Notes for practice essay

Nature is what we see
- "see" "hear" "know"
- Examples: "thunder" "eclipse"
- Mind: "heaven" "harmony"
- Heart: Comparison of "wisdom" "simplicity"
- Method: listing of example, general terms

Arabic Coffee
- Provide sight(eye)
- Example: whole second paragraph
- Stove, boil, olive beads, warehouse, people, tray
- Provide Sound(ear)
- Example: Like clothes on a line saying: you will live long enough to wear me
- The talk
- Provide ethnic pride(heart)
- Example: strong, thick, black coffee
- The pursuing of "True Arab"
- Traditions
- Long cumulative culture
- Provide spirit(mind)
- Example: people forgive each other
- Men and women sit together
- Disappointment
- All melt in the coffee

Simultaneous existence of certitude/ambiguity in "Because I could not stop for Death" by Emily Dickinson

  “Poets often withhold certitude, which can at the same time empower readers to think creatively.” The quote applies in the poem "Because I could not stop for Death" deeply. The poem provides readers a fair amount of "certitude" but leaves a certain amount of space for them to understand and creates personal views to the concept of death. This combination of certitude and ambiguity allows readers to have a basic idea of Dickinson's understanding to Death while creating their own conclusion about it utilizing the space she left.
  What readers can see clearly is that the author characterize herself as an accompany of the death, travels through several places, such as "the school", "the ring" or "the setting sun". In the author's opinion, death exists everywhere in our dailies based on those example, and most importantly, every stages of our lives. The travelers(author and death) goes from school, which here indicates the youth of human beings, to the tomb which it the end of lives. However, one of the ambiguity was presented here, that she did not clearly tell the readers it was at a graveyard but rather used vague expressions to imply that. "We paused before a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground – The Roof was scarcely visible – The Cornice – in the Ground – ", and it creates a mysterious atmosphere. This process of going through every stage of lives is certain, that readers are able to know the author's perspective as a "death carrier". "Since then, 'tis centuries and yet feels shorter than the day", her description here draws a conclusion of the process of going from youth to graveyard, that death devours human beings' lives in such a short time.

  The general ambiguity in the poem was on one hand from those vague, abstract terms such as "eternity", "civility", and also from the lack of explanation of death. Indeed, the author used a few descriptions to death from her view as "accompany" and "experience", but she really wanted the readers to build up their own analysis to the existence of death. For example, "Or rather – He passed Us – The Dews drew quivering and Chill – For only Gossamer, my Gown – My Tippet – only Tulle – ", this whole stanza is consist of a list of realistic terms with blurry metaphors inside. The goal is to illustrates how death is able to penetrate every bit of our lives, but her way of expressing it really connects readers to the death itself. Lastly, the usage of abstract words especially those that describe longevity are what brings deep reflection on our lives. If "eternity" and "immortality" are not sufficient on describing death, there aren't any better words that do so.

In class writing based on "Nature is what we see"

  The poem is consist of one stanza with 12 lines. It's relatively short but really meaningful. Dickinson listed a lot of different things in nature in the poem, such as the hill, the afternoon, the squirrel. She also used three repeating similar sentences as main arguments: "Nature" is what we see; Nay—Nature is Heaven—Nature is what we hear; Nay—Nature is Harmony—Nature is what we know. These sentences kind of repeal each other but explain the general idea of what nature is in different perspective, with the help of listed natural things below each. The rhyme(words) of the poem appears randomly at the end of a few sentences, such as "see", "bee", "sea", "harmony" and most importantly at the end - "simplicity". Speaking of simplicity, the poem gives her perspective to the power of nature at the end: "So impotent Our Wisdom is To her Simplicity". She truly believes that the nature has such great power, existing everywhere and has sensational effect on human beings. None of us can overpower the nature even though it's such "simplicity". Among the examples of what she listed in the poem, things tend to be everywhere: "thunder", "sea", "bumble bee". She tried to use the diversity of things to explain how nature exists everywhere in our lives. In additional, we can tell that Dickinson really appreciates the beauty of the nature by the terms: "heaven", "harmony". Lastly, she used "her" instead of "it", to describe the nature in the last sentence. This method of personification to gives nature(of her perspective) a basic characteristic and provides a more vivid scene.

New perspective

  The show was a great demonstration of the book, it not only provides audience a visual perspective but also includes a few elements that were not fully expressed in the novel.

  The light effects that were used were definitely the highlights of the play and they made the performance brilliant. The performance really utilizes every inch of the stage, patterns and colors were projected all over it. One of the first scene that amazes the audience could absolutely be the one at the beginning where Christopher lied down, and massive amount of letters and patterns exploded out of his mind. I was shocked by this effect because there were so many things jumped out of the stage. Christopher had been always a special kid, who had a lot of crazy thoughts in his mind but couldn't express properly. It was not just because that he was struggling with autism but his idea could not be accepted by most of the people. When I was watching the play, I really wanted to stand out for Christopher and speak for him. And the moment when his inside world exploded, I actually felt released. Another great example of light effect could be the one, where he walked in the subway station. It would be quite boring if he just walks in directions with random background. But the show had a sensational performance on that scene with the help of light effect. 

Christopher walked in red lighted path whereas the rest of the stage was in dark. The path occurred  in the order of what narrator said. It was clearer to the audience and everyone was able to focus on Christopher's movement. Lastly, my favorite part of the play was the one where Christopher floats in the "Universe" and a few actors lifted him up. The scene was so touching. Christopher was "bullied" by everyone, things had never turned out good for him. But the moment when he soars in his own world, the world could see how amazing this autistic child can be, and how beautiful his inside world looks. 

  Overall, the performance really gave me a new perspective to those that are struggling the most, and aren't able to express themselves. I wish all autistic children can be like Christopher, being consistent in their goals and never give up on life. I realized that those children could really used the support from their families and loved ones. It's what keep them going and live a "special" normal life.

Staging Design

In my staging, the backdrop is the most important piece of work, and it is an illustration of the whole story's background. Like what the backdrop is shown, the whale is on the top, representing the village's spirit and guide their lives. Under the whale, there are two Maori warriors. They meet each other by the Maori's traditional greeting - hongi. The two warriors represent the union of the villagers and how they stay together and love each other under he whale(tradition, religion)'s guide. On the left side, the pattern represent the tradition of Maori's. And on the right side, there's an airplane and a tree on the beach which represent the view of New Zealand and the modern part of the world. The two sides make a contrast and show the conflict of tradition and modernization. For the staging part, I select the last scene. As what my proposal stated, the whale will show up in the form of human. And in the last scene, Kahu will be having conversations with the old whale in blue light which shows that  they are in the ocean world. The rest of the stage are performed in darker light.

The power of being special

  To best demonstrate the novel, I would highlight three aspects in my performance: Kahu's emotion changes adapting to the atmosphere, centering her and her interaction with the whales. The scenes that contains these three elements are the backbones of the story and they provides audience sufficient understandings to the spirit of it.

*narrator perspective

  The author made a lot of efforts in illustrating women’s struggle against the traditionsand people’s discrimination, which was mainly reflected on Kahu's experiences. My performance's first goal would be to decorate her scenes. The main source of discrimination to Kahu is from her grandfather. He does not see her as the village's future while putting high expectations on the other boys. There are a few scenes that explain that point, such as the scene when Kahu performs brilliantly but the grandfather did not show up. In this scene, I would add several adaptations to maximize Kahu's disappointed emotions. Since the performance is great, I would make the scene looks spectacular to make a contrast with the contempt from the grandfather. Bright music on the background and shining spotlight on Kahu. Kahu would be wearing orange and blue dresses - orange represents her persistence in being the hope of the village, and blue shows her connection to the ocean. All of the boys dance behind her with darker light, makes her the center of the show. Another adaptation that serves as the highlight of Kahu's perspective can be actors's facial expressions, such as that she cries with a smile on the face. This illustration really shows Kahu's two sides of world, one with her good dreams about the future and the other one with the pressures from life. Her smile shows how she is proud of herself when she is able perform the traditions so well, and her tears tells the audience how sad she is when the loved grandfather is absent. Also,  smile-and-tear performance can be added on several other scenes, such as the moment when she leaves the village with the herd of whale. The smiles shows that she is thrilled to be the new whale rider and the tears illustrates her fear and sadness. In order to make Kahu the center with this scene, I would put the villagers in the corner and spectates her leaving, and of course, the light spots at the middle. All of her emotions and tears are fully presented this way.
  The interaction of Kahu and the whale is one of the most amazing parts of the novel. In chapter seventeen, the author used an expression to show the gap between the human and nature, "We have lost our way of talking to the whales." However, the whale can communicate to Kahu somehow, and he keeps asking: "Ko Paikea?" I would make some efforts in this scene because, this "mission impossible" of whale communicating to human demonstrates how Kahu is so different and the magical realism aspect. I would use blue spotlights to focus on Kahu and the whale, and dark light on all the other people, to show their private world and conversations. The whale's character might be difficult to demonstrate, so I would turn it into a person, so the communication makes more sense. This adaptation can be achieved by moving the whale model in the scene, and with the short period of lights out, a person with blue clothing shows up to take its place.
  Those are the aspects and adaptations I would use to stage the scene.