Reading Notes: Twenty-Two Goblins, Reading B

("Ahilya Ghat" by Ken Wieland via Wikipedia)                                                                                      

    The story that I chose to do reading notes on is “The General’s Wife” by Arthur W. Ryder (1917). I chose this story because I really enjoyed the characters in this story. This story is similar to other stories in this section as it has the same kind of storyline where the king needs to answer a riddle given by a goblin in a dead body and when he answers correctly, the goblin runs away. As most of the stories have a similar plot and storyline, I focused more on the details of the story. One thing that I noticed in this story and all the other stories is that the names of the characters are very unique. They aren’t the typical names you think of, but the characters instead are named after some kind of adjective or feeling. In most cases, these names are based on the actual character’s personality or physical traits. Another thing that I noticed was common in this story and most stories in this section is that the Brahman is used in many stories. They are used somewhat as the wiseman of the story and typically give advice. In the case of this story, love is an important factor as the dilemma stems from the king loving someone else’s wife. However, the king chooses to not take advantage of his position and dies without ever falling out of love. This plot of love is also very common as many of the stories have multiple men falling in love with one woman and the riddle is to decipher who deserves her more which is also the case in this story.