Cards Against the Humanity of the Natives

  Before we started our adventure across the sea, we planned it would be just us and our land, however we ran into some local natives. They have the expertise and knowledge of the land to keep us away so we decide to come in peace so the natives can help us with out 12-month long expedition. The "Team Sparkleberries" employer, on the other hand wants us to go in with guns and weapons ready for fire.

In the first month we decide to Established peaceful relations with the natives, but sacrificed resources. We needed time with the natives to earn their trust. Stuck to being friendly while gathering resources and did not press them for resources. The environmental conditions were nominal and we were able to continue are journey. At the end of our first month the native relations were relatively happy with us. The next four months follow pretty much follow the same with some weather exceptions in the second and fourth month. In the second and fourth month, weather conditions are harsh and require extra resources for survival. In the second month a thunderstorm hit the camp grounds which set us back, however we made the decision to support the natives during the time of hardship. During the storm of the fourth month we were set a little bit back so we had to do an emergency resource press against the natives, we were able to keep our resources, however our relations with the natives were slipping.

As we started the last half of our expedition, we had little resources and a little bit of a rocky relationship with the natives, so we thought, “why not make it worse?” In the sixth and seventh months we decided to continue our journey with dominance by pressing for resources. Our environmental conditions were pretty stable within these two months which could only represent the calm before the storm. The natives were not too happy with us, due to us violently treating them resulting in anger. The next few months we decided to ease up on the dominance and decided against pressing for resources since ours were piling up. The weather conditions were harsh but only required two resources in payment of our survival. The natives were relatively happy with us because we couldn’t do anything to harm them when the storms came. Due to the fact that we were down in resources we had to push the natives for resource gathering during the last two months. In the eleventh month the weather conditions were normal, however in the last month, the conditions were devastating and required a couple resources in order to survive so we rapidly pressed for resources which forced bad relations with the natives. The natives were somehow relatively happy with how we handled the situation and decided to let us return with profitable resources than the others in the region.

Sleeping Beauty V. Maleficent

We don't notice that the books that we read or the movies that we see show similarities or patterns from another book or movie. Foster shows us that Hansel and Gretel is a great way to write a modern day novel. Take some of the bits and pieces from that fairy tale and you have yourself a horror novel. He gives us the example of Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato that there is a woman that has the same role as Sacajawea. The woman in the novel knows the land and can show the character the way to Paris just like Sacajawea did for Lewis and Clark. Foster is trying to explain to us that similarity in stories gives us a sense of familiarity and lets us understand more about the novel.

The movie Maleficent is a perfect way to explain what Foster has been trying to teach us in chapter 5, 6, and 7. Maleficent is about the original Sleeping Beauty, but a side that we never saw with the classic fairy tale. Maleficent is a winged fairy that falls in love with a human, but he betrays her by cutting off her wings so he can show them to the King, so he can be the descendant to the throne. Maleficent wants revenge so she goes to the King and casts an evil spell on his daughter, Aurora. The spell is that when Aurora turns 16 she will prick her finger on the needle of a spindle and she will die, but she can only be awoken by a true love's kiss. The King sends Aurora away to the forest with three fairies so Maleficent won't ever find her. Maleficent finds her and doesn't want anyone to harm her so her curse can live on until she is 16. Aurora eventually meets Maleficent and thinks that she is her fairy god mother and Maleficent begins to create a bond with Aurora and wants to break the curse, but she can't unless Aurora has a true love's kiss. Aurora meets a Prince, but they don't have time to create a relationship so Maleficent takes her to where she lives to try and keep her safe. Aurora's three fairies reveal Maleficent's true identity and this causes Aurora to run to her father in panic. Aurora goes into the dungeon of the castle for safe keeping, but pricks her finger. Maleficent decides to take the Prince to Aurora and have him kiss her, but it doesn't work. So she apologizes to Aurora for lying to her and kisses her on the forehead and Aurora awakens. Instead of true love's kiss from the original fairy tale there is true love from a motherly love.

This is what Foster was explaining to us in chapter 7, how we can use portions of the original fairy tale and create a whole new story. Maleficent is giving us that sense of familiarity from Sleeping Beauty, but also giving us that strangeness and new awakening of Maleficent by having her be the hero by saving Aurora instead of her being the antagonist.

The False Purity of Snow

              In chapter 9 “It’s More Than Just Rain or Snow”, Foster emphasizes how weather is never just weather and how it carries great symbolic meaning. Authors often use weather in literature by writing about rain, snow, sun, rainbows, and other forms of weather to enhance the meaning of the story. For example, when an author uses a flood in his writing it can be a biblical analogy to Noah’s Ark. People are always scared of drowning, which Foster mentions, so a flood brings with it fear and dread. The flood destroys everything in its path, but it also could lead to a fresh start.

               Rain can be used in a variety of ways, such as to cleanse a character and to transform a character. The cleanliness of the rain can wash away a character’s anger, frustration, confusion, or whatever the author may choose. Rain can also be restorative, and bring new growth to the world. In “The Notebook”, a movie created based on the best selling novel by Nicholas Sparks (which let’s be honest, who under the age of 30 actually read the book?) Noah and Allie are separated for many years after being in love, are at a transitioning stage of coming back into each other’s lives, which was very difficult and straining for both of them. In the scene where they both in the boat out on the lake while starts pouring down rain, the rain metaphorically cleanses them and allows them to rid any doubt of which they were not still in love with each other. This realization might not have been as effective as it was or might not have happened without the cleansing rain, allowing them to be together again.

               Snow can almost represent anything the author wants such as clean, purity, inviting, etc. Snow also can lead to death, or it can simply symbolize vast nothingness.  An example of snow is used in “The Hunger Games” trilogy, written by Susanne Collins, by the character President Snow. He is the primary antagonist of the book series, though seemingly laid-back, his demeanor hides a merciless and aggressive character. Throughout the books, the exposure of President Snow’s false purity is revealed. Another example of false purity is in “The Great Gatsby”. Despite her beauty and charm, Daisy is merely a selfish, shallow, and hurtful, woman. Gatsby loves her (or at least the idea of her) with such vitality and determination that readers would like to see her be worthy of his devotion. Although Fitzgerald builds Daisy's character with associations of light, purity, and innocence, she is the opposite from what she presents herself to be.
                I think it is very interesting that authors are not constricted to only use weather as just weather, but can also incorporate it into characters. I had never really come into the thought process while reading a book or watching a movie that weather can actually be more than what it was written to be, however, it is more than just rain or snow sir.

 

Shakespeare starring Amanda Bynes?

In my first three years of high school, I was taught to look beneath the surface. We as humans should look beneath the surface of everything and everyone, whether it is a performance or just a person in general. In the first chapter of “How to Read Literature like a Professor” Foster talks about how many people skip over what is most important. I catch myself in different situations always questioning “What does that signify?” Whether or not I can figure it out is another story, but hopefully with the help of Thomas C. Foster and his ‘Lively and entertaining Guide to Reading between the Lines’ it will become easier for me.

One of my favorite movies “She’s the Man” starring pre-2013 Amanda Bynes, that falls into the category of ‘Stupid movies that should not be movies” it focuses on a teenage girl named Viola Hastings who enters her brother, Sebastian Hastings’, school in place of him, pretending to be male, in order to play with the boys’ soccer team. Sound familiar? Well if my movie summary skills aren’t up to par with how they should be sorry, but this movie is actually based on William Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”. Although my nine year old self didn’t realize this while watching it in theaters my dad, an advocate for the arts and a senior literature teacher sure as heck wasn’t going to let me out of that theater scot-free without a lesson on the symbolism of everything in the movie to the play. It was then that I first realized that everything is deeper than it seems.

Currently I am at a summer intensive at the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance and I was able to attend one of their performances earlier this week. One of the pieces entitled “Collisions” really stuck out to me. The dance featured three dancers whom one by one danced a solo and at the end came together and danced simultaneously. What stuck out to me was not the dancing (although it was phenomenal) and Cello Suite No. 1 in G major is one of my favorites but it wasn’t the music either. It was the voice in which was being played while the dancers danced and the music was played. The voice was the choreographer’s voice who was reading off different commands such as “you’re fine”, “it’s okay”, “keep going”, “don’t stop”, “that was good”. As the commands were repeated I thought about each of them and realized that those are commands that as a dancer you are told more than anything. I was fortunate enough to be able to talk to the choreographer’s sister, who is one of my peers at this intensive and she told me that the piece was inspired by her sister’s old dance studio and how they pushed her to be more and how she never felt good enough in that type of environment. She would collide with her fears of not being good enough with the commands being tossed at her hence the title. Now I know what you’re thinking, “What does this have to do with the book?” and I can honestly say I’m not 100 percent sure, but what I was trying to get across is how not just in books, Mr. Foster, do we need to read between the lines but in everyday occurrences as well. In conclusion I state that I do agree with what Foster says in the first chapter, in which we should not be as dense as we are made out to be.