Week 13 Story : Jane The Virgin
Once upon a time, there was a woman named Jane who was happily engaged to Michael, the love of her life, until she was accidentally artificially inseminated with the sperm of the owner of the Marbella hotel, Rafael Solano. Once the news was brought to both Jane and Rafael, the telenovela starts from there onwards.
Skipping forward into the episodes, Rafael's sister, Luisa gets caught into a love disaster with a foiled escaped prisoner referred to as Rose which is short for the widely known, Sin Rostro.
Rose is a sociopath and a convicted murderer who ends up having plastic surgery and looks composed as she goes about her evil deeds. She ends up going off the rails and taking people hostage and taking lives because Luisa ends up betraying her love as she keeps hurting the Solano family. Rose is unable to process the fact that Luisa does not love her anymore and she ends up killing people Luisa cares about to win her back thinking that this is the solution to a broken relationship. She goes forward with her criminal operation at risk.
Rose ends up looking everywhere for Rafael since he is the one who is responsible for putting her in jail in the first place and then Jane ends up being Rose's victim as Jane ends up getting caught in the crossfires of every situation associated with Sin Rostro and the Solanos.
"You poor little thing, always in the wrong place at the wrong time, aren't you?" says Rose while Jane cannot find the words to match up to the amount of fear contained inside of her. Rose then takes Mateo, Jane and Rafael's child along with Jane as hostage since that is more effective than holding Rafael hostage.
Luisa strikes a deal with Rose in order for Jane and Mateo to be set free from being held hostage and Rose agrees. Luisa and Rose have been on and off in their love life and all Rose wants is for her and Luisa to be together and live happily ever after. After knowing that if Luisa gives in just for a little while, just until Rose takes Luisa and goes somewhere away from Jane, Mateo and Rafael, then the Solano's will be free of the fear of waiting for Rose to do something to threaten their family again and they can go forward with their happy lives. Luisa strikes up a plan involving putting her in the middle of Rose's crosshairs and pulls through by working with the police to set up Rose and ends up showing up to the premiere party with her plan.
Rose and Luisa get ready together, and ended up spending the past week together and doing all things that couples do together until the day of Rogelio De La Vega, Jane's father's, premiere show. Rose continually tells Luisa, "we have the greatest love story ever told" and Luisa continually goes along with whatever Rose says.
Although Luisa did love Rose unconditionally, the love train has moved on and Luisa now values herself and her family more than any romance with Rose and has her priorities. She takes Rose to the balcony of the premiere and tells her that she is the love of her life as well and that she wants to move far far away and live their lives together away from their family as they would not approve. The lovestruck Rose actually believes Luisa and follows her to the helicopter that Luisa and the cops have planted at the balcony. Luisa takes Rose to the very top near the door of the helicopter and she takes out something that looks like a ring from her back pocket. Once Luisa takes a step back, Rose is prepared for the proposal and closes her eyes and prays and thanks the gods above. Luisa takes advantage of the situation and ends up pushing Rose over the balcony of the roof down five stories. The main villian of the Jane the Virgin tv show meets her fate at last after being impaled by Rogelio De La Vega's tall gold statue. The tail of the statue stabs Rose and hangs her almost immediately at contact. To make sure that Rose was in fact dead, Luisa sets the statue aflame and watches as Rose is burned to ashes.
Luisa appears okay due to being reunited and praised by family for going through several months of taking Rose's side and carrying on and acting like she is reciprocating the love Rose gives her just to plant Rose in the biggest trap of her life.
Alba, Jane's grandmother, says to Jane, "Finally, you are free of her" and everyone is able to finally breathe freely and not have a little amount of fear in them in the telenovela. They carry on and Jane ends up choosing Rafael, Mateo's biological father and Jane and Rafael end up getting married and living happily ever after.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story has a parallel plot and is a rendition of the jhataka, "The Crocodile and the Monkey's Heart" which is written by Marie Shedlock. In the jhataka, the Crocodile's wife is lovestruck with Bodhisatta and wants Bodhisatta to love her and give her as much attention as she gives him.
The Crocodile ends up crossing the Ganges river in order to fulfill her wishes and demands. The Crocodile ends up striking a plan and tries to lure Bodhisatta across the Ganges River to make his wife happy, so he tells Bodhisatta that there are fruits across the river. The monkey agrees and goes along with the Crocodile and later, the Crocodile takes the Monkey into the water and makes him struggle for his life.
The monkey tells the crocodile that his heart is stuck on a tree and he will retrieve it for the crocodile if he saves him. The crocodile falls for this and saves him and the Monkey outwits the crocodile.
Likewise, my story involving Rose and Luisa parallel the plot of this story where the Rose resembles the Crocodile and Luisa resembles the Monkey and she outsmarts Rose. She follows everything that Rose wants her to do but has a plan up her sleeve that she keeps on the low until she is ready to go forward with the plan. She risks her life and her happiness for this plan and shows fake love towards Rose as Rose is all about her.
The twist on the widely known and most famous tv show on the CW has a parallel storyline with this jataka that I wanted to share and show the relation between them.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Jataka Story: The Crocodile and the Monkey's Heart
Sin Rostro Picture: The Lovestruck Rose (aka. Sin Rostro)
Hi Asha! I think your connection between the jataka tale and the modern CW show "Jane the Virgin" was great! I've seen only a few episodes of "Jane the Virgin," so I will try to forget this story in case there are any real spoilers for the show in it! That said, you did a good job thoroughly retelling the story and paralleling it back to the story you read for this class.
ReplyDeleteHey Asha! I thought it was really creative that you were able to draw a parallel between a modern-day television show and a jataka. I've never seen Jane the Virgin, but I think you did a good job of describing it. While reading your story, I wondered what it would be like if you told the story as if someone was gossiping about Jane. That'd be interesting to see! Good story!
ReplyDeleteHi Asha!
ReplyDeleteWow! I would have never even thought to make this connection with a Jataka tale and then be able to write a story that parallels with it. Throughout the story you did a really good job at giving the reader a break by use of paragraphs and that is good because there was a lot going on this story. However, with the use of the paragraphs it made the story easy to read and the story was easy to read. I think the only thing that really stuck out to me was the authors note. I don't feel the authors note should be spaced out so much it was a little confusing when reading with it laid out like that.
Hi Asha!
ReplyDeleteI love Jane the Virgin, it’s the show I’m currently watching! Your story does a great job of recapping the events in the show accurately. It is an interesting connection you made between the two sources! I think it would be really cool to retell the Jane the Virgin story using the characters from the Jataka story, then have the recap of the episode and comparison with the Jataka tale in your author’s note.
Hey Asha,
ReplyDeletethis might come to a surprise, but I actually really enjoyed watching Jane the Virgin series with my girlfriend. I also wrote one of my portfolio stories on the same Jataka tale. I really enjoyed reading your rendition and how you paralleled Rose and Luisa's situation from the tv show. While reading your story, I was able to recall the tv show itself, but was pleasantly surprised when I read your author's note clarifying which Jataka tale you used for this story.