For
this week’s reading I chose the Bengal Folktales unit because I wanted to
continue with the fairy tale theme that I started with last week. Plus, I had
never previously heard of or had experience with any tales that come from
Bengal. I really enjoyed this week’s reading because yes, it was fairy
tale/folktale stories but they were strange and dark. They featured themes of
violent justice, selfishness, betrayal, jealousy, revenge, death, and ghosts.
It was a fun change and a perfect follow up to the week of Halloween! Plus, I’m
into dark tales that teach lessons. I've read all of the Grimm’s Fairy Tales
and absolutely loved them! These reminded me of those fairy tales because of
their macabre form of justice and the gory and/or violent deeds of men who are
influenced by a sin or an evil of sorts. The only thing that bothered me about this
week’s readings was that there were multiple stories featuring ghosts that all
had very similar plots/story lines. It felt a little tiring to read multiple
stories that were all about the same thing. I would suggest getting rid of “The
Ghostly Wife” if you can find another Bengal folktale to replace it in the
unit. It is the least interesting of the 3 stories featuring ghosts,
manipulation, and impersonation. Ghosts in these tales do interest me though
because they seem to be bound and determined to get a new chance at life. They
yearn to be alive again, which unlike a lot of western fairy tales, suggests
that they are conscious of their death and are intelligent spirits. We have a
lot of haunting stories where the ghosts are essentially on a loop, replaying
parts of their life or death over and over again. When they do actively haunt a
person it’s usually because they don’t understand why they are in their house
or something and they feel like the person is intruding on their lives. They
want them out just like I would want some stranger out of my house. These
ghosts though realize they are dead and decide to take on the life of someone
else at the cost of that actual person’s livelihood. Anyway, “The Ghostly Wife”
is a relatively boring story in comparison to “The Ghostly Brahman” and “The
Ghost who was Afraid of Being Bagged.” The other two have plot twists that I did
not expect, but really enjoyed. I also wasn't a fan of “The Story of a
Brahmadaitya” but that was probably because it was a really long story that was
in the middle of a bunch of shorter stories. The shorter stories were more fun
to read because they were short enough to not get boring or monotonous. I felt
like reading that story was a bit of a trek in comparison to all of the other
stories.
Medieval Ghost by Gallowglass
Found on Wikimedia Commons
Overall, I really enjoyed this unit and plan to keep the
print-outs I made of it to read them again. You picked some really awesome
stories.
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