“Death on the Nile” starts off by taking place in Malton-Under-Wode which is a fictional place in a country village of England. The reason the story takes place here and why our main character, Linnet Ridgeway, is here is because she purchased the estate of the late Sir George Wode. There are many changes in setting, even as far as going to New York and this is to introduce new characters that become important to the story later on. Eventually, the story largely takes place in southern Egypt. So far, the story is mainly in this country village in order to introduce characters that become very important, such as Simon, Jackie, and Poirot.
Author: Olivia
Throughout “Taming of the Shrew” all of the characters are trying to further their own personal goals and schemes. There are moments of empathy portrayed by characters that appear quite subtle. An example of this is when Pertruchio comforts and helps Katherine walk after they have a long winded chasing and fighting scene with one another. In that moment, Pertruchio was exhibiting altruistic empathy as he felt genuine concern for Katherine as she appeared to be in pain. Another moment where there was an example of empathy was when Biondello acted as if he did not know who Lucentio’s father was in order to keep their scheme intact. Biondello was showing us an example of egoistic empathy as he did not want to go against the orders of his master and potentially be harmed. The use of egotistic empathy does support my initial claim that all the characters in this play were mainly trying to carry out plans that would better serve them, but this does not apply to the moment between Pertruchio and Katherine. Pertruchio had a true moment of empathy for Katherine that was outside of his original scheme and plans to further his own agenda.
Introduction: Summary of “New Boy”
-Thesis: While the short story “New Boy” by Roddy Doyle is an exceptional story that is well-written, I think that the short film by Steph Green is able to draw more emotion from the viewers and creates a timeline that is more appealing.
-Method: In order to prove this (my thesis), I will compare “New Boy” by Roddy Doyle to the film adaptation by Steph Green, then I will review the differences between the short story and film, and finally I will examine how both versions deal with evoking emotion from the audience.
First Paragraph: Discuss text, focusing on similarities and differences between the text and film overall, especially with timeline and the use of flashbacks. Establish that the film is a traditional translation of the short story.
Second Paragraph: Focus on the use of color in the film and how that was derived from the text, what liberties the film took from the text by the use of color, how this affects emotions. Specifically focus on scenes with flashbacks to Joseph’s father.
Third Paragraph: Focus on use of mise en scene, especially the quick flashbacks to current day when Joseph has the milk thrown on him and the ending. This is where I will also incorporate the exchange concept of forgiveness.
Conclusion: The use of color and mise en scene brings the audience a far more emotional story than the short story is able to.
So far along in Persepolis, the Moscow chapter has been my favorite. I enjoyed having a new character introduced, Uncle Anoosh, which Marjane worships. I enjoyed being able to hear his story and see Marjane so fascinated with him. In true child nature, Marjane wants to have more of whatever her fellow peers have. Seeing her be proud to have a family member that has been through, seemingly, more suffering than Laly’s father. I remember acting this way as a child so this definitely made me laugh as I was reading it. I thought it was especially funny when Uncle Anoosh would say something about him being in prison for nine years and Marjane would think to herself “Wow, more than Laly’s father!” while still saying something polite to Uncle Anoosh. This gives us a great deal of insight into Marjane’s priorities and, while she may be very proud to have Uncle Anoosh as a family member, she clearly has ulterior motives for wanting to know his story. This was a great chapter to come to learn more about Marjane’s family and get to know Uncle Anoosh.
I found “New Boy” to be an interesting story that address how difficult it is to be the new kid in school, especially as a minority in a school with mostly white children. Some moments that stood out to me as the story progresses is when Christian tells Joseph that “You are dead”. I found it interesting that, as a 9 year old boy, Joseph thinks of this moment in a practical way by thinking that he is clearly not dead, that Christian must mean that he is going to hurt Joseph. This is the moment we learn that Joseph has seen people dead men and boys. As the story continues, we learn that Joseph’s father was murdered by men which is never discussed further than that. This leaves his death up to interpretation, possibly the militia groups in Africa murdered his father. This would also explain why Joseph has had to move somewhere new. Throughout the story, we see Christian poke at Joseph, Joseph responds by grabbing his finger and the teacher does little to nothing. Later, Christian pushes Joseph during recess and Joseph, again, grabs his finger. Once they get back to class, the teacher confronts Joseph, Christian and Seth on the matter and none of them speak. I wonder if Joseph does this so that Christian and Seth will leave him alone or if Joseph is someone who has been taught to not speak up against others, that he prefers to handle it himself. Hazel tries to interject, but the teacher wants to hear none of it and Hazel walks away and calls the teacher a bitch. This leads to the teacher, once again, getting flustered and telling everyone to put their hands in the air which happens many times over the course of the story. The boys eventually walk back in together, this may mean that they are now friends, Joseph may not get bullied anymore for showing he won’t tell on them.
