Reading Notes: The Monkey King Sun Wu Kung, Part A
Week 7
In this week's readings, I found one that caught my attention mostly because it was from an animal's perspective. I read The Monkey King Sun Wu Kung, part A from Wilhelm's Chinese Fairy Book and I was instantly intrigued with how the story starts. In the first specific story "Handsome King of the Apes" the way the monkey king is described reminds me a lot of The Jungle Book. I thought this because he is discovering this new world and he's learning what he can do, while at the same time bringing so many different types of animals together. I like that the story sets up the idea that a lot of time has passed with their way of living being a routine. It definitely creates suspense when moving onto the next story. In "The Great Sea" I found there to be so much personification. I'm not sure if the idea was to somewhat lighten the mood, but I did find it amusing imagining an ape dressed as a human, acting like a tourist in this huge cities. I think this part of the story really develops seeing the world through the monkeys lens, especially when putting it into context that he's lived for so long yet hasn't seen anything out in the world. After this his real adventure starts where he starts training. Although he lived a life without all of this before, he is eager to learn and become stronger. This shows when he fights "The Devil King" to protect his children. He is seen as small and not worth the fight, but he ends up defeating him. In this particular instance I think it shows how well the training paid off, as well as making him a stronger character and less like the "weak" and "sad" one he was before his journey. I love how much this animal ventures out trying to be strong for his fellow specimens. I find him to be way beyond his own understanding of immortality.
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