Women: Must We Always Be An Object?

What comes to mind when given the word “epic”? Maybe for some, a slang word, but for others, perhaps works like The Odyssey or The Iliad. Maybe even just the movie Troy? For most people, they probably view an epic as either a super long – tedious, arguably – piece of rhyming literature or maybe just a story filled with fanciful themes and a heroic adventure. Both viewpoints would be valid, I would argue. However, something I find interesting about epics? They make you read the same ones! Over and over again, it’s always Homer right? Well guess what guys, there are other epics out there. We just don’t study them because they aren’t as popular with Western culture. But let’s not go off on a tangent. Let’s talk about Sita’sRamayana.

For those who are asking, what the heck is that? Don’t worry, I hadn’t heard of it either. A typical Ramayana – according to the internet – is one of two major epics of ancient India. It is one of the largest epics in world literature and reals with ideal relationships, such as the perfect husband, or the perfect king. In other words, it focuses on the more masculine ideals in society. In opposition to that, Sita’s Ramayana tells the story of a woman that is exiled with her husband and brother-in-law. They are living in a forest when she gets kidnapped by another king. She is taken prisoner and her husband and other creatures and gods, come up with a plan to save her. The story – at first – comes across as a fast paced damsel in destress type story. You know the one. Girl is in trouble; handsome guy has to come save her and they live happily ever after. Except Sita doesn’t really get her happy ending. Her husband’s people think she might have been tainted by the other king, so he sends her away. There she raises her children until they return to the castle with their father and she goes back into the earth. So to me? Not a happy ending. What Sita’s story, I would argue, seems to achieve, is the telling of what war and pride do to women and those others effected by the outcome.

When reading Sita’s Ramayana, the audience is whisked away into what seems to be a rather fanciful world. Gods, animals that can communicate, transmutation – the list goes on. What is so different about this rendition of the original Ramayana is not just the point of view change, but also the way in which it is conveyed through the medium of art. The comic is illustrated with bright colors and large panels that allow the reader to feel the intensity of the story – a story that moves rather quickly. Something that McCloud talks about in his novel Understanding Comics, is the gap between panels – or scenes – within a comic that are filled by the reader. For example, Sita’s Ramayana jumps between scenes rather quickly; one minute the characters are discussing how to build a bridge over the ocean, and within the next panel, the bridge is done. The audience must be able to bridge those sort of gaps in storytelling in order to understand the comic. However, the illustration does an excellent job of ensuring that the characters are carefully aligned with the background and text in order to help the reader understand what is happening.

Something that I found very fascinating about this comic is the way in which the author’s conveyed Sita and the struggles she had to endure. As a woman, Sita was treated more as an object than anything. Her husband, himself, says that he only rescued her because his own honor was at stake. Then, when he felt she might have been tainted by the other king, he sent her away as if she was nothing. Sita’s story as a female is not a new topic of discussion. Even in Western epics, women are often treated as objects. Something to be desired or obtained, just as they would gold or any other treasure. I would argue that Sita’s Ramayana is meant to illustrate the consequences of being a woman in the predominantly male driven world that she was born into. In the end, Sita was still nothing more than an object and I think her story is meant to illustrate the push back to such thinking.