Friday, February 27, 2015

Week 7: Essay: India Unit

For weeks 6 and 7, I read two different sections of stories in the India unit of the Un-Textbook. The two were Indian Fairytales and Bengali Folktales. Overall I liked this unit very much. I found it hard at times to choose between stories to read. They are all so interesting to me. The reasons why I chose the two that I did were

1.     I like reading about fairytales from other countries. Last semester, in the Mythology and Folklore class I had the opportunity to read many different stories from around the world. Along the way I noticed that each Unit of stories had a similar theme to them. For example some of them had happy endings and others had bad ones.

2.       The Bengali and Indian Fairy Tales units had easy to see and clear cut motifs within some of their stories. All of the Bengali stories had a happy ending. The Indian Fairy Tales stories had some tricksters in it.


My favorite stories from the two units were The Tiger the Brahman and the Jackal, and The Story of a Brahmadaitya. I believe that the first story is clever because the Jackal ends up out-smarting the tiger, which puts bad karma on him. The second story is also my favorite because it is a feel-good story about a poor man who finds great fortune thanks to the Brahmadaitya. I didn’t really have any least favorite stories. I thought that all of the stories were told well. There were some connection I found in the India unit from reading the Ramayana. Mostly, it was just simple things like the names of the type of people and gods. Overall I really enjoyed this Unit in the Un-Textbook. I was surprised by how well the stories were told in the Bengali section. 

Flag of India

2 comments:

  1. Hey Anthony!

    I am glad to see that you did the Un-textbook this week! I decided to read Ramayana so it is great to hear about the other stories! I find it interesting that even though these stories are from India they have the same kind of theme from other stories around the world. I think the next opportunity I get I will definitely read the Un-textbook

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  2. Hey Anthony!
    I had already commented on your Introduction, so I was looking for some other post to comment on! I have read the Indian Fairytales unit, but I haven't read the Bengali Folktales.I also enjoy reading fairy tales from different countries. I think they are very interesting and it's cool looking at different perspectives! Hope your semester is going well!

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