Week 6: Buck's Ramayana (pp. 219-324)Assignments - Reading Guide A - Reading Guide B - Ramayana Resources |
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Your assignment is to choose one of the story retelling suggestions listed below. If you want to write on a different topic, contact the instructor first (make sure you do that at least one day before the deadline so that you can receive an answer back in time).
Author's Note. You need to include a brief author's note in which you explain the storytelling style you chose along with any important changes you made to the original story in creating your own version.
Image. You are required to include at least one image with the story, along with a link to the webpage where you found the image, plus information about the image. You are free to re-use the images you find at the course website, or you can choose some other image to use that you find on the internet. Remember: even if you are re-using an image from the course website, you need to provide image information about it.
Title. You need to include the words "Storytelling for Week ___" in the title you give to the post, along with a title for your actual story (for example, "Storytelling for Week 2: Inside the Mind of Manthara")
Length. Your Storytelling post needs to be a minimum of 300 words long (maximum 1000 words). Make sure you do a spellcheck and a word count, and that you proofread your post by reading it out loud.
When you are done, complete the Gradebook Declaration.
PLEASE READ CAREFULLY: I have published a blog post with the words "Storytelling for Week ___" in the title, along with a specific title for my story. My post is between 300 words minimum and 1000 words maximum. I have spellchecked and proofread the post. I have included an author's note. I have included an image, along with Image Information. |
The Honey Park. The Honey Park story is a kind of unexpected episode on the return back to Kishkindhya. Pick one of the characters involved in the incident (Hanuman, Jambavan, Dadhimukha or any of the others) and have them provide their version of the story, probably after they have sobered up the next day. You need to decide who they are telling the story to, and why they are telling the story: set up the storytelling scene (where is the dialogue taking place? why?) so that we can appreciate why they are choosing to tell the story in this particular way.
Mandodari and Ravana. We see Mandodari and Ravana on their way back to the palace and Ravana gets angry at Sita. What happens next? What do these characters say to each other? What do they do when they get back to the palace? Mandodari is an important presence in the story even if she is not a leading character. What kind of story can you imagine about her and about Ravana?
Sign on the Bridge. Imagine that you have to make a kind of "historical marker" or "tourist sign" for the bridge to Lanka built by Rama and his allies. For your story, write out the text of this historical marker. (If you have a day or two to think about it, you might check out some of the building signs on the North Oval at OU to get a sense of the style in which these kinds of things can be written!).
Sita in Pushpaka. Buck actually tells the story of Sita's visit to the battlefield in a rather hurried way, although he gives you lots of clues to work with - the attitude of the other rakshasis, Trijata's protective attitude towards Sita, Sita's own despair, and the magical properties of the Pushpaka chariot itself. Tell your own version of the story, choosing whatever storytelling point of view you think would be best! (You might look at this other summary of this phase of the war at the ChennaiOnline website).
Breaking the news to Ravana. All Buck tells us is that "Ravana slept all night, and when he awoke on the third morning of war his sentries from the walls told him how Rama was alive again." (p. 317). None of the details of this scene are provided, so it's up to you to imagine how they broke the news to Ravana, and what Ravana's reaction was: what did he say? do? think? feel?
Vibhishana and Indrajit. Vibhishana's betrayal of Indrajit's location to Lakshmana is one of those moral turning points in the story. Imagine that Vibhishana continues to think about that - not surprisingly! Think about Vibhishana's relations with Indrajit must have been like in the past. How do you think Vibhishana feels about how this episode turned out? Imagine a dialogue that Indrajit has with somebody (one of Vibhishana's new allies? one of the gods?) about the death of Indrajit and Vibhishana's role in his death.
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Modern Languages MLLL-4993. Indian Epics. Laura Gibbs, Ph.D. The textual material made available at this website is licensed under a Creative Commons License. You must give the original author credit. You may not use this work for commercial purposes. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one. No claims are made regarding the status of images used at this website; if you own the copyright privileges to any of these images and believe your copyright privileges have been violated, please contact the webmaster. Page last updated: January 15, 2005 1:35 AM |