After reading the Jataka tales for week 10, I knew more Jataka tales was the easy choice for my reading for week 11. I enjoy reading short stories and folktales that have funny or clever endings, and this is so very true for the Jataka tales. For this week, I chose to focus on The Brave Little Bowman. This was the classic underdog story that is often presented in these folklore type stories like in the Rabbit and the Tortoise. For this story, there were some verbiage that I did not understand such as the word "page". After trying to find various definitions of the word, I found that the word also refers to a boy who is training for knighthood and is below a squire in service to a knight. Regarding the storyline of the plot, it seemed the take-home message of the story is that your size or strength does not better but rather your skill. Like with most short stories, it is a simple plot that could be enhanced with more details such as giving characters name. I also thought it was interesting the story mentioned that the bowman had a brooked back in the beginning, but this was never really explored afterwards. Why even mention the crooked back? If I were to retell this story, I definitely would make it much more exciting and expand more on the bowman. I could even see some David and Goliath parallels with the little bowman and big-man.
Source: More Jataka Tales, Ellen C. Babbitt, Ellsworth Young, 1922
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