Reading Notes: Stories from Congo, Reading A

 

"Green Eyes;" Web Source: Wikimedia) 

I read Stories from the Congo. The story that had the most drama was The Jealous Wife. It depicted a story about a man with two wives. He went out and told the wives to stay with their children. The women wanted to be all sweet and give the husband some yummy food when he got home. However, they needed to watch the kids. One wife would stay at home while the other would fish. One wife was really jealous of the other wife's kid. When it was her turn babysitting, she decided she wanted to kill the other wife's baby. Thus, she killed the baby where they usually are. When she woke up, she realized she killed her own baby and not hers. Yikes. I really am interested in this story. I would use the components of jealousy and her own demise as a part of my own story. I would use a more modern approach. I may use something like a test and the other was jealous of a score on a test or just physical beauty. I would want it to be more of a narrative rather than have a narrator. I would want it to be someone who is directly involved in the story. I may try to use the jealous person's narration. I would also want to include their complex emotions that they may have towards the other. Maybe my story would illustrate some kind of friendship between the two. This may make the story still dramatic. This story is even more dramatic because there are children and there is such a close relationship, that they are both wives. I could imagine jealousy with two wives. Even the story itself with the complicated relationship between the two makes the story dramatic. I would need to create some complex relationship as well. It may be a mother and a child. The mother is jealous of the child's youth.

Bibliography: The Jealous WIfe in Stories of the Congo by Richard Edward Dennett.