Tag Archives: Third-person omniscient

Jorge Lopez – Anthology Project

Jorge Lopez

Professor Rosen

English 2001

22 March 2018

Part 1: Retelling

There Was Once

 

“There was once a poor girl, as beautiful as she was good, who lived with her wicked stepmother in a house in the forest.”

“Oh good choice on setting it in a forest, but talk about the forest, like what about it?”

“You mean like describe it?”

“Yeah, details.”

“There was once a poor girl, as beautiful as she was good, who lived with her wicked stepmother in a house in a large forest where the only other sounds were scurrying squirrels and screeching jays.”

“Good but there’s something missing…oh talk about what made them poor”

“Like their lifestyle?”

“Yeah that could work”

“There was once a poor girl, as beautiful as she was good, who lived with her wicked stepmother in a old and rugged house, with broken windows and old creaking floors, poorly lit rooms and barely any furniture to work with, deep within a large forest where the only other sounds were scurrying squirrels and screeching jays.”

“Ohhh I could almost imagine it, you know what’s missing though?”

“What’s that?”

“A description of the girl that’s what, can’t just say she’s beautiful and leave it at that.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“I know i’m right, now get to it!”

“There was once a poor girl, as beautiful as she was good, with her long blonde hair and dreamy blue eyes and having a smile that would light the room, sadly lived with her wicked stepmother in a old rugged house, with broken windows and old creaking floors, poorly lit rooms and barely any furniture to work with, deep within  a large forest where the only other sounds were scurrying squirrels and screeching jays.”

“This is coming along nicely! Keep going though, think outside the box, what haven’t we added yet that we could?”

“Hmmm, maybe we could talk about her background?”

“Yeah yeah I like that idea!”

“There was once a poor white girl, who grew up sheltered from the rest of the world, not knowing much beyond what she’s seen, and as beautiful as she was good, with her long blonde hair and dreamy blue eyes, having a smile that would light the room, sadly she lived with her wicked stepmother in a old rugged house, with broken windows and creaking floors, poorly lit rooms and barely any furniture to work with, deep within  a large forest where the only other sounds were scurrying squirrels and screeching jays.”

“Wow it’s like i’m right there, you’re doing a nice job describing it but I feel that you can use stronger words.”

“How so?”

“Like for example, when you talk about the stepmother you use wicked.”

“And? What’s wrong with that.”

“Nothing I just think you can take a different approach when mentioning the stepmother.”

“Alright i’ll give it a shot…There was once a poor white girl, who grew up sheltered from the rest of the world, not knowing much beyond what she’s seen, and as beautiful as she was good, with her long blonde hair and dreamy blue eyes, having a smile that would light the room, sadly she lived in an old rugged house with her stepmother who was cold and heartless because she herself had been abused in her childhood, this home, this poor broken down home, with broken windows and creaking floors, poorly lit rooms and barely any furniture to work with, resided deep within a large forest where the only other sounds were scurrying squirrels and screeching jays.”

“This is great! Nice job!”

“You like it?”

“Like? I love it!”

“Well I couldn’t have done it without you, you’ve been a big help, thank you so much!”

“No problem! It’s the least I can do for you.”

Part 2: Thinking about retelling

There Was Once

The story “There Was Once” by Margaret Atwood is a story that revolves around a conflict between the person telling the story and the person listening to it. This conflict is due to the listener consistently criticizing and suggesting ways to change the story to make it more politically correct, which eventually aggravates the storyteller and they try to resist being told how they should write their own story. My re telling takes a similar approach but instead of the listener suggesting changes that take away from the story, they suggest changes that add to it, making it grow into its original intent.

In my version of the story I made the listener encourage the storyteller, motivating the storyteller to add on to it in different ways to improve it. Pointing out where details were missing and helping with the brainstorming in the creation process. A very different approach of the original where the listener would critique everything the storyteller wrote, patronizing them for their choice of words and format. My approach led to the story flowing in a different direction and actually allowing it to grow whereas in the original version of the story it falls flat with the storyteller ended up with less than what he had to start with. Both stories share similar relationships but revolve around different themes, for mine I aimed on the theme of growth and teamwork. Which again is seen all throughout my version as more is added to the story. In the original it’s more themed around tension and conflict, which can be seen with the listeners attitude towards the storyteller as they share their distaste for how the story was coming along.

In summary both stories share a similar relationship between storyteller and listener where one writes and the other gives feedback, but both take a different approach in how they do it. My version revolves around the listener adding to the story in a positive way by approving the storytellers decisions and encouraging, leading to growth. In the original it’s the opposite where the listener contributes negatively to the story, causing problems between them and the storyteller and eventually causing the story to die.

The importance of Communication

The Importance of Communication

John and his wife, (Aria) are staying in a colonial mansion for a short period of time. John is a physician and doesn’t believe that his wife is sick, although she feels as if she is. Aria always thinks about her illness which sometimes makes her feel exhausted, so John informed her that the worst thing she could do was think about her condition. Instead of thinking about her condition she focuses on the aspects of the house.
The house is three miles from the village and stands well from the road. She describes it as the most beautiful place and very quiet. The house has a large and shady garden full of box-boarded paths and lined with grape covered arbors. There were also greenhouses, but they were all destroyed. Although the house had delightful aspects. She felt as if there was something strange within the house.
The first room that they had moved into wasn’t satisfying her, so they moved into the nursery which was more spacious, airy, contained more windows, and more sunshine. The paper on the wall was stripped off in great patches and in bad condition. The color was a very dull, unclean, repulsive yellow. Aria was quite fond of the room except for the wallpaper. Since they were only staying in the house for three months John didn’t see any reason to change the wallpaper.
She informed him that she wasn’t comfortable with the wallpaper but instead of getting rid of it he convinced her that it was fine, so she stopped complaining so she wouldn’t make him uncomfortable, but she still had the feeling in the back of her head.
Usually when she’s alone she takes walks in the garden and sits on the porch. She’s starting to actually love the room that she’s in despite the wallpaper. The wallpaper is usually the one thing that stays on her mind throughout the day. She spends time analyzing the wallpaper and finding out the pattern and seeing how the wallpaper connects diagonally and goes horizontally. She often does this until she is exhausted, but it makes her feel relieved.
As the days go by the patterns and shapes starts to get clearer to her. She realizes that the shapes are the same only very numerous. She then starts to see woman creeping out from behind the pattern. She now starts to freak out and tries to tell her husband about the problem, but he convinced her that she is getting better and recovering from her illness when in all reality she is not.
Each day and night, his wife is examining the wallpaper. There’s things there that no one else seems to notice but her, like how the outside pattern is florid arabesque, which reminds her of a fungus, and even when it changes when the light changes. She even compares it to an interminable string of toadstools, budding and sprouting in endless convolutions.
She notices how when it’s the night time, and the moonlight, candle light, and lamplight come on, the lady behind the wallpaper is completely clear. She was 100% sure that there was a lady there and indeed she was trapped.
She now recognizes that the pattern on the wall actually moves and the women behind the wall is actually the one shaking it. She sometimes thinks that there’s only one woman or more than one and she’s crawling all over to shake it.
John feels as is Aria is improving with her mental health but what he doesn’t know is that it is worsening.
John ends up walking into the room with the yellow wallpaper all over the floor to find out that his wife has let the woman free then later passes out.


The Yellow Wallpaper vs. The Importance of Communication

The text I chose to use in my project is, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In the original copy of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrative point of view is first person, so I chose to rewrite my version in the third person omniscient point of view. I wanted to make the audience get the general idea of the story which is why I chose third person omniscient to get into the heads of all the characters to really portray how they felt throughout the story. Although in the original version of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator conveys dominance in a relationship but in my retelling, I use a third person omniscient narrative to highlight the importance of undivided attention in a marriage.
In the beginning of my retelling, I decided to keep up the same order of the story. I started off with introducing John and his wife and stated her sickness and the aspects of the house just like in the original version. “John and his wife, (Aria) are staying in a colonial mansion for a short period of time. John is a physician and doesn’t believe that his wife is sick, although she feels as if she is. Aria always thinks about her illness which sometimes makes her feel exhausted, so John informed her that the worst thing she could do was think about her condition. Instead of thinking about her condition she focuses on the aspects of the house.” In this quote, (in my retelling), I narrowed down the important parts of the beginning of the story. “It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer. A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity, — but that would be asking too much of fate! Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it. Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted? John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage. John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures. John is a physician, and perhaps— (I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)— perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster. You see, he does not believe I am sick! And what can one do? I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus— but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad. So, I will let it alone and talk about the house.” Now in this quote in the original copy, the author goes into description on how John and his wife moves into a house for a few months and how she feels about the house. The similarities with this quote and my quote is how I focused on the wife having an illness and John basically not dwelling on it and denying that she is sick.
“Usually when she’s alone she takes walks in the garden and sits on the porch. She’s starting to actually love the room that she’s in despite the wallpaper. The wallpaper is usually the one thing that stays on her mind throughout the day. She spends time analyzing the wallpaper and finding out the pattern and seeing how the wallpaper connects diagonally and goes horizontally. She often does this until she is exhausted, but it makes her feel relieved. As the days go by the patterns and shapes starts to get clearer to her. She realizes that the shapes are the same only very numerous. She then starts to see woman creeping out from behind the pattern.” Throughout my retelling, I focused more on the description of the house and the women in the wallpaper. I wanted to show my audience the reason as to why John’s wife was so hypnotized by the house which led her to her breaking point in the story. I didn’t want to focus on her illness as much as the author did in the original version or the dominance in that marriage. “Dear John! He loves me very dearly and hates to have me sick. I tried to have a real earnest reasonable talk with him the other day and tell him how I wished he would let me go and make a visit to Cousin Henry and Julia. But he said I wasn’t able to go, nor able to stand it after I got there; and I did not make out a very good case for myself, for I was crying before I had finished. It is getting to be a great effort for me to think straight. Just this nervous weakness, I suppose. And dear John gathered me up in his arms, and just carried me upstairs and laid me on the bed and sat by me and read to me till he tired my head. He said I was his darling and his comfort and all he had, and that I must take care of myself for his sake and keep well. He says no one but myself can help me out of it, that I must use my will and self-control and not let my silly fancies run away with me” In the original story the author talks about her having the illness and her husband basically telling her what to do in a way of dominance. She basically respects everything her husband tells her because she trusts him.
In conclusion, in the original version, the author uses a first-person narrative and in my retelling, I used the third person omniscient narrative to give my audience a different perspective of the story.

Posting Project #1

The day has finally come to post Project #1! Add a new post and do the following:

  1. Give your project a title in the field for title
  2. Add your Part 1 (retellingl, with a title at the top
  3. Then add Part 2 (comparative essay) including a title.
  4. Choose categories (not sticky categories): Project #1, plus the category for the original short story’s author’s name.
  5. Add tags. At a minimum add a tag for the narration style you used. Choose the narration style from the list of tags so we all use the same format.
  6. If you are not comfortable sharing your work openly, change Visibility from public to private.
  7. Publish!
  8. In class on Monday, I will ask for a reflective cover letter (instructions will be provided). Think about your process and accomplishments so we can be purposeful about our writing process and resulting product.