Reading Notes: Narayan's Ramayana Part D
Narayan's Ramayana Part D
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| Rama, The All-Powerful Human Source: Google Image |
I am going to use these readings notes as a way to dump and sum up my general thoughts about the novel and aspects from it I am sure I want to include in my stories and aspects I am sure I do not want to include. First, I am very happy in my choice of Narayan's version of the Ramayana. The combining of all of the stories made it extremely easy to follow who was who, what was what, and most importantly, how to something come to be. I stand firm in my opinion that if I were to choose the other version, I would forget characters; I would forget how people met, and I would forget who has the ability to do what. I definitely plan on utilizing this kind of structure when I write my stories that way my audience is able to easily follow the larger narrative I am trying to describe.
Second, as mentioned in my last reading notes, I really like the "journey/mission theme" the Ramayana takes on. It definitely has an Odyssey feel to it as the protagonist encounters friends and foes on his big journey. When I write my stories, I think I am going to try to have one or two protagonists (females of course) start on a mission and meet several characters a long the way.
Third, I definitely plan on doing "gender-swaps" in my stories as well as introduce LGBTQ characters for representation purposes. I'm not very well versed in how Indian culture perceives this community, but as a minority, I certainly plan on representing all types of people in my community. With that being said my biggest drawback from this book, and all of the epics so far, is the lack of feminism. The women are portrayed as weak and ignorant, and their sole purpose seems to be for a man's sexual endeavors and entertainment. Even after his long search for his beautiful wife, Rama still felt it necessary to test Sita's purity in order to determine if Ravana raped her or not. I think this reflects the idea that a wife is a husband's property. Had Ravana rape Sita, I do not put it past Rama to cast Sita away for being impure as another man "stole" his property. In my version of events, the characters will live in a matriachial society where the sexes are equal and women are valued members of society. You can see an example of this in my second story where I portray Rama and his brother as the victims of Ravana's trick rather than Sita.
Fourth, I loved how diverse the characters were. The novel included animals, gods, goddesses, goblins, witches, and humans. I definitely plan on including all sorts of creatures in my stories in order to keep the story interesting. However, the massive amount of characters in the book did make it unclear at times who was who so I may need to keep this in mind when I create my own book. For instance, I often got Sugreeva and Hanuman mixed up until Sugreeva became a king.
Lastly, I do not like the prevalence of suicide in the Ramayana. Personally, I find it dramatic and undermining those who do genuinely contemplate killing themselves. I appreciate the emotion the author was trying to get at, but I would take a much different approach as to not make light of suicide. For instance, Rama's brother threatened to commit suicide if Rama did not return. Instead, I would create another journey and have Bharatha be the main character. His mission would be to seek his brother.
Overall, I enjoyed this story and learning about the different characters that are prominent in other Indian epics. I was able to follow along easily, something I feared I would struggle with in this class, and I ended up finding myself exciting to find out what happens next. There are many great factors of this book I hope to recreate, and I am excited to add my own twist to it.
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