The past few days had not been spent as promised. Sugriva was supposed to be helping with the protection of Sita by gathering his army and making a plan. The King of the Vanars could not have a more different plan in mind. Instead, Sugriva had been spending the end of the rainy season with his many wives and drinking. This situation worried Rama, as the plan he had been hoping for seemed more and more out of reach. Sita was in danger and the lack of effort was angering to him. Rama's words did not help speed up this process. However, when Lakshama came by and saw that Sugriva had not been holding up his end of the deal, it was a completely different story. Lakshama was far from tolerant of this situation as he threatened to kill Sugriva if he did not do something, and fast.
Almost immediately the armies of animals came together to prepare to find Sita. The army stood ready and fell silent as Sugriva walked toward them. There were some of the soldiers who stood out among the rest. Nila, Hanuman, and the son of Jambavan Vidhata stood at the front and waited for instruction. Their presence made Sugriva think they would end up being something great, just as their fathers were before them.
Sugriva hollered at the army. He explained the importance of finding Sita. He explained that they needed to search everywhere, no matter the train. Whether it stream of Krishna or the Mysore mountains, every inch needed to be searched for traces of Sita. Even if the Dandak wilderness or Godavari seemed like places that are hard to inhabit, they all needed to be checked. Even though Sugriva had seemed not eager before to find Sita, his leadership skills towards the army made it seem otherwise.
Author's Note:
The original story of "The Armies" in the Public Domain Ramayana is told in a one line per paragraph format. Each sentence/paragraph is a different thought or action occurring in the story. I altered this by making longer paragraphs with more detailed explanations of what is going on. The text in the original is mostly dialogue, where I made this more of an internal thinking discussion to express the characters thoughts and feelings. Overall, there is no major change to the story line from the original, as I only wanted to change the writing style in my piece. There are a ton of characters in this story so I thought that my new format would make it easier for a reader to understand.
Bibliography: "Public Domain Ramayana" , but more specifically "The Armies" Composed by Donal Mackenzie and Ramesh Dutt
Almost immediately the armies of animals came together to prepare to find Sita. The army stood ready and fell silent as Sugriva walked toward them. There were some of the soldiers who stood out among the rest. Nila, Hanuman, and the son of Jambavan Vidhata stood at the front and waited for instruction. Their presence made Sugriva think they would end up being something great, just as their fathers were before them.
Sugriva hollered at the army. He explained the importance of finding Sita. He explained that they needed to search everywhere, no matter the train. Whether it stream of Krishna or the Mysore mountains, every inch needed to be searched for traces of Sita. Even if the Dandak wilderness or Godavari seemed like places that are hard to inhabit, they all needed to be checked. Even though Sugriva had seemed not eager before to find Sita, his leadership skills towards the army made it seem otherwise.
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| Sita Source: Wikimedia |
Author's Note:
The original story of "The Armies" in the Public Domain Ramayana is told in a one line per paragraph format. Each sentence/paragraph is a different thought or action occurring in the story. I altered this by making longer paragraphs with more detailed explanations of what is going on. The text in the original is mostly dialogue, where I made this more of an internal thinking discussion to express the characters thoughts and feelings. Overall, there is no major change to the story line from the original, as I only wanted to change the writing style in my piece. There are a ton of characters in this story so I thought that my new format would make it easier for a reader to understand.
Bibliography: "Public Domain Ramayana" , but more specifically "The Armies" Composed by Donal Mackenzie and Ramesh Dutt
The wow moment for me was how well you outlined what was going in this story. I believe that you did a better job of telling the story, because I personally feel that the dialogue did not add much to the scene or storytelling. I wonder what was the driving force in the original story to have it as dialogue as opposed to how you have it laid out. Perhaps since the story was told by mouth more than likely it would be easier and more natural to read if there was more than one person reading to a group. I guess one thing that is lost with the dialogue is the character building by seeing their word choice and thoughts. This leads to wonder, what if the original story is just lacking the detail that your story has. Either way I enjoyed reading it!
ReplyDeleteKayleigh, I like that you gave more of a character to Sugriva. He is someone that I would have easily forgotten about! If you edit this story in the future, I would suggest giving even more examples of how Sugriva is a great leader. Maybe you could include the way he addresses and speaks to Rama and Lakshmana so that we can see if he is professional about it like he is professional when standing before the army. I would expand on the second two paragraphs so that it fits more nicely with the first, loner paragraph. Good job!
ReplyDeleteKayleigh, I could tell pretty quickly that the story was the same as the original just in different format. I think it reads much smoother this way. If you ever choose to edit any of this story, then perhaps you can add in something that you want just for fun. After all, this class gives us so much freedom- I wrote a story about a talking mushroom. So I hope you have fun!
ReplyDeleteHi Kayleigh! This is a great story. I can really see the parallel to the original and I like the little changes you made to make it your own. Just like Brad said in his comment, I like your version with no dialogue better than the original. I think a more narrative approach like you have done here provides a smoother read and it held my attention better than the original. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHi, Kayleigh! I think your choice to keep many elements of the original story is actually quite good; it's really important to get to experiment with different writing styles, and I think you did a very good job of that here. I think you did a good job at being descriptive enough for the reader to understand the context of the story, as well. It would be interesting to hear this same story from the perspective of another character, like Lakshmana, in the future. Great work!
ReplyDelete