Reading Notes: Week 2 Anthology
The story that was my favorite out of all of them was titled Goblin City. What I liked most about this story was the plot, as it was the most humorous, but also had a lot of drama. The story starts out with the writer telling the intention of the She-Goblins, making it known that they used to marry the travelers and then eat them whenever they got sick of them. This sets up the rest of the story in an almost eerie way, but then in the end, it still kind of takes you by surprise what happens.
In the next couple of paragraphs, it talks about how they wanted to persuade the men to marry them and not scare them away. This reminded me a bit of the Siren in Greek mythology. Where they lured men in with their beautiful voices, the Goblins lured them in with the illusions around them. It builds a sense of false security in the reader as well, as they used imagery to help create the illusion for the reader. I liked the sentence that said, "by their magic power [they] made shapes of people appear all around so that there seemed to be men ploughing in the fields, or shepherds tending their sheep, and huntsmen with hounds, all the sights of the quiet country life" (Goblin City).
The story then ends where the She-goblins go to kill a few men in the prisons. At this point, the climax is building, as the man wakes up to find his wife eating human flesh. This adds a lot of suspense, as I started to wonder if the man was going to be able to escape from his wife or not. There is a bit of relief at the end, where some of the men escape, but then not all of them do. It ends on an ominous note, as all the rest of the men get eaten. I liked the end, but felt a little bad for the ones who gotten eaten by the goblins. Overall, this was a very fascinating story, and reminded me a little bit of how the original Grimms' Fairytales read.
Rouse, W.H.D. “Jatakas - Goblin City.” Jatakas - Goblins, sites.google.com/view/jatakas/goblins?authuser=0.
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