As she sat in the garden, Asoka Vana, Sita contemplated on
her state and mourned.
“Why did I ask for the golden deer?” She pondered, “why was I not content with what I had. If only I had not told Lakshmana to go and save Rama.”
A period of time passed and Ravana approached Sita and said to her, “surely Rama has abandoned you. Would it not be better to come to me and become my queen?”
Sita replied, “I would rather spend an eternity of eternities away from Rama then to become your queen.”
Ravana was angered at her response and had his rakshasa women harass her daily until she would change her response. But no matter how much she was abused by the women, yelled at by him, or cajoled by him, Sita would not change her response to him. Therefore, Ravana sent spies out to find Rama so that he could battle Rama and remove Rama’s head.
“For surely,” said Ravana “She will love me if Rama is obliterated by my hand.”
When the spies came back they reported of a massive monkey army led by Rama and that the army was searching for Sita.
Ravana then declared, “Gather our armies and prepare for a war.”
A few weeks after this transpired Sita was being to lose hope and was contemplating suicide when her daily abuse from the rakshasa began. Shortly after that, Ravana appeared and tried to convince her to become his queen. She as usual spurned all of his advances.
After Ravana had left and the rakshasa had finished their abuse, Sita said to herself “I shall end my life before I waste away here and lose all hope of rescue. O Rama! Have you forgotten me?”
As Sita was preparing for her suicide a Hanuman slowly appeared in front of her, he explained to Sita all that had been occurring, and that Rama had been preparing and searching for since the moment she disappeared. When he had finished explaining he produced Rama’s ring and showed it to her.
Sita was overcome by emotion and said to Hanuman, “that
surely is Rama’s ring. I am the most blessed
of women that he is still searching for me after all this time.” Then she produced her last piece of jewelry
that she had hidden away in a knot in her sari-end. Sita then said, “I shall wait her for Rama to
save me for I could not sully Rama’s honor by returning with you. Please tell Rama that I breathlessly await
his arrival and rescue.”
 |
| Hanuman meeting Sita (Source: wikipedia) |
Author's Note:
This story is based off of events in The Ramayana by R. K. Narayan. I took the story of Sita's capture and retold it from a viewpoint that focused more on her and the events occurring in her area. My goal was to focus on Sita plight and draw emotion from it.
Bibliography:
"The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic" by R.K. Narayan, 1973.
"The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic" by R.K. Narayan, 1973.
I like the format, not just because it’s my own. Black text on a white background just makes things a lot easier for me and on my eyes. I think it also prevents detraction from the content of the story. I appreciated that you chose to do the style of spacing when two characters are having a dialogue with each other. It prevents confusion and makes the dialogue flow a lot easier, instead of trying to decipher who’s saying what when it’s just lumped together in one large paragraph. For the images, it captured the scene between Sita and Hanuman very well. I also liked the reference it makes, perhaps unintentionally to Annunciation paintings during the Renaissance. Maybe put the image at the top of your post next time? Although if you don’t want people to have a fixed image in their head of the story before reading it, I understand putting it at the bottom too. The links for the image and Ramayana worked. I think that making the bibliography entry of The Ramayana the embedded link instead of its reference in your Author’s note would be a bit easier to navigate. All in all, good work.
ReplyDeleteI loved how your story focused on Sita’s emotion. In the original story, the public domain version I read, we did not really get to see how Sita was feeling. I think you have hit a goldmine in storytelling techniques. Emphasizing and creating emotions that were not in the original story all for you to have artistic freedom and I think you have done an excellent job with that freedom. I really love how you have started off with her kinda blaming herself, “why did I ask for the golden deer?” Poor Sita, I feel bad that she is now blaming herself for Ravana’s horrid actions. You did a great job retelling this story! Good read!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your story. I was drawn to the formatting of this story. Often times paragraphs get too long and then they aren't approachable. So I liked how spaced out your story was. You also had a lot of dialogue in your story so that is another reason why I enjoyed the spacing. Your font size and style was good. I did not have to adjust my screen at all to read your story. Your colors were good. You honestly can't go wrong with a black and white color scheme. It was very pleasing to the eye. Your links worked great. The only thing I would change is moving the image to where that event in the story happened. The image seemed to be a little misplaced to me. But I really think that the image choice was a good one. It was very appropriate for the story that you told. But overall, I really enjoyed your story. Good job!!!
ReplyDeleteI thought you did a good job of retelling this story, but making it your own. The format is simple, yet it seems to work just great. I appreciated your spacing, making it easier to follow while reading the dialogue between characters. Your transitions were very smooth, and your style of writing was clean and easy to read. It's clear you've had plenty of experience writing. I loved that it was focused so much on emotion, and you did a great job drawing that out of your characters, Sita in particular. I really do not have any negative comments for you. A lot of people take these stories and twist them into something totally different, which is always interesting, but hard to do. If I had any suggestions for you, it would be to try doing something like that next time. I really struggle with creativeness, so I definitely get not being able to dream up a wild story like some of the others in the class, but after reading so many great stories today, I am really inspired to work hard to be more creative next week. I challenge you to do the same! Your story was great, keep up the great work!
ReplyDeleteI really love your version of this story. When I read the original, I did think that we should see more of how Sita was feeling. She was the one that was kidnapped and held captive for so long. It was nice to see it from her point of view. I also felt like your story was extremely easy to read and it flowed really well. Overall, great story!
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