The Brothers
Once upon a time there was a happy family who lived in a small city in Oregon: a mom, dad, and two brothers. They had lived in Oregon their whole lives, and Mom and Dad were thinking about moving to the east coast in North Carolina. The brothers were older now: Vali was twenty years old, and Sugriva fifteen. Vali was a tall, strong, and outgoing young man who wasn't afraid of anything. Sugriva, on the other hand, was more reserved than his brother, and he liked to keep to himself. Either way, both were excited about moving to the other side of the U.S and experiencing a whole new lifestyle. Over the next few months it was decided. The dad got offered a nice job, and would begin within a week. The family would move out after Vali took care of some things with his friends in northern California.
“I will be back in a couple of days, Mom, Dad, and Sugriva,”
said Vali. “I am excited to move out, and when I get back we can go."
“Alright, bye, Vali! See you soon,” Mom and Dad said while giving
him a hug and returning back into the living room. Vali approached the door
and was on his way out.
He turned around right before he left and saw Sugriva standing
there. He said, “Make sure you don’t leave without me! I will be back within a
few days. One week max. “
Sugriva replied, “Okay, okay. I get it, bro. See ya soon.”
And with that Vali went through the door and was gone. Anxious to
leave, the family decided to finish packing everything up and load it up in
their truck. After only one day, the family was sleeping on the floor in anticipation
of Vali returning soon. After four days Sugriva became worried about his
brother. Vali was not answering his cell phone, so they couldn't get in contract with him.
“Come on, Sugriva, I’m sure your brother is fine,” Mom said. “We gave
him directions to get to North Carolina before he left. Besides, he is
taking way too long and your father has to start his new job next week.”
Sugriva angrily said, “We cannot just leave him! He said that he
would come back. I know it has been later than expected, but we cannot just
leave him to be alo-“
Dad interrupted him, “Look. He is a growing young man. He knows
his way there. Remember that we are meeting in Ohio on our way to North
Carolina to visit your aunt for a week. Vali will be able to meet us there if
worse comes to worse, so don’t worry about it, okay?”
Unsure of himself, Sugriva reluctantly replied, “Okay… But I still
feel weird about it.”
And with that the family left the next morning without looking
back. Vali would return the same afternoon that the family left. He couldn’t believe
that his family decided to leave him behind, and especially after talking to
Sugriva. He became enraged and went to find his family again.
After searching for his family for days, Vali ended up at the address his parents gave him before. It was their new North Carolina house. He entered the house to find Sugriva sitting there, all alone, like he was waiting for someone to come home. Some of Vali's anger cooled of by now, but when Sugriva mentioned that Mom and Dad were not coming back he became confused. Sugriva further explained that after they arrived in North Carolina, Mom and Dad were involved in a horrible accident on a trip to the store. They didn't make it. When Vali heard this news he did not know how to feel anymore. His first choice of emotion was rage. He was mad at the fact that he never got a chance to say goodbye or spend those last couple days with his parents like Sugriva got to. Vali then wrongfully took his anger out on his little brother. Sugriva tried to explain, but Vali would not listen. Sugriva ran away from home, and Vali yelled to never come back or he would kill him.
After searching for his family for days, Vali ended up at the address his parents gave him before. It was their new North Carolina house. He entered the house to find Sugriva sitting there, all alone, like he was waiting for someone to come home. Some of Vali's anger cooled of by now, but when Sugriva mentioned that Mom and Dad were not coming back he became confused. Sugriva further explained that after they arrived in North Carolina, Mom and Dad were involved in a horrible accident on a trip to the store. They didn't make it. When Vali heard this news he did not know how to feel anymore. His first choice of emotion was rage. He was mad at the fact that he never got a chance to say goodbye or spend those last couple days with his parents like Sugriva got to. Vali then wrongfully took his anger out on his little brother. Sugriva tried to explain, but Vali would not listen. Sugriva ran away from home, and Vali yelled to never come back or he would kill him.
Gumpy Hill, Oregon
Taken by: McD22
Author's Note:
Hello.
This is my first story for my writing portfolio. I
chose to make a writing portfolio instead of a storybook for this class. Last
semester I did a storybook for the Mythology-Folklore class, but this time
around I wanted to have some more freedom with different stories. I wanted to
be able to work with a broad variety of stories that were not necessarily connected
as well as work on my storytelling skills/revising.
I decided to
write my story based off the story of Sugriva and his brother Vali. I chose to
write about this because I enjoyed this part of the Ramayana. The story wasn’t
really that long, but I think that it sends a big message. Sometimes you cannot
let rage consume and control you from seeing the truth. Sugriva loved his
brother deeply, and would never do wrong toward him. He was driven to a decision
that was better for everyone during the time of Vali’s rage. I didn't tell the
whole story, but there are some major changes I would like to note. First off I
did not include Rama. I just wanted to get the main point of the story across
exclusively with the two brothers. I
also changed the reasons for Vali to become angry at his brother. I wanted to
try and make it more modern. I know that Vali and Sugriva's parents were gods, but I wanted to include them more into the modern story and have prominent roles. It is hard to give a god a main part into a story when you can't talk to them.
Another major change that I added into my story is the reason for Vali's anger. In the original story Vali becomes angry because after a year, Vali returned to find that a stone was barricading the cave he entered. Also Sugriva was the king. He thought that he was trying to take over his kingdom. Vali took Sugriva's wife and vowed to kill him if he ever stepped foot in the city again. In the end Sugriva gets Rama to help him and Vali is struck down by one of his arrows, finally realizing his wrong doing.
In my story I felt as if the parents had to die in order for Vali to truly be angry enough to take his rage out on Sugriva. His anger is not justified, but the parents' death makes it to where Vali cannot just blame his parents for leaving. Instead he can pin everything on Sugriva.
The Story that inspired my own came from Narayan's version of the Ramayana.
Narayan, R. K. (1972) The Ramayana.
I really like how you changed the characters to (maybe humans) in the modern day! Previously, I wasn't creative enough to think of doing something like this! I was surprised where the story had ended, because I was waiting to see what Vali would do to his brother, but at the same time this creates great suspense! Your story is great, and the only thing that I could point out is that when you're talking about how the family is sleeping on the floor "in participation of Vali returning home." Do you mean anticipation?
ReplyDeleteI like how you modernized this tale. It was so different from the original that I actually had to think about how the story of Vali and Sugriva originally played out in the Ramayana. I think that this is the best way to do these storytelling posts because reading the same thing twice can be quite redundant. Overall, great job Anthony.
ReplyDeleteThere should not be a comma in the first sentence, it should just be "In a small city in Oregon lived a happy family," or even better, "Once there was a happy family who lived in a small city in Oregon." The next sentence is a fragment, it should be connected to the first sentence by a semicolon. The last sentence in this paragraph is a little rough, it would look better like this: "Over the next few months it was decided: the family would move out after Vali took care of some things with his business partners in northern California." In this sentence: "load it up in there truck" the word "there" should be "their." In this sentence: "floor in participation of Vali returning soon," the word "participation" should be "anticipation." In this sentence: "“We have him directions on how to get to North Carolina before he left. Besides he is taking way to long and your father has to start his now job next week"" the word "have" should be "gave," "to" should be "too," and "now" should be "new." There are a few more mistakes like this that could be avoided next time if you thoroughly proofread before you publish.
ReplyDeleteAnthony I am a big fan of how you used the setting of present day America to transpose the characters of the story into a more relatable role. Although, there might be some grammar errors as Amber pointed out I believe that it is always more useful to have a peer proofread your writing because you read what you meant to say not what you actually wrote down. I struggle with this quite a bit. On another note about the story I thought it was a tremendous job of making this story extremely understandable for others who are reading it. You obviously have a pretty strong talent for creating stories and writing from the cuff, I look forward to tracking your storytelling blogs throughout the semester.
ReplyDeleteAnthony, wow this was a great story! I was sitting here thinking about the original story of Vali and Sugriva, but I really enjoyed your modern adaptation to it. I thought it made it easy to relate to and made it more interesting for your modern audience. I think you made the story so suspenseful and I loved how you set up the story. I got a great sense of the characters in this story, and I could understand Vali's rage. But I also still feel like he was being overdramatic at the end, just as in the original story.
ReplyDeleteJust some suggestions: I would definitely do some proofreading in the story to check for grammar and spelling, as well as for flow of the story. One other thing I would suggest is to try and make it more in the active voice rather than passive voice. This would make the story have a greater impact for your audience. But overall, great job on this story!
Hey Anthony! I have a few corrections to start off with. In your second sentence, you might want to consider changing “in North Carolina”. The word “in” is not correct. You could consider “moving to the East Coast to North Carolina.” Or you could try “moving to North Carolina on the East Coast.” The latter would avoid any repetitiveness that the former correction offered. You may have noticed I also capitalized “East Coat”, because it is a proper noun. You might want to keep that in mind. After that sentence, in the same paragraph, you have a somewhat problematic sentence. “The brothers were older now: Vali was twenty years old, and Sugriva fifteen.” I would try a semicolon here, in place of the colon. Your two ideas are definitely linked, but they are both complete sentences so a semicolon is appropriate. I would also consider editing the end of that same sentence. You could try “Vali was twenty years old and Sugriva was fifteen.” I took out the unnecessary comma and added the word “was” between “Sugriva” and “fifteen”. Or, if the lack of the word “was” is a stylistic choice—in which case, please keep it!—then consider this edit instead: “Vali was twenty and Sugriva, fifteen.” This way the comma between “Sugriva” and “fifteen” adds clarification to the sentence. Overall, good job with the flow of your story. I enjoyed reading it! I like your interpretation of the relationship between the two brothers!
ReplyDeleteYou did an interesting take on the story of Vali and Sugriva. They are humans in the US with human parents! Suddenly they seem very normal and do not resemble the characters in the Ramayana too much, aside from their names and Vali's anger at Sugriva.
ReplyDelete"east coast in North Carolina" -- that doesn't sound right. Maybe say east coast or North Carolina only, or "North Carolina on the east coast".
When the dad says "if worse comes to worse," I'm not sure what he means. I would remove that statement or clarify what he means by that.
You accidentally typed "of" instead of "off" in the last paragraph.
The ending was a bit abrupt, but doesn't necessarily need a change. But there are endless possibilities! You modernized the story sufficiently, and the overall struggle between the two is still present, though on a smaller scale. I was very interested to see how their story would play out, and definitely did not predict that the parents would die in a crash. I guess that kinda makes the "worse comes to worse" quote almost a foreshadowing of the doom to come. Because plainly worse coming to worse would not really mean they just meet up at the aunt's house--death is the worst case scenario.
Anthony, I liked your interpretation of this tale a lot! What an interesting approach! It was such a cool idea to modernize it and put it in a setting that's so easy for us to imagine. I thought your parallels worked really well so that the whole thing was super creative, yet the essence of the story was still very well maintained. And the message came across really clearly, as well. The character development was good, and I think your versions of Vali and Sugriva stay true to the Ramayana characters, which is great. You're a very skilled storyteller.
ReplyDeleteI only noticed a couple of typos, which I think were already mentioned in the comments. I thought the flow was good, and your plot structure was really great for the story length. It's hard sometimes to have the right amount of detail in a short narrative, but you did this really well here. This is an excellent story to include in a portfolio.
Hi Anthony!
ReplyDeleteI am so glad that you chose this story to write! I love all the changes and details that you added to this story. I also love that you modernized it quite a bit! You did a great job of really making this story your own! I felt so bad for Vali, especially when he found out that his parents died! Overall, I think you did a great job with this story! You are definitely right about the message it sends!
Hey Anthony I am from the Myth class so this is my first stop to your portfolio. I think the story of Vali and his brother is one of the more underrated and richest stories in the Ramayana. I think you did a great job with this story. I like how you updated this story and made them humans instead of men. It adds to them being identifiable for the readers. Another aspect of your story that I like is that although you changed the setting and time of the story completely you were still able to remain true the original. I looked and I didn’t see any real issues with gram errors. I think the pictures you chose were great. In a lot of these storybooks and portfolios the picture really take away from the story by being distracting but here you chose the perfect picture. Overall I would say you have done a great job.
ReplyDeleteHey Anthony! Just want to first give a congrats to you for being one of those nominated. I was actually re-visiting your page because I nominated you as well. Aside from the fact that your background for your blog is totally awesome, I really like your stories too. I like that you posted this since it was one of your first stories—I posted one of my first storytelling posts in my portfolio too—especially because it shows where you started and where you are now. Though this course was only a semester long, I feel like my writing has changed up somewhat and improved since we have done so much of it. Its also fun to compare your old stories with the most recent ones.
ReplyDeleteI like that you wrote about rivals. Rivalry—especially amongst brothers—is a fun topic to me. Rivalries between friends is one thing but that between family is always fun to see, mostly because siblings tend to act similarly most of the time so to see how they differ when it comes to rivalries is interesting.