As we last left our hero
he was in search of his captured love, Sita.
In search of Sita, Rama
and Lakshmana found a monkey lying injured on the ground intertwined in a
thick bush of thorny vines. The two ran to his aid and helped remove him from
the wicked thorns. They provided him with medicine and bandages. After they had
helped him, he revealed himself to be Sugriva, A Monkey King of the Monkey
Kingdom.
He told Rama about
his evil brother, Vali, who had taken over the Kingdom and left him for dead.
Sugriva then told Rama and Lakshmana that if they would help him defeat his
brother and regain his crown that he would grant them one favor of anything
they needed. Rama had heard of the Monkey Kingdom before, a beautiful
place filled with waterfalls of glistening blue water and trees full of the
sweetest fruit, but knew that none of this would aid in his search for Sita. None the less, Rama decided to help the desperate monkey.
Vali
|
Upon arriving at the
palace, Sugriva masked the men in a monkey disguise in order to be able to walk
through the city without causing a scene. They pretended Sugriva was their
prisoner and took him to the palace where Vali lived. As soon as they saw Vali, Rama
pulled out his golden bow and shot Vali before his guards could defend him. The monkey kingdom was once again in
the hands of Sugriva!
Since Rama found no need
for Sugriva's favor, he and Lakshmana packed up their things to go. As they were
about to leave, Lakshama overheard Sugriva talking about how pleased he was with
his growing army that protected the city. Lakshmana ran to Rama and told him
the great news. Rama was thrilled and immediately went to the king. The king
was more than happy to send his army to help Rama in his search. Rama thanked
the Gods for his good Karma and went on his way.
When they found Ravana's
Palace, the two brothers and their army planned an ambush. They surrounded the
city and attacked. As soon as Ravana realized the war had begun, he sent his
powerful brother with their army to fight Rama's monkeys. The epic war
commenced and many lives were lost.
Rama did not want to lose any more lives, so he
marched to Ravana and challenged him to a duel. Since Ravana had powers beyond
Rama, he knew that there was a possibility that he would die but he knew it was
the only way to free Sita. As the fight progressed, Ravana delivered some bad
attacks. Rama was near death when a God who was watching over him delivered a
weapon from his own armory. Rama mustered up all of his strength and used his
new weapon to fire a flaming arrow into Ravana's eye and through his head. The
two fought for their armies with all they had but in the end Rama was
victorious! He found Sita and took his queen back to his village where he was
named King once again!
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This post is a continuation of the story I told from Week 2 The Golden Bow. The two heroes are the same and they are still in search of Sita. The story line follows the story of Ramayana pretty well but omits some things that I didn’t like such as the controversy of the way Rama killed Vali. I wanted the hero in this story to be unblemished or almost God-like because, after all, he is an avatar of Vishnu. I also changed the scene of the brothers finding Sugriva. I gave the brothers disguises when they go through the monkey kingdom because no humans are in the monkey kingdom. I wanted to change the story line of Rama helping Sugriva twice, instead of just once, in order to justify asking for an entire army because that is a large request. I also left out the ending of the story where Sita is cast out, Lakshmana dies, and Rama becomes Vishnu again because I wanted more of a happy ending story. The names are once again true to the actual story. In order to follow the suggested topic of a descriptive setting, I added much detail into the place that the heroes found Sugriva and also the Monkey Kingdom.
All accounts of
this story were from Ramayana Online: Public Domain
Edition
Wow! Sara, I love the way you have written the last part of the Ramayana. I too had a sad opinion of the story and love the idea of how you have put a twist on it to give the ending a better taste in the reader's mouth. In addition, I think your paragraphs are well split up and have good content and purpose. Each of the spacing's between the paragraph are equal as well which makes it pleasant for the reader to not get distracted by poor formatting. I am also appreciative that your Wikimedia link is correctly working, because I found the picture you posted with your story very interesting. I think the picture of Sugriva's brother, Vali, is very intricate and goes a long way into describing more of his character than the story has to offer. I am also appreciative of the intensive detail you added about the Monkey Kingdom. It helps provide a visual aid when reading your great story! Thanks for posting!
ReplyDelete-Tyler
I enjoyed your story Sara!
ReplyDeleteI did not like how Rama killed Vali either in the Ramayana, so I like how you changed it up. It was actually one of my Reading Diary options for Storytelling.
I also liked how the ending was much more concise. I hated how Sita was banished, and you made it a simple, happy ending!
Thanks for the great read!
Sara,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your story! I felt the way you made Rama a better man in that he only wanted to duel Ravana was excellent. Also, I hated the ending in the Ramayana. I felt it did not make sense to have that entire story just to banish Sita. However, I enjoyed your ending with Rama and Sita being together
Overall, an excellent story!
Hi Sara,
ReplyDeleteI think the whole class is in consensus that Sita being banished was kind of… awful. It’s pretty nice that you rewrote the story as a happily ever after scenario and that Ravana did not end up dying but simply being defeated by Rama. I agree with Trevor in that you made Rama a better man through your writing. Thank you for the great read.
Hi Sara,
ReplyDeleteGreat story! I enjoyed the change of the plot. Who wants to read a story if it has a bad ending? I certainly do not. I also liked the description of the battle of the monkey army and Ravana. One way that you could add to the story even more is go into even more detail of the war. You could elaborate more on the fight specifically between Rama and Ravana to have a more "epic duel" between to two as a classic good conquers bad fight at the end. You could even throw in a classic Star Wars tribute and have Ravana say, "Rama, I am your father". and the bad back to back. The formatting is great with no typos in sight. If you wanted, you could also add chapters to each of your future stories i your storybook to make the readers feel like they are actually reading through a book. Just some thoughts. Hope they help!
Sara,
ReplyDeleteBeginning with your authors note, I'm glad you excluded Rama killing Vali in the controversial ambush. You focused your story on making Rama a hero, and taking out the Vali encounter does a very good job at that. Additionally, making Rama help Sugriva twice was a great change, an army is a lot to ask for. Sugriva would have to be in a lot of debt to Rama to grant that request. Finally, I appreciated you adding a happy ending to the story. I was disappointed by what happened in the original end of the Ramayana. The fact that Rama risked his life for Sita in a duel made for a much more thrilling story.
Thanks so much for sharing. I really enjoyed reading this story, and I look forward to reading more of your work in the future. Keep up the good work, this story was great.
Andrew
Sara,
ReplyDeleteI do appreciate the authors note. I am glad that you clarified the things that you had changed and the reasons for doing so. It made what I had just read a little more understandable.
I would have liked to have seen some variation with the story though. After reading the piece I felt like I was just getting a rehash of exactly what I had already read in the Ramayana. Since we all were assigned to read the story, I would have like to have seen the story placed in a different time or different setting. Maybe you could have expanded the story of Surgiva more to just the parts of his getting captured. I wonder how this story would have progressed had we not had the entire ending with Ravana included. What if you had taken this story, and put Surgiva, Rama and Lakshmana and put them on Jerry Springer with Rama confronting Surgiva about not providing the help he needed and Surgiva having all of his girls coming on stage to demonstrate why he was “tied up”.
Whats up Sarah!
ReplyDeleteI did not read the last story you referred to, The Golden Bow, However, it was still very easy to read and follow. I liked how you made the story your own and the changed you made to the original. I also hated the ending. The disguise was a very clever thing, almost humorous that the two heroes were dressed a monkeys.
I like the plain colored background it makes the story easier to read. For the Authors note I would advise that you either use the same font or you break it up a little more. One huge block of text is always hard to read especially when it has a small font.
I did really like your story and don’t be afraid to touch those battle scenes, I know it is hard to get super descriptive in the word max but I encourage you to get in touch with that imagery and try setting the scenes more (sorta like you did with the monkey kingdom) and try describing the battles a little more.
Great Job!
Hey Sara!
ReplyDeleteI have not read your first story, The Golden Bow, but that didn't stop me from being able to understand the flow of this story! That is probably because we all read the Ramayana so I knew what was going to happen. I liked how you changed things up a bit and made the ending more of how you would want it. Like you, I also wanted a happier ending. You successfully created a happier story with your ending. I am glad you also believe that Sita should not have been banished. My favorite part of the story was how you had Rama and Lakshmana disguised as monkeys when they went to get Sugriva his kingdom back. Your story had the perfect about of descriptive words to help me visualize the setting and the characters. To comment on the set up of the story, you did a great job of breaking the story into paragraphs. I like how you put a picture in the middle to break up the story more. It makes it seem like there is not too much to read. Great job!
Hi Sara!
ReplyDeleteI have really enjoyed reading your portfolio this semester. This story really adds to the great stories you have shared.I like how you are continuing to tell the story from another week's story. Sometimes it is frustrating with the short stories and we crave more! But in this way you can give/get more!
The visual appeal is always nice, it is calming and inviting the colors you chose. The paragraphs are great, the image is great too.
I like the softer sides you seem to add to the characters,it makes them more likeable. In your author's note you mention that you are giving help twice instead of once because of the enormity of the situation. Sometimes when reading the original stories I am shocked at how severe the duties and rules are.
Great job, I did not see anything at all that I would change or add to anything you have done. Your portfolio is in great shape! Thank you for sharing your stories! Good luck in all your future endeavors!