Monday, February 16, 2015

Week 6 Reading Diary A: More of Buck's Ramayana

p. 219-270

This is probably one of the most interesting part of Buck's Ramayana because it focuses on the character of Hanuman. Rama had sent Hanuman to search for Sita and he had quite a few adventures while searching for Sita. First, Hanuman gets swallowed by the sea demon and what was interesting was that Hanuman was able to shape-shift into different animals. He turned himself into a cat so that he can free himself from the sea demon. The story goes on with Lanka transforming into Hanuman's character and him being able to find Sita towards the end and sends a message. Hanuman then goes and cause some problems in Ravana's household.

I thought this section of Ramayana was a spotlight for Hanuman's character. Not only did Hanuman showed his loyal friendship to Rama by helping him find Sita but he went through a lot of trouble in order to find Sita. However, the adventures Hanuman faced were interesting, he was a clever monkey, knowing that Ravana was angry for what he did in Lanka, he was able to break himself free when Ravana wanted to set his tail on fire. I also thought it was really sad when Sita cried when she saw Hanuman, she didn't think he was real because in a way she kind of lost hope Rama might be able to save her? Until she spot Hanuman, it gave her some hope back and she left Hanuman her pearl to let Rama know her whereabouts. I wished Hanuman could have figured out some way to save Sita instead of sending a message. Maybe like the two of them figure out a way to escape from Ravana's lair or like a smart plan to trick Ravana, but since the Ramayana focused on Rama. I could see the story was saved for the character of Rama and how "he" will be the one to save Sita. That was the main point of the story was Rama saving Sita.

Hanuman also tells Rama that Sita remains faithful to him and that added more suspense to the story because now Rama is more determined than ever to rescue Sita. I really liked this part of Ramayana just because it highlighted the heroic deeds of Hanuman and the book revealed what a great character he was.

Sita wants Hanuman to send a message: Hanuman

1 comment:

  1. Christine, I love the character of Hanuman, so I was especially excited to read this portion of the book. I thought it was so cool that Hanuman could shape shift into different forms and animals. Rama is so lucky to have such a loyal friend like Hanuman and Sita is lucky that Hanuman was so clever. He was such a great hero and a great character.

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