Reading Notes: Sun Wu Kung: The Great Sea, Part A

This story is part of the The Monkey King unit. Story source: "The Ape Sun Wu Kung" in The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).

Source

For this week's part A reading, I really enjoyed reading The Great Sea. With regards to the plot, I found it really interesting that it was focused around Apes assimilating into human society. It was a little strange that the ape king was able to wear human clothing and go unnoticed in human society. The apes probably represent different cultures in our world exploring foreign lands and trying to fit in and not stick out. Furthermore, these foreign lands are thought to have answers to difficult questions, for example eternal life. Another interesting character was the old wise ape who appeared to have external information of the question of eternal life. This ape seems to fit an archetype of the wise individual in a group who has the answers to the questions everyone in the group is asking. I wonder if this ape had ventured to these far off lands or got his information from somewhere else? These questions would be interesting to expand upon if I were to rewrite this story. Another aspect of the story that seemed to fit a specific archetype was the man at the top of the cave. I have actually used this archetype in a retelling of a story in a previous week. The twist here, however, was that this was merely a disciple of the wise man and thus the king had to continue his search. I found this twist interesting because it made me interested to continue reading to find out more. I would like to incorporate twists to typical archetypes in my own story telling.

Photo of mountains by Wikipedia