for help. The ant's former taunt to the grasshopper is now turned on himself:
Are you hungry? Well then,
Turn a pirouette,
Dine on a mazurka,
Have polka for supper.
But then the bee reveals that it has already given the grasshopper shelter and invites the ant to join him since 'All who are suffering/Deserve help equally.'
La Fontaine's fable also had a number of translations into Russian, in most of which the word used for the grasshopper is strekoza. Though that word means a dragonfly today, at the time it could be used for a grasshopper as well. Ivan Krylov's best known "The Grasshopper and the Ant" (Strekoza i muravej, 1808) follows the French original closely, but in the 1782 variant by Ivan Chemnitzer, simply titled "The Grasshopper", there is an alternative ending. This comments on the ant's final words that they were only spoken for the sake of teaching the grasshopper a lesson, after which the ant really did feed the grasshopper out of pity.
In the 20th century the fable entered the political arena. Walt Disney's cartoon version, The Grasshopper and the Ants (1934) confronts the dilemma of how to deal with improvidence from the point of view of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. The Grasshopper's irresponsibility is underlined by his song "The World Owes us a Living", which later that year became a Shirley Temple hit, rewritten to encase the story of the earlier cartoon. In the end the ants take pity on the grasshopper on certain conditions. The Queen of the Ants decrees that the grasshopper may stay, but he must play his fiddle in return for his room and board. He agrees to this arrangement, finally learning that he needs to make himself useful, and 'changes his tune' to
Oh I owe the world a living....
You ants were right the time you said
You've got to work for all you get.
In recent times, the fable has again been put to political use by both sides in the social debate between the enterprise culture and those who consider the advantaged have a responsibility towards the disadvantaged. A modern satirical version of the story, originally written in 1994, has the grasshopper calling a press conference at the beginning of the winter to complain about socio-economic inequity, and being given the ant's house. This version was written by Pittsburgh talk show guru Jim Quinn as an attack on the Clinton administration's social programme in the USA.  In 2008 Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin also updated the story to satirize the policies of 'Barack Cicada'. There have been adaptations into other lan
The Ant and the Grasshopper