Reading Notes Part B; Egypt: The Tale of Rhampsinitus
For my reading part B, I chose to do the Tale of King Rhampsinitus. I had never heard of this story before and I read
it a couple of times because I found it so interesting. I found the plot of
this story to be very intriguing. I feel
that there have been several different iterations of this story that I have
heard growing up. It was interesting to read about the builder and how he
allowed his sons to steal from the king.
The first question that popped into my mind right away was why would the
builder want his sons to steal from the king?
I don’t think I read anything that mentioned that the king had been
unfair to anyone of his subjects. It
seemed to me that this story is a little backwards in terms of who the hero is
and who the villain is. One thing that I noted when reading this story was that
the king was set up traps to capture the thief’s, yet we feel bad when we find
out that one brother had to kill his brother to make sure they were not
identified. As the story progresses, we
come to find out that the king wants to give his daughter to the man who
escaped his traps. Now when I read this I
was like, “What is going on here?” From
the stories that I remember we were always told to be sympathetic towards the
hero but in this case, I do not know who I should be rooting for. What I also like about this story is how it
turns the narrative of good vs bad on its head.
In this story both the king and the brothers are in the wrong, yet the
story comes across with a happy ending casually not talking about the fact that
his brother died stealing from a king who, to us, did nothing to them. That is seen as immoral and I was confused
about how I should feel that the brother got his head chopped off. At first, I was upset but the more I read the
sooner I became aware that if they had not committed a crime then the dead
brother would have been alive in the end.
That also leads to the question, “If both brothers are alive instead of
one dying, would the princess ever have married the brother or what would have
happened.” Overall, I just have so many
questions about this story because it threw me for a 180 but I would suggest
reading it for yourself and determine what the moral of the story is.
Bibliography: Gibbs, Laura: Egypt: The Tale of King Rhampsinitus; Egypt: The Tale of King Rhampsinitus
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