Reading Notes: Ravana and Maricha, Part B

 

The Deer

Picture by: K. Venkatappa taken from Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists (1914)

Source: Wikimedia

The symbolic usage of the deer was something that really stood out to me in this story. Before reading the story, I wondered why a deer was chosen to represent something Sita was in awe towards. However, the imagery of the “golden deer” in the story helped me visualize the beauty of the deer. I imagined it being cute with pretty brown fur, and bright eyes. I would like to change this up with a different creature that is also considered to allure people by beauty.

The development of jealousy was also something I enjoyed reading in this story. Jealousy is one of the seven basic emotions. I have done research in different emotions that are considered to be universal even if some features are different from others. I would like to play on this concept in my story through Sita’s beauty. Ravana projects the absolute need for Sita to be his, and I want to change this up by Ravana forcing Sita to fall in love with him through a curse, and build a plot from that. I want Sita to also be considered the villain for a bit. I found it interesting to see how Ravana couldn’t touch any women unless he wanted to die. To me, this is an exaggerated version of respecting women. I also want to include Ravana’s limitations of this, but make it more of a long-term consequence rather than an instant death.

I think this story will be interesting to change up because there are so many different ways to project jealousy and desire—both jealousy and desire are something most of us encounter, but if not controlled they can lead to negative outcomes. For Ravana, this was dying if he touched Sita. I want the consequences of these two concepts to be shown as a lesson to learn. However, I want to change the setting, and have Sita be more powerful than Ravana.

Bibliography: Narayan's Ramayana, Reading Guide B