Potential Topics

1. EPIC COUPLES AND LOVE STORIES: I enjoy a great loves story and I bet there are some great ones in these epics. I already like the story of Rama and Sita. It could be interesting to combine couples from each of the epics.
   RESEARCH: I have learned about the Ramayana and its background. I also have learned about the beginning of Rama and Sita’s story. If I chose this topic, I would probably pick three of the couples I find most interesting. I also started research on the couple, Ahalya and Gautama. My research from the Wikipedia page said that Rama releasing Gautama from the stone is an example of the saving grace of God. This is an interesting aspect. I might want to look into the allegory aspect of the stories.
   
   
2. ANIMALS: I am very interested in this topic because I love animals. I work at a pet hospital, so this topic is almost guaranteed to keep me interested and focused for the whole semester. I do not know a lot about the animals so far in these stories. However, I am definitely looking forward to their appearances in the stories.
   RESEARCH: I started to read about Hanuman from the Ramayana on Wikipedia. He looks like a monkey man creature. The breakdown of his name, however, means “disfigured man”. There is one explanation that Indra, the god of the deities, struck him in the face when he was a child. That is kind of a sad beginning to a life.
   
   
3. WOMEN CHARACTERS: I am all for girl power. It could be really fun to explore the depth of the women characters in the Ramayana. Sita has a lot of information and possibilities in her story. I could go a couple different ways with just her story. However, I think it could be interesting to go into the stories of other women in the Ramayana.
   RESEARCH: To look into this topic more, I read about Draupadi from Wikipedia. She was described as the most beautiful women of her time. It went into more detail about a game of dice. I think I have actually heard a little bit about this story before. The game reaches a certain point were Draupadi learns she is a stake in the game. I cannot imagine her feelings as she found out and this could be an interesting aspect of a storybook project to explore.

(Hanuman: The Disfigured Man)

1. KARMA: This is a tempting topic. Almost everyone has heard of karma. It would be very interesting to use my semester to explore the origins of this idea and the original meaning of karma.
   RESEARCH: The Wikipedia article states that the actual meaning of the word is “action, work or deed”. Good deeds and thoughts allow for good karma to occur later in life and bad deeds lead to bad karma. This is very interesting to me. However, I do not have any ideas on how to turn this into a Storybrook.