New demonstration of classic work - Final Project Proposal

  My final project will be based on the short story, "The Little Match Girl". There's probably no one in this world that haven't heard of this story. But if you don't, it's written by one of the most popular fairy tale writers - Hand Christian Andersen. This most famous work basically tells how a little girl was trying to sell her matches. It took place in the New Year's Eve, the little girl had been living in poverty since she was borned. She could not either sell out her matches or go home. During the process of selling matches, the little girl couldn't resist the cold and had to light up a few of her matches to warm herself, and the amazing parts of the story started happening since then. Different scenes started to occur in the little girl's vision, there was a warm, wonderful meal inside of the windows. The family reunions in front of the table and are all having a good time. The little girl couldn't reach any of it and could do nothing but watching. The second match made her see her grandmother, gracious beloved grandmother, who was dead. She keep lighting up the rest of her matches so grandmother could not escape from her eyes. Finally, the little girl ended up dying in the cold with hypothermia. The story is so touching and heart-breaking, but that's why I'm trying to transform it into the performance.

  There are a few things that I want to discuss in this proposal.

  My performance will be requiring at least three to four actors. The character distribution varies depending on the number of actors we have. The little girl's character will remain constant from the beginning to the end. If only three actors are available, actors besides the little girl's will be involved in the "big meal" and also one of them will be the grandmother in another scene. If four or more characters are involved, the grandmother's character can be performed by one and therefore others will be at the meal. In the last scene, The "meal characters" can also be the people on the street who found out about the girl's death.

  There will be seven scenes in the performance. The opening scene will give the audience an idea of what's going on. The stage will be set up as the street, the little girl holding the matches and passers just walking by her without giving a look. The little girl will be dressed with very few clothes and shivering in the snow. At the end of first scene, she will be lighting up her first match. After a brief blackout, the second scene will occur with a brighter light, and there are people sitting around the table with incredible food. The little girl is observing and expressing her feelings. The third scene will be shifting back to the street, and she lights up the the second match at the end. After that, will be the scene where she spends time with her grandma, all of the good times are shown. At the end, the grandma starts to walk away but she is not able to reach her. The fifth scene is just like the third one where it shifts back to the street, but this time she used all of her matches. In the sixth scene, the little girl will be with her grandmother for ever, because she has already died but her death is not shown yet. The last scene will be where people finds out her death.

  Above is all of the ideas of my final project.

Exam Reflection

  Generally speaking, I finished the two exams with mostly satisfaction. The test timing was managed and only few obstacles in generating ideas occurred. However, there were still a few things that could have been improved.
  Exam one was a smaller burden to me comparing to the second one. First of all, the questions given were not so hard to comprehend because of the level of vocabularies in them. I selected the third one which was the one that I thought the easiest one. "How does the author utilized the element of fantasy to better explain the story." The novel that I used - The whale rider has a substantial amount of fantasy inside, so it was much easier for me to write about it. I talked about two passages generally which was Chapter 17 and Chapter 18, and one of them specifically(18). The scenes described the ending part before the epilogue, where Kahu communicated with the whale and left the village with the accompany of it. The reason why I picked it is because that it's the climax of the story, which is really emotional and excited, also that it is great illustration of the essence of Kahu's(Maori) cultural background. I explained that it's quite "fantasy" that Kahu is able to communicate and travel with the whale herd.
  Exam two was a little bit more stressful because I ran out of ideas in the middle of writing. It was really a bad feeling because of the blank in my brain. However, it didn't last for a long time, so it didn't affect fluency. "How does the author utilize deep or sudden insights to make readers understand the novel." The controversy in this title to me was that everyone has different perspectives to the term "insight". But I expressed my own understanding to it in my article, I talked about how the two poets created insightful scenes in readers minds that help them understands the idea better by "looking" and "sense".
  The exams were definitely great reflections of what I have learned this year, and I can feel that my writing ability had improved but I still need deeper understanding to the spirit in the books/poems but not just words.

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.