Skip to main content

Reading Notes: Persian Tales Part A


Hello! 


This week I chose to read the Persian Tales unit and was not disappointed. Some of these fairy tales like “The Boy Who Became a Bulbul” and “The Wolf-Aunt” reminded me of the Brother’s Grim Fairytales in their more original forms. The others seemed a little more child friendly like we might expect of fairytales today. Thinking of my story for this week, any of them could make a fun base for writing, but I think that the ones that would be the best to work with would be “The Boy Who Became a Bulbul,” “Nim Tanak,” or “Muhammad Tirandaz, The Archer.”

For “The Boy Who Became a Bulbul” I would make the circumstances of the boy’s death make more sense to a modern reader, not just based on a bet with his father that he willingly submits to. I would also want to somehow bring the boy back, maybe instead of the Bulbul growing out of the stalk, he does. Or maybe his father doesn’t kill him but hides him instead. Either way I would like for the boy to live.

For “Nim Tanak” it seemed like Nim being half a boy could be a metaphor for being an illegitimate son or possibly having some sort of handicap. I think it would be interesting to explore that story in a modern setting possibly.

In “Muhammad Tirandaz, The Archer” I thought it was comical that Muhammad was so gung-ho about something that his peers said jesting at him. It was also fun to be suspense through the story, worrying that he may be found out as a lousy archer or possibly that he is a great archer after all. It would be fun to rewrite this story so that at the end he is either a great archer without trying or so that he accidentally hits the King of the opposing army.

I think that all three of these would be fun stories for this week, and I could possibly even write a second one for extra credit if I have time. Either way, I am looking forward to it! 

Bibliography
"Persian Tales" Translated by David Lorimer and Emily Lorimer 
Image
Photo by mshamma - Pergamon Museum, CC BY 2.0
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reading Notes: Japanese Fairy Tales, Part B

Hi! I missed the second reading for this week, so I am making it up today with these reading notes over Japanese fairy tales. This reading included three stories, one of and Ogre, a Goblin, and a Princess not unlike the story of Cinderella. All three of these are from Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki, who is pictured above with her husband. Out of the three stories, I liked the story about the Princes Hase the best, so I took notes over that story specifically. Here are those notes. The story of Princess Hase is told from a third person perspective. In the story there is very little dialogue. In fact, the only dialogue in the pieces, is that of the step-mother right before her poisoning attempt backfires and at the end when Hase’s father finds her hiding in the mountains. I think that this sparing use of dialogue at the worst and best point in the story is an interesting style choice that creased a stronger connection to the story at those points. I think that ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Week 13 Review: Home Stretch

Hi there! I don't know about anyone else in this class but I am busting my butt to finish these assignments up so I can get an A in the class. Staying in the holiday spirit, I am so thankful for the extra week (Week 15). Because of it, I don't have to cram a bunch of extra credit assignments into next week, but instead can work on mostly standard assignments. I also caught a previous assignment that I did, but didn't do the declaration for so that was a nice treat to start this week off with. I took the time to read through the announcements for the last seven days, and that has thankfully helped me understand how class is working over the next couple weeks and what finishing up looks like for me. As I was looking through said announcements, I was completely distracted by the blurb about St. Catherine. My full name is Catherine and I come from a Catholic family, but I had never heard of her in detail. So I spent quite a while reading about her on Wikipedia and found out t...
Post a Comment
Read more