Margaret Yoon

The Ramayana was difficult to understand at first, but once I acquired background knowledge about the epic, I found the different cantos from the books a pleasure to read. It is interesting that Rama and Sita are perfect figures; they serve as sources of ideals and wisdom for common life. Her abduction by Rakshasa, or the king of Lanka, is comparable to the Achaean’s abduction of Chryseis and Briseis in The Iliad. However, Sita, being the ideal wife, puts up a much stronger and angrier response to the abduction. She wishes to remain with Rama at all costs because they are incomplete without each other. I was not sure if Ravan actually rapes Sita, for it does not explicitly state so, but there are literary implications to the deed, such as the connotations of being Rama’s “ravished dame.”