Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Week 2 Storytelling: The Story of Samson

Samson appeared to be like any other infant at birth; however, as he grew older, he couldn’t help but feel different than the other children. He would play with other children around his age, and he would often get in trouble for being too rough and hurting the other children. He was just playing though, just like all the other children. He would imitate exactly what they did, but it always ended badly with a child bruised or hurt from Samson’s rough play. When he had asked his parents about this oddity of his, they had told him he was to not participate in the play of the children. So Samson pushed aside these feelings of abnormality and decided it best to just not participate in rough housing in order to prevent himself from hurting the other children as his parents had suggested.
As Samson grew up and reached early adolescence, he started experiencing judgement and harassment. The other boys would battle with tests of strength and bravery. Samson always refused to participate in this banter fore he remembered the consequences of his rough playing from his childhood. The other children started poking fun at Samson. They would say he was weak. He was feeble like a girl. They would mock him, “His hair was so long, he even looks like a girl”. Samson had never gotten his hair cut because his parents forbade it. Samson was hurt by the children’s vicious words. All he wanted to do was prove them wrong and show he was not feeble. He could stand the torment no longer. He ran to the home of his parents and as he was running through a tree filled area he thought, ‘Why couldn’t he just show everyone he was strong like the other kids! He was just as brave; he had no fears’. He stopped his running and started to sob in the middle of the forest. His anger was welling up inside him and he turned and with all his force he punched the trunk of a large cedar tree. He started to pull his hand back into himself, but his hand had gone at least half a foot into the trunk of the tree. He looked amazed at the scene. How did he do that? Maybe the tree was rotten and giving way. Then he noticed the tree creaking and starting to buckle from the force of his impact. He quickly moved away from the tree as it tumbled to the ground. He quickly ran back over to the tree to examine it. It was a healthy tree that showed no signs of rotting or weakness. He had to test this again. The fallen tree was at least 10 meters tall and 1 meter in diameter. Samson reached around the tree as best as he could, and attempted to lift it. He easily lifted it from the ground into the air.
‘How could this be possible?’ he thought. He put the tree down and continued home to his parents. Once he arrived he told them of the days’ events and what a miraculous thing he had discovered. His parents realized they should have told him sooner, but they didn’t want him to use his strength inappropriately or get hurt from others who may view him as a threat and attempt to harm him. They told Samson the whole story about how he was given by God to them and he could never cut his hair or he would lose his strength. 

 

What his parents feared had become a reality; someone had seen Samson in the forest and word got out that Samson possessed super strength. Many wanted to challenge him and test his strength. Samson did not want to use his strength for his selfish, greedy desires so he fled from the town so he would no longer be pressured to use his strength for his own gain.

Author's Note: I used the story of Delilah and Samson and showed Samson as a child before he knew he had super strength and before he met Delilah. I had originally started reading Bible Women. Then realized I was familiar with almost all the stories so I decided to read Jewish Fairy Tales because it would have all new stories to me. However, I chose to write a story from the Bible Women: Delilah. I chose to write from Samson’s point of view growing up. Enjoy!

5 comments:

  1. Sabrina, I found it very interesting how you decided to track back in time relative to the original story. I enjoyed reading the series of events of how he used to play with kids and hurt them till his parent disallowed him from doing that. It is a good thing that he fled the town after they had found out because he would’ve had to use his strength for the wrong reasons if he remained. Overall was a joy to read, thank you!

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  2. I really liked your story. It was like a "prequel" to Delilah and Samson. It kind of reminded me of Hercules, how his parents found him and he was from the gods. The only difference was the cutting of his hair!

    I like that his character is basically the gentle giant. He could easily beat all of those kids that were taunting him, but he didn't want to. And he left town so that he wouldn't use his strengths for the wrong reason. This is good story about being kind no matter what advantages you have over others.

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  3. I liked this story, feels a lot like an origin story for superheroes or something similar! It was kind of sad that Samson was ostracized by his peers for being seen as weak and having long hair, especially when he was doing it to protect them all from getting hurt by accident. The ending where Samson was found out to have superhuman strength, causing him to leave the town looks like it serves as a good lead-in to the original story!

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  4. Wow: What a cool story! That’s amazing that God had given Samson such an amazing gift and all he had to do was not cut his hair. I liked how you took a famous Bible story and told it from Samson’s perspective. I liked how he didn’t want to use his strength for evil purposes, or even for his own gain.
    I wonder: What do you think would have happened his Samson had punch something other than a tree. What if he decided to punch someone instead of something? That would have been an interesting outcome I bet. Good thing he waited until he was in the forest to do anything. Do you think that his strength would have been taken away if only part of his hair was cut? I wonder if maybe his strength would just have been lessened since he didn’t cute everything off. I’m not sure if it’s an all or nothing sort of deal.

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  5. That was such an interesting story. I loved the way he had his gift and he would keep it as long as he does not cut his hair. It reminded me of tangled because she had her youth powers up until she cut her hair. I also liked the fact that even though all those kids made fun of him he never retaliated. He probably could have even beat them but he never did because he was so kind.

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