Reading Notes: Ramayana, Part A

Sita

As I read (and listened to the audio recording) the readings of Part A from the online version of the Ramayana, this specific story seemed to be the most detailed which is one of my main focuses as a writer. From the very beginning I loved how the princes were described with so many adjectives to describe what they looked like and what they were doing. By describing their looks with so much detail you could imagine as a reader exactly what was taking place. Another thing that helped was with the elegance that was described also came with other people reacting positively with what was being said. I think this is a good strategy of confirmation in what is being told to the reader. I think that if I truly want to sell an idea as a writer this would be a good strategy to confirm it with other people's opinions. Especially if it is describing an attraction type scenario. 

Another thing that I liked about this story was not only the details but the way the details were described so naturally. I think that in a love story as this one, the idea of using all of the descriptions made with nature references is a good tactic. Love between two people has always been seen as natural so when the story uses nature to describe the moods and setting, it just seems fitting. Maybe this is just because the event of the two meeting took place in a garden, but I felt that this type of language was on purpose to set the essence of what was taking place.

I chose this image of nature because I felt that the nature described in the story fit perfectly with the events. I found this image on Pexels.

Language is another focus of mine when thinking about what I want to improve with my writing. I think that I should try to imagine the emotions that I’m trying to convey in a story whether it’s a love one like this or a fighting story, then once I imagine I should try to describe the emotions with things that help with my interpretation of what I want to be visualized.

Overall, I thought the wording of this story was great and I need to be more conscious in my choice of description.

Bibliography:

The story of Sita from the Ramayana comes from The Divine Archer by F. J. Gould (1911). [600 words] This selection comes from Gould's versions of the Ramayana which is based both on Valmiki's Sanskrit Ramayana but also on Tulsidas's Hindi Ramayana. The link to where I read the text is above.