Rama and Ravana in Battle

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Rama and Ravana in Battle

• from the great Hindu epic
• The Ramayana

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Background of the Ramayana

• Attributed to Valmiki, the mysterious poet
• Written in 25,000 couplets (2 line stanzas of
  poetry) 50,000 lines
• Written in Sanskrit

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Epic

• Long narrative poem that relates the great deeds
  of a larger-than-life hero who embodies the
  values of a particular society
• Epic hero is semi-divine, or part human, part
  god undertakes quest and is endowed with
  superior strength, knowledge, and courage

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Ramathe epic hero of the Ramayana

• Part Man
• Part god
• Incarnation of Hindu god, Vishnu, the creator and
  destroyer

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Ramayana is the epic story of Rama and his wife,
Sita

• Although both Rama and his wife Sita are
  semidivine figures, their story in the epic is a
  moving human tale of love and jealousy, loss and
  recovery, separation and return

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Epics plot begins with

• Prince Rama wins his bride Sita through a
  miraculous feat of strength, but when he tries to
  inherit the throne, he is wrongly banished from
  his kingdom, and for many years he wanders in
  exile with Sita and his loyal brother, Lakshama

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In the first half of the epic

• Sita is abducted by Ravana, the many-headed king
  of the demons
• In their quest to save her, Rama and Lakshmana
  become allied with Hanuman, the monkey king

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Rama and Ravana in Battle

• In a climactic battle, Rama defeats Ravana

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Rama defeats Ravana and gloriously returns with
Sita to his kingdom

• Although Sita remains entirely faithful and even
  passes through a circle of fire to prove her
  fidelity, but Rama cannot banish thoughts of
  jealousy from his mind.
• In despair, Sita leaves the earth to resume her
  place as a goddess

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Archetype

• A pattern in the form of a character, plot, an
  image, or a setting, that appears in literature
  across cultures and is repeated through the ages
• Examples
• CHARACTER Wicked stepmother ? Cinderella
• PLOT Star-crossed lovers? Pyramus and Thisbe
  and Romeo and Juliet
• IMAGE/PLOT Good vs. evil ? Star Wars and Lord
  of the Rings

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Literary Terms for Review

• Conflict Struggle or clash between characters,
  forces, or emotions
• External a character or group struggling
  against an outside character, group, or force
• Internal a struggle between opposing needs,
  desires, responsibilities, or emotions within a
  character

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Quick write

• Thousands of years before the Star Wars and Lord
  of the Rings films, the struggle between good and
  evil in the Ramayana was imagined as a battle on
  a cosmic scale, involving fantastic weapons, that
  could destroy the universe. What is the appeal
  of such stories? Why has this archetypal plot
  persisted throughout history?