Friday, July 29, 2016
There Is Nothing New Under the Sun
Whenever a writer is told a story, it is put back into their memory. Whenever they write, these memories subconsciously or sometimes purposefully appear in their own works. This kind of incident is what Foster is referring to whenever he says that all “writing and telling belong to one big story.” Since these stories the writer once heard have now been put into their writings, their readers can now experience this “one big story”. This is interesting to think about because this means that every time we read a text, it has somehow been influenced by past stories that the writer had been told. This truth adds to the whole reading experience because we can get a feel for many different genres of texts from different time periods that have different plots all from one reading. It seems impossible to think of how many texts could be infused into the one you are reading, making the text have a new kind of value. An example of the “one big story” principle that I have noticed is the recurrence of Cinderella. First, there was the original story Cinderella. After Cinderella, there are now many films that are inspired from the original story such as A Cinderella Story, Ella Enchanted, or even Another Cinderella Story. There are an abundance of films that play off of the classic evil stepmother and prince with a glass slipper scenario, but I have noticed that also appears in other forms of art such as plays because a few years ago I was in the play Ash Girl which shows a more twisted side of the original Cinderella story. After looking into where the original Cinderella story comes from I saw that the earliest recorded version of the Cinderella tale comes all the way from China. Now, today’s generation of children can watch the movie Ella Enchanted and hear a tale from China all through one big story.
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Dear Erinn,
ReplyDeleteThis post is spot on. Although it seems difficult to understand, a multitude of texts can be meshed together to create a new story. Truthfully, I think that this meshing can provide more insight than we realize. Aside from revealing ideas that transcend time, the intertwining and changing of texts can actually reveal components of culture. This idea is evident in your example. The original story of Cinderella, which you discovered through Ash Girl, was much more unsettling. However, as time has passed, this text has grown into a version that can be seen on a children’s TV network. Even the name, Ella Enchanted, embodies a much more pleasant idea. This fact shows that, as a culture, we are much more inclined to avert our eyes away from “twisted” art and focus on the happy aspects of every story.
Madison
Erinn,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading you're post. Before reading How to Read Literature Like a Professor, I never really understood the idea of writings being put together into one big story but I believe that this merging of stories into “one big story” just further adds to the greatness of the writing itself. As you mentioned, Cinderella, which originally came from a Chinese culture, has over time, interacted and intermingled with different cultures, creating a new story with many of the same key points but added minute details and new titles. This shows how each culture interprets the same story, some may be more harsh than others.