Spring 2021

This part of the Jatakas has been so fun to read. Both parts A and B from this week my very well be my one of my most favorite so far. All these stories remind me of my childhood and have been able to show me the reasons for which I fell in love with reading as a child. I want my writing to emulate these characteristics and make people see their childlike love of reading stories. The use of descriptive words contained throughout these little tales would be useful to give some good ideas for writing almost any type of story. The way in which the story Spend a Pound to Win a Penny used this type of language helped me to see the whole scene. Descriptive language has the ability to paint the writer into the scene so it is almost as if they are seeing it up close and personal. This story in particular was one I truly enjoyed due to the underlying theme it carried with it. From the onset of the story, a reader may assume it is just going to be a silly tall tale about a monkey; however, by th...

 For this weeks reading I chose the Jatakas of The Giant Crab and Other Tales from Old India. Once again, these stories immediately stuck out to me for the use of animal characters. I feel like any story is more approachable and relatable for people when the characters are unsuspecting animals. However, with animals, I feel like there is so much room to create a new persona and character qualities without people having as many preconceived biases like they do for typical story characters. These animal based stories also have the ability to reach a large demographic audience spanning all the way from little kids up to adults. The underlying message of most these stories is one that many people can relate to and ultimately learn good moral lessons from. The story of the Giant Crab was not my overall favorite story in terms of plot; however, the writing style it contained was very interesting and something that I think would be good to try out. In my own writing I often feel as if som...