Reading Notes: The Monkey who Gathers Lotuses

The Monkey who Gathers Lotuses was translated by Robert Chalmers and can be found here. I'm focusing on just this story because I appreciate how the story was resolved. The strength of the son was in his cleverness and equanimity. Even in the face of possible violence, the son trusted the world and earned the respect of the ogre. During the story, I thought the son would come up with some clever way to beat the father like in the Crocodiles and the Monkey's Heart. However, the purity of the son's mind is such that this did not even occur to him. He was genuinely happy to see his father and completely unsuspiscious of his motives. To me, this was the most surprising element of the plot, which made the story stand out from the others. When the son finally realized his father was purposefully endangering him, he did not respond with anger but found a third peace-making option. I also thought the lack of the son's perspective for most of the story was interesting. We kept hearing all the thoughts and suspicions of the father. This added to the respect the reader had for the son. His mind was so peaceful, he had no thoughts. As always, the story of the mother and her perspective was not really explored. I would like to give equal representation to the men and women in my future story. What is her fate after meeting the father? What is she doing when the father and son go on this journey? Why does she agree to take her son to a violent father? Does she have the same equanimity as her son? These are all questions I would like to answer. The immediate death of the father upon failure is also not very encouraging to a reader trying to learn a lesson. Giving the antagonist the ability to transform and grow caters to the growth mindset discussed in an earlier assignments. Applying this concept to morality and habits in daily life is also very important. Everybody has the capacity to learn and grow. Bad behavior does not have to characterize someone's whole life.

A lotus flower found on matze_ott's flickr