In class writing

The poem only contains one stanza; however, the stanza can be divided into three major sentences. The first one starts with " Nature is what we see", the second one starts with " Nature is what we hear" and the last one starts with ” Nature is what we know". The first two sentences are quite rhythmic and after the first lines of the two sentences, there are  both phrases of things in nature, demonstrating why we can see and hear nature. I notice that there are lots of words including the E sounds like see, harmony, and sea. However, in the poem overall, there isn't an obvious rhyme pattern.

One thing that the poem shows is that nature can be found everywhere. Through the first part of the poem, she uses many examples of details that representing nature with a bright tone. The tone of the poem changes in the last part of the stanza. Poet tries to use the difference between nature's simplicity and humans' complexity to show her preference of staying with nature instead of people, and maybe the complexity of humans is what causes the poet to live reclusively.  Nature is easy to get along with.

Practice Essay

Because I could not stop for Death –

He kindly stopped for me –

The Carriage held but just Ourselves –

And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste

And I had put away

My labor and my leisure too,

For His Civility –

We passed the School, where Children strove

At Recess – in the Ring –

We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –

We passed the Setting Sun –

Or rather – He passed Us –

The Dews drew quivering and Chill –

For only Gossamer, my Gown –

My Tippet – only Tulle –

We paused before a House that seemed

A Swelling of the Ground –

The Roof was scarcely visible –

The Cornice – in the Ground –

Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet

Feels shorter than the Day

I first surmised the Horses' Heads

Were toward Eternity –

For most of the time, poems can be interpreted in various aspects and what poets try to convey in the poems are likely to be ambiguous. This poem, Because of I could not stop for Death, is not only a classical example for Emily Dickinson's obsession towards death, but also a piece of literature that can give readers different thoughts and implications in their “aftertaste” of the poem. Emily Dickinson’s preoccupation with Death is what interests generations of literature learners and in her poems, death itself are portrayed in diverse appearances.

Because of I could not stop for Death, at the first glance, gives readers a refreshed description of death which has been often surrounded with darkness and fear in other poems. In this poem, the poet personifies death into a gentleman caller. In the first two stanzas, Death himself is undoubtedly depicted as a patient and kind gentlemen. Through the lines like “He kindly stopped for me” and “ We slowly drove - He knew no haste”, Death appears to be a considerate person who knows that the narrator is unable to come to her final destination by herself and kindly carries her to his carriage with the understanding that the narrator still needs time to prepare herself ( that is why he drives slowly, giving time for the narrator to look at the scenes outside and calm down). The journey that the narrator is taking can represent her leaving life and later in the following stanzas, all those scenes, such as school, fields of gazing grains and the setting sun, seem to imply that  all those recalled memories start to fading away through the journey. However, after first three stanzas, the tone of the poem changes and grows into ambiguity as though Death leads the narrator into darkness.  “Or rather” in the first line of the fourth stanza is likely a turning point. “ The Dews drew quivering and Chill” and they “pause before a House” which is like a “swelling of ground” has scarcely visible roof all seems to depict a gradually cold and dark atmosphere. In the final stanza, narrator, or the poet, hides her feeling and simply tells her contradicted feeling of time and her surmise that the journey will be endless.

The poet’s true inner feeling towards her journey or death is under veil with the contradictory emotions can be sensed by the reader in the first part and the end part  of the poem. The characteristic of death can be arguably separated into two sides. Readers can develop their own conclusion to the figure of death. He could be a true warmhearted gentleman as he carries the narrator slowly passing through all those warm scenes or an insidious liar who are in bright appearance in order to seduce narrator with an illusion to let her start the journey, intending to lead her eventually in darkness. The poet’s attitude towards death is also unclear, leaving space for readers’ imagination. The last stanza can both show that death traps humans into an freezed or unstopped time or death actually relieves humans from the past and gives them a sort of immortality because the journey will be in eternity.

When fancy technology and unsophisticated play meet each other

I have not seen many plays performed by professionals to this day, and the only recent memory I have is watching a mediocre drama narrating a life of a musician. Nonetheless, the play "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" has subverted my impression of play performance to some extent and most significantly, it has showed the promising possibility and future of combining technologies into modern plays. I was astonished to figure out that how the stage can be so advanced that it can have so many functions. The stage itself can be seen as not only a wide screen which can show images and videos but also as a moving machine, especially in the part when the front stage started to lower down to make a scene in the train station with proper decoration and the part where the back of the stage extended part of itself, forming stairs that the main character can walk on “in the air”. I also like the way they showed the different houses and families in this block. With all those small bulbs on the surface of the stage, audience can easily sense what they are performing when the lights lines up to show the contour of the street and different houses.

Besides the well-used technology that gave audience a visually stimulating experience, all actors show those characters’ personal trait. Christopher and his father feel real to me and the way the performers showed Christopher’s inner world and his autism is quite effective. I like the idea of showing overwhelmingly massive number symbols and equations “floating” on the stage when Christopher cannot control himself or is frightened or disordered by outside influences. By doing this, audience like me can develop an insight or a visual sharing into Christopher’s inner emotions and struggles.  

Identify 3 themes

1. The first poem shows her father's the sense of belonging. He wanted to have fig directly from earth and after so many house moves, the father finally planted a figtree in the house in Texas. " I am talking about a fig straight from the earth -- A gift from Allah"

2. The love of her grandma. In the thrid prom, the poet shows her love towards her grandma and the connection with her grandma. "Take this home with you, 

never again, 

and only memory making us rich". 

3 the theme of life and death. People will die in on point or another and people will easily encounter the fear and imagination of death. " It is possible we will not meet again on earth. To think this fills my throat with dust".

Stage Diorama

Most part of the story could happen in the houses whether it is the conversation between the family members or the performance of Kahu. Therefore, I will set the performance mainly in the indoor area of a traditional Maori house. The background of the performance will be a picture of the traditional house with a scene of oceans in the back of the house, showing that characters can actually hear the sound of whales with such a close range to the sea. Besides, the inside furniture of the house is traditional and simple: a Capet, sleeping bags, and a table, showing the conservation of Koro. Also Koro will dress in a Maori dress while Kahu and the uncle will wear sport shirts and hats. The light that she'd on Kahu and Koro will be in different color, indicating the conflicts in their ideology.

      

Staging Proposal

The original novel is narrated through the perspective of the first person, the uncle of the main character, Kahu. However, I feel less comfortable to develop insights into the story through first person perspective other than that of the main character because the whole story is felt less complete and the emotions of some characters in some periods of time were blur. Therefore, if I will stage the novel, I will show the performance through third person perspective to the audience like the film. The Whale rider is not simply about the growth of Kahu from a little child to the leader of the Maori tribe, but also a story showing the collision between the old tradition and the new modern world and the conflict between Kahu's will to be recognized as a capable girl by Koro and Koro's unwillingness to view her as an equal candidate of the tribe leader due to he being limited by the tradition. I will highlight the transition of Koro's attitude to Kahu. In the novel, I feel like the transition of Koro is a kind of abrupt and he suddenly change from dislike Kahu to respect her and view her as “rightful leader” once she is able to communicate and rider the special whale with the scared tattoo. The love of Koro to Kahu is absent in the perspective of the uncle; therefore, I will choose the scenes in which Koro is so depressed to know that his oldest son will have a girl as his first child and angry when Kahu sneak into his lessons to young male students and meeting with elders. Later, I will add some plot into the original one and stress the fact that Koro discovers Kahu’s talents in learning the traditions of Maori tribe, becoming nicer to Kahu and still refusing to let her attending the lessons to raise future leader due to her identities as women. The last scene would be Koro’s wakening to the truth that Kahu could definitely be the leader of the tribe no matter what her gender is.

I would not add actual appearance of whale into my play, but I will add whale sounds into the play and the scene in which whales are dying on the beach. I will show the degree of this disaster through the dialogue between Kore and the uncle with the background music of thunder. In the final scene , however, Kahu will pretend to see the ancient whale and communicate with it. Besides, in order to show the tribe was facing the point in which the leader need to decide whether they need to embrace the new modern world with all those fancy outside ideas or just preserve their old tradition and stay in their homeland, I will show the two different groups of within the tribe. Elders like grandma Flowers and Grandpa Koro are the representation of the conservative group and second generations like Porourangi who left the hometown and went to Germany.  Elders might wear in conservative traditional Maori costume with deep color while others wear in colorful modern sport shirts.

                                       

Review of the performance

The performance Once On the Island is indeed a very impressive musical performance. It is adapted from the novel “ My Love, My Love” and although it is a musical version, it gives audience a generally well-rounded story. I like it more than a regular play. The effort that all those people participate in the performance is quite noticeable. There are quite a lot places in the performance can be seen as creative. First one is the background. The painting makes a direct connection to the story: there are poor village on the left end side and rich community on the right end side with a large forest in between, showing the journey of Ti Moune from her home to Daniel’s hotel. The second one is the part where the performers choose to use little paper men to tell the story of the history of the beauxhome family while Webeke stood on a stair as a storyteller. That really gave me a refresh visual.

There are two things that are extraordinary in my point of view. I had never realized how many great singers in our school until that Sunday when I saw the performance. Every singer and actor combined the songs and the story so well. Ryan and the actor of Ti Moune did make their characters more charming with their songs; especially, the way Ti Moune showed her emotions and sang change my impression of Ti Moune being a simply naive person who thinks herself higher than other peasants and are destined to have Daniel’s love. With those songs, the transition of Daniel is more detailed than the book in which brings Andrea to the presence suddenly and  has no description of why Daniel changed his love. “Some girls you love and some girls you marry” explained Daniel’s inner struggle of love and the way he acted shows Daniel still has feelings of love to Ti Moune. Besides, the music and songs indeed make a harmony. The musical band has made a great contribution to the overall success. As far as I can notice, there is only one sound that comes from the computer, which is the sound of thunder at the start of the performance, and all these other sound are all comes from the band. The variety of musical instruments and students involved in the band are quite amazing.

All those themes from the original novels are presented in the performance. The theme of poor and rich is showed thorough costumes and lines ( Peasants are all barefooted with poor poor clothes). The theme of Gods is showed by constantly letting four gods stay on four sides of the stage with pops that coincide with their identities. However, The last part in which Ti Moune transfers into a tree is a little bit confusing and I like the original version that she disappears with butterflies more.