For Monday: The Story of Hong Gildong, pp.35-77

SORRY! The questions didn't post on Friday for some reason--re-posting them now! :) 

Answer two of the following as usual:

Q1. Throughout the story, Hong Gildong claims that he "received the command of Heaven and came here on a righteous cause" (68), and yet the king and his family constantly bewail his faithlessness and criminal behavior. So how does the story want us to read him: as a 'god' like Rama, or a trickster figure, more like Ravana? 

Q2: At one point, Hong admits that "Because of some guilt I had to bear from my past life, I was born of a servant girl and was not allowed to address my own father as Father and my older brother as Brother" (46). If his birth is the result of karma, are his deeds in this life virtuous attempts to recoup good karma and advance his station in the next life? Or is this an excuse to cover his misdeeds? (we might consider his much we trust him in general--is he yet another Odysseus?)

Q3: If we read this story as a didactic text, one that uses Hong Gildong as the cultural embodiment of a hero beyond caste and class, what makes him "good" or "laudable"? What qualities do you think the culture prizes and celebrates in the story? Or do they, like the Greeks, simply enjoy hearing about a hero who defies the very ideal of heroism? Is he an Eastern anti-hero? 

Q4: At the end of the story, Hong Gildong takes leave of his kingdom with the philosophic statement: "I see that a human being is as insignificant as a single piece of grain on a vast ocean, and that a lifetime can pass in the blink of an eye..." (76). Do you feel this ending was an attempt by a later author to add a moralistic or even religious framework to a simpler oral narrative? Or does this philosophic intent emerge throughout the text, making it more than an exotic folk-tale?

For Friday: The Story of Hong Gildong, pp.1-35

As usual, answer two of the following for Friday's class:

Q1: What echoes of The Ramayana do we see in this work, despite Hong Gildong lacking its obvious mythic/religious dimension? Why might the audience that appreciates one find much to sympathize with in the other? 

Q2: Hong Gildong states that "Kings, lords, generals, and ministers are not made from a special blood," which is an old Chinese saying. Is the purpose of this work to question or contradict the social order of Korean society, which like India has its own caste system based on birth and rank? Can we consider this story a myth for common people? 

Q3: The Minister's wife, more or less Hong Gildon's stepmother, is conflicted by their plan to kill him, even though "it was a necessary thing to do for the sake of the family." However, she goes on to admit, "how could I be honored by my descendants when I have committed such a heinous act?" (15). From what we can glean from these opening pages, what would be the duty of a wife in this situation. Would it be acceptable (or understandable) for the family to kill him for the greater good? Or is such an act clearly murder no matter how it's justified? Would some notion of "dharma" color her decision? 

Q4: Why would Hong Gildong, a frustrated but otherwise obedient young man, agree to rob a venerated Buddhist temple with the bandits? This would be like Robin Hood leading an attack on a cathedral and pillaging all of its loot and holy items! Consider, too, his comment shortly afterwards: "We may be outlaws living in a mountainside hideout, but we will not commit acts of treason by stealing the property of the common people or inflicting harm on them" (32). How does robbing a Buddhist Temple play into this statement of ethics? 

For Monday: The Last Chapters of Narayan's The Ramayana

Answer TWO of the following...

Q1: In The Ramayana, most things are not what they seem, particularly if they look too good to be true. Rama is warned that Ravana’s turncoat brother, Vibishana, is clearly an “asura,” an evil spirit who will bring him harm; therefore he must kill him and fulfill his duty as a hero (who came to earth, after all, to stop Ravana and all asuras). Why does Rama instead decide to spare him even at the risk of being betrayed later on? Does this go against his dharma as a warrior or his mission as a god?

Q2: Toward the end of his life, Ravana is warned “Sooner or later retribution comes. Do not be contemptuous of men or monkeys” (126). Why does he continue to fly in the face of dharma and pursue his “impure work”? If we read this entire story on a more allegorical/metaphorical level, what human impulse might Ravana represent for the book’s readers?

Q3: What do you make of the passage that describes Ravana’s death? How might this reflect Rama’s earlier encounter with Vali? How might this passage also help explain the concept of maya in Hindu thought?

Q4: Clearly the most controversial part of the book is Rama’s rejection of Sita after his long struggle to regain her. How do you read this passage in terms of Rama being not only a great hero, but the god Vishnu himself? Why demand this of a wronged woman? Does this passage relate to anything else we’ve read in the book concerning women? (related to this, how does Narayan seem to read it)? 

For Monday: Narayan, The Ramayana, Chs.5-7

NOTE: Be sure to see the revised schedule on the post below this one. Otherwise, answer two of the following as usual. 

Q1: On Wednesday, we discussed a passage from The Bhagavad Gita which read, “work which is done with a confused mind, without considering what may follow, or one’s own powers, or the harm done to others, or one’s own loss, is a work of darkness.” How might this passage illustrate a specific passage in Chs.5-7? In other words, how might we read The Ramayana as a specifically religious text as well as a hero narrative? 

Q2: When Rama attacks Vali from behind a bush, delivering a fatal blow, Vali asks, “When strong men commit crimes, they become heroic deeds?” (101). How does Rama defend himself against claims of injustice against Vali and a betrayal of his own code? Has he committed a selfish act, one based on “impure knowledge”? Or is Vali’s way of understanding this act limited?

Q3: In Chapter 5, Narayan writes, “The fates were at work and this was to be a crucial moment in their lives. Normally, Rama would have questioned Sita’s fancy, but today he blindly accepted her demand” (82). How should we read this passage? Did the gods intervene and make Rama “weak,” or is this Rama’s humanity showing through? Can everything in the book be explained away by karma?

Q4: How does the character of Hanuman—though a monkey—embody many key Hindu beliefs about individual identity and duty? Why might he also be a cultural metaphor for the role of a hero himself? (indeed, in Hindu thought, Hanuman is almost as important as Rama).

Revised Course Schedule

I've pasted the revised schedule below, which only shifts a few dates around, and removes the film (since we watched the documentary last week instead). Note that the due dates for the papers haven't changed, though I did add one Discussion Quiz as a break from the reading schedule. 

M 14    The Ramayana, Chs.5-7

W 16    Discussion Quiz #5

F 18     Fall Break

M 21    The Ramayana, Chs. 8-Epilogue

W 23    Discussion Quiz #6

F 25     The Story of Hong Gildong

M 28    The Story of Hong Gildong

W 29   The Story of Hong Gildong

NOVEMBER

F 1       Discussion Quiz #7

M 4      Context: The Norse Mythos

W 6      The Saga of the Volsungs

F 8       Paper #3 due by 5pm [no class]  

M 11    The Saga of the Volsungs

W 13   The Saga of the Volungs

F 15     Discussion Quiz #8

M 18    Context: Chivalric Love and Arthurian Romances

W 20    Marie de France, Poems TBA

F 22     Marie de France, Poems TBA

M 25    Discussion Quiz #9

W 27    Thanksgiving Break

F 29     Thanksgiving Break

DECEMBER

M 2      Marie de France, Poems TBA

W 4      Marie de France, Poems TBA

F 6       Conclusions and Last Words

Final Exam (Paper #4) due TBA

For Wednesday: Narayan, The Ramayana, Chs.3-4

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: As we discussed on Monday, Narayan is having some fun with his adaptation of the great epic, rather than striving for a strict, academic translation. This allows him more latitude to interpret the story and add his own interpolations and glosses. Where does he do this in Chs. 3 and 4, and how does it add to the story—esp. for a modern audience?

Q2: In Chapter 3, Rama claims that “A word given is like an arrow, it goes forward. You cannot recall it midway” (54). What situation is he responding to  here, and how does this underline the fundamental concept of dharma (which translates to “the essential order of things, an integrity and harmony in the universe and in the affairs of life that cannot be disturbed without courting chaos”)? 

Q3: What role do women seem to play in The Ramayana? From Sita, to Kayeki, to the demon Soorpanaka, they all share certain characteristics and emerge as very distinct characters (maybe more so than the men). As Western readers, do we read these portrayals as somewhat misogynist (anti-women)? Or are they merely playing the roles required of them in this culture? Do they relate at all to women such as Penelope, Circe, and Calypso? 

Q4: In Chapter 1, Rama has to kill a female demon, and in Chapter 4, his brother, Lakshmana has to mutilate Soorpanaka. Both deeds can be seen as quite horrific and certainly beneath the hero of a great epic. How does the work justify these acts? How could men, traditionally the protectors of women in this culture, inflict such savagery upon them?

For Monday: Narayan's Ramayana, Prologue-Chapter Two

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: What makes Rama a unique hero, even more so than Gilgamesh or Odysseus? While all are somewhat divine (Odysseus has the help of gods),  how does Rama’s origin make him unique among Western heroes—and difficult to translate into our world/stories? Is it even fair to call him a hero given his unusual pedigree?

Q2: On page 16, Ganga explains to Rama that “Even after the participants have vanished, every inch of earth still retains the impress of all that has gone before. We attain a full understanding only when we are aware of the divine and other associations of every piece of ground we tread on.” Why might this be an important idea in this work, given what you've read so far? 

Q3: The Ramayana places a strong emphasis on duty or dharma, which can be translated as “the essential order of things, an integrity and harmony in the universe and in the affairs of life that cannot be disturbed without courting chaos. Thus it means rightness, justice, goodness, purpose” (Easwaran). Part of dharma is doing one’s duty and keeping’s one word at all costs. How does the story (so far) dramatize the struggle of doing one’s duty and obeying one’s station in life, even when to do so might otherwise seem ‘wrong’? Why is this notion of duty particularly tricky for Western readers?

Q4: Another often-translated Hindu concept is that of karma, which “can be translated as deed or action. The law of karma states that every event it both a cause and an effect. Every act has consequences…and every act, every karma, is also the consequence of some previous karma” (Easwaran). Related to question 3, how does the work dramatize the concept of karma in action? What characters are punished or rewarded according to their karma? Why might this, too, be a difficult concept for Western readers to grasp or appreciate?