Reading Notes: Jatakas - Part 2
Two Turtle Jatakas - THE TURTLE AND THE KING and THE TURTLE AND THE GEESE by Ellen C. Babbitt.
This was one story I really liked. These two stories were different from one another too and I really liked how the turtle in the first story tricked the people.
Beginning : I have noticed that the short stories sometimes start out with the main character/characters in the story such as the turtle in both story. The stories are short and straight to the point that is the most important. If you give a lot of other unnecessary information for short stories like this, the readers won't know what to pay attention to.
End : The story telling ends right after the main point of the story is over, the writers don't drag it out unnecessarily because it is not important. Example when the turtle got to the lake and then the turtle fell to the ground and what the people said.
Story being told : Writers uses quotation marks to say exactly what the character says. Keeping it simple. Someone is narrating the story so it is third person.
Detail : There was not much detail on the character or location, they were just basic animals so the imagination was left on that.
Image : The image is of the main part of the story. For example where the king and his workers were deciding what to do with the turtle and when the geese with the stick.
You are the first person to do the Jatakas so far, Pranali! And I am glad you liked those turtle stories. Here's something to blow your mind: that story about the tricky turtle in the jataka also shows up as a very similar trickster-turtle legend told by the Seneca people of North America (an Iroquois tribe). But the Buddhist version is the oldest version written down!
ReplyDeleteHere is the Senecan legend if you are curious: Turtle on the Warpath.
Here's the ending:
The woman changed her mind, and said, "I'll carry him to the river and drown him."
Turtle cried, "Don't do that! Don't do that! I'll die."
He begged hard, but no use, they took him to the river and threw him in. He sank to the bottom, but right away he rose in the middle of the stream, held out his hand, as if showing scalps, and shouted, "I'm a brave man, and here is where I live." Then he sank out of sight.