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Going to See the Elephant: Difference between revisions
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** Interestingly, Maggie Antrobus wants to see a whale before she dies in the same author's ''[[The Skin of Our Teeth]]''. The Barnum Museum really ''was'' a tremendously popular place in the mid- to late-1800s, and the whale was a notable exhibit.
* Mentioned by name in [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[Discworld]]'' novel ''[[Discworld/Witches Abroad|Witches Abroad]]''. It's even the last line, as the witches talk about how they're eager to get back home to Lancre: "But they took the long way round, and saw the elephant."
** In ''[[Discworld/Snuff|Snuff]]'', Commander Vimes and his family actually go to see an elephant at the end of the book. This is supposedly part of their vacation, and everyone (save for Vimes himself) enjoys the trip.
* In [[Tamora Pierce]]'s ''[[Tortall Universe|Protector of the Small]]'' series, "going to see the kraken" is used as a [[Hold Your Hippogriffs|substitute idiom]] ... sort of—in this case, "kraken" stands for the how overwhelming one's first experience with open battle is.
* Another one that mentions the concept by name, "The Man Who Saw the Elephant" by [[Avram Davidson]] is about a farmer who goes in search of a rumoured travelling show featuring an elephant, because he's spent his entire life within a few miles of his farm and wants just once to go somewhere and do something out of the ordinary.
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* From ''Space Viking'' by [[H. Beam Piper]], regarding Lucas Trask's first experience of being part of a Viking raid on a more-or-less helpless planet: "Well, you saw the elephant, Lucas. You don't seem to have liked it." Spoken by veteran Viking Captain Otto Harkaman.
* There is a short story in the ''[[Honorverse]]'' called "let's go to Prague" that starts out as being about a vacation. Of course it gets complicated from there.
* ''The Man Who Traveled in Elephants'' by [[Robert A. Heinlein]] is a literal inversion of sorts. A traveling salesman and his wife don't want to settle down in retirement. They need some nominal reason to justify roaming around the country, so imagine themselves to be selling elephants. (They figure they don't need to take an actual sample elephant to show, because, heck, everyone knows what an elephant looks like.)
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