Topic Research: Week 3
The topic I have chosen for my final project is Tigers
The stories I am most interested in are The Brahmin Girl Who Married a Tiger, The Hungry Tigress, The Cat and the Tiger, and The Tiger of Chao-Cheng.
In The Brahmin Girl Who Married a Tiger, an Indian tale, a shape-shifting tiger changes into the form of a beautiful brahmin boy and wins the heart of a brahmin girl. The tiger eventually shows the girl his true form once they are married and on their way to his home in the woods. She is frightened but has a son with him, which turns out to also be a tiger. She uses a crow to send a message to her brothers who come to rescue her, tricking the tiger into being scared of them by using an ant, donkey, tree, and tub to convince the beast that they are huge, dangerous creatures. After the tiger runs off, afraid, the girl kills her tiger son and cooks it to give to her brothers and returns home with them. The tiger realizes her deceit and is distraught upon finding his son dead. He tracks her down, pretends once again to be her human husband, but is tricked into standing on top of a well into which he falls and dies. (For this story, I could tell it through the eyes of the tiger and make the story more sympathetic to his plight--I myself sympathize with the character of the tiger, especially after his wife kills their son. I could make the brahmin girl look more ungrateful, from the tiger's perspective.)
In The Hungry Tigress, a Jataka tale, a Bodhisattva is renowned for his kindness and charity. He comes across a starving tigress who is contemplating eating her cubs out of desperation. Out of compassion, the Bodhisattva sacrifices himself, killing himself so that the tigress would have something to eat other than her cubs. (I could retell this story from the perspective of the tigress, adding more detail and showing her desperation grow until she is saved by the Bodhisattva's sacrifice. I could make these stories redeem the tiger, especially in the first one, making the tigers the central characters and making them more complex and sympathetic in the process.)
In The Cat and the Tiger, the cat is the sister of the tiger. She has to hunt for mice as her brother refuses to supply her with food. One day, the tiger orders the cat to serve hookah, a disgrace for the cat. She claims there is no fire, hoping to avoid this humiliation, but her brother has her go get some from man. While in the village, she finds the company of man pleasant, forgetting her errand. Eventually, she remembers and brings the fire to the tiger but he is furious and abuses her. She flees and lives the rest of her life in the house of man. (This story would be difficult to turn around and make the tiger a likeable character, so I am not sure if I will include this one, though I find it cute. Perhaps the cat could be shown to be ungrateful, like the brahmin girl in the first story? I could make the cat jealous of the tiger and have her leave for man's house because of this jealousy.)
In The Tiger of Chao-Cheng, a Chinese story, a tiger kills an old woman's only son. In her anger, she has the magistrate have one of his men arrest the tiger. The tiger allows himself to be arrested and he is sentenced to serve as a son for the old woman to replace her son who he killed. The old woman at first thinks the tiger should be put to death but grows to love the tiger and it grows to love her, proving to be a good provider for her. Upon her death, the tiger wails and a monument is erected for the faithful tiger. (This story should be pretty easy to put in the perspective of the tiger, who is already a pretty likeable character as he shows himself to be sorry for what he did and as he makes amends for killing the woman's son. I could add more back story as to why the tiger killed the son and could add more details regarding the relationship between the woman and the tiger.)
The stories I am most interested in are The Brahmin Girl Who Married a Tiger, The Hungry Tigress, The Cat and the Tiger, and The Tiger of Chao-Cheng.
In The Brahmin Girl Who Married a Tiger, an Indian tale, a shape-shifting tiger changes into the form of a beautiful brahmin boy and wins the heart of a brahmin girl. The tiger eventually shows the girl his true form once they are married and on their way to his home in the woods. She is frightened but has a son with him, which turns out to also be a tiger. She uses a crow to send a message to her brothers who come to rescue her, tricking the tiger into being scared of them by using an ant, donkey, tree, and tub to convince the beast that they are huge, dangerous creatures. After the tiger runs off, afraid, the girl kills her tiger son and cooks it to give to her brothers and returns home with them. The tiger realizes her deceit and is distraught upon finding his son dead. He tracks her down, pretends once again to be her human husband, but is tricked into standing on top of a well into which he falls and dies. (For this story, I could tell it through the eyes of the tiger and make the story more sympathetic to his plight--I myself sympathize with the character of the tiger, especially after his wife kills their son. I could make the brahmin girl look more ungrateful, from the tiger's perspective.)
In The Hungry Tigress, a Jataka tale, a Bodhisattva is renowned for his kindness and charity. He comes across a starving tigress who is contemplating eating her cubs out of desperation. Out of compassion, the Bodhisattva sacrifices himself, killing himself so that the tigress would have something to eat other than her cubs. (I could retell this story from the perspective of the tigress, adding more detail and showing her desperation grow until she is saved by the Bodhisattva's sacrifice. I could make these stories redeem the tiger, especially in the first one, making the tigers the central characters and making them more complex and sympathetic in the process.)
In The Cat and the Tiger, the cat is the sister of the tiger. She has to hunt for mice as her brother refuses to supply her with food. One day, the tiger orders the cat to serve hookah, a disgrace for the cat. She claims there is no fire, hoping to avoid this humiliation, but her brother has her go get some from man. While in the village, she finds the company of man pleasant, forgetting her errand. Eventually, she remembers and brings the fire to the tiger but he is furious and abuses her. She flees and lives the rest of her life in the house of man. (This story would be difficult to turn around and make the tiger a likeable character, so I am not sure if I will include this one, though I find it cute. Perhaps the cat could be shown to be ungrateful, like the brahmin girl in the first story? I could make the cat jealous of the tiger and have her leave for man's house because of this jealousy.)
In The Tiger of Chao-Cheng, a Chinese story, a tiger kills an old woman's only son. In her anger, she has the magistrate have one of his men arrest the tiger. The tiger allows himself to be arrested and he is sentenced to serve as a son for the old woman to replace her son who he killed. The old woman at first thinks the tiger should be put to death but grows to love the tiger and it grows to love her, proving to be a good provider for her. Upon her death, the tiger wails and a monument is erected for the faithful tiger. (This story should be pretty easy to put in the perspective of the tiger, who is already a pretty likeable character as he shows himself to be sorry for what he did and as he makes amends for killing the woman's son. I could add more back story as to why the tiger killed the son and could add more details regarding the relationship between the woman and the tiger.)
Photo by Tambako the Jaguar. Source: Flickr
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