Analyze a Folk Tale

A folk tale is a story passed on through oral conversation and once it's been written it's not a folk tale anymore. We can say a story comes from a folk tale and sometimes it contains some key factors of a folk tale such as the explanation to an aspect of nature or a moral. In Coyote Kills the Lion the natural phenomenon explained was the wood tick being flat. In the story, when the Coyote tried to get the people out of the giant's stomach, the last to come out was the wood tick. The wood tick got squished by the giant's teeth and became flat for the rest of his life and all wood ticks are flat now. The folk tale also expressed a point that the time when people told the story, people are interested in the shapes and features of animals. They chose the wood tick to be written into this interesting story. We can tell that the people have interest in wood tick and maybe other animals that we did not read about.

Compare and Contrast

John's purpose for going on the journey is that he was very curious about the East, the Place of the God, and he also wanted to return as a hero. Coyote on the other hand does not have a purpose at the beginning, he was just walking around. When Coyote heard about the giant from an old lady he decided that he wants to kill the giant. Both character's motivation was curiosity and believe what they do will bring them fame.In Coyote Kills the Giant, we don't know about the first setting, but we know the second one, when Coyote's in the giant's stomach. In By the Waters of Babylon, the setting is also unknown, but we know by a brief description that it is after some kind of disaster where the metals are radioactive. The settings for both stories are very similar in a sense that it is not clear to the reader when and where it is but we can tell that there's not much in the setting. It is also different because in Coyote Kills the Giant, it's more like a place full of nothing and he just travels to meet the giant, whereas By the Waters of Babylon, we will think of a town and there's many people.

Conflicts - Internal and External

A conflict is an opposing force to the protagonist to go to it's "happy place". A conflict is classified into internal and external conflicts and a good story will consist of both kinds of conflicts. Internal conflicts are problem that's caused by the character's own state of mind, its feelings, emotions, or principle. An external conflict is cause d by factors around him, nature or interaction with other characters. John, the protagonists, faced many conflicts in the story, internal conflict being if he wants to travel to the East, being the Land of the Gods, which meant a possibilities of not being able to return but will be enslaved by the Gods. It's a difficult decision because if he returned, he will be a hero. The external conflicts came when he decided to take this journey, and he faced conflicts caused by nature, climate and wild animals. It is the internal and external conflicts that made this and so many other stories interesting because without the conflicts, stories will be like the Teletabies where they just say hi and hug each other.

Unfamiliar Place

HAS was the first American school I go to at 5th grade and everything was so new to me. We didn't have to speak English at all times but it's the only way to communicate with the teachers. There was only 5 students in our grade at the time when I entered the school and it was so different since we have 30+ students in each class and 3 classes a grade.The teachers are weird looking because I've never seen so many foreigners and nonetheless, constantly talking to me in a language that I am not good with. The food was as terrible but there's desserts such as fruits or eggs for afternoon and there's a vending machine downstairs so I lived through it. Now, in PAS which is almost the same as HAS, I'm use to everything, crappy food, foreign teacher with English, even teachers that speaks English with really weird accents.

Quickwrite - By the Waters of Bablylon

Of Mice and Man, both movie and novel, is a good example of someone going on a journey because it is both physical and spiritual.. The main character, George, went on many journeys with Lenin, his best friend, because Lenin gets into trouble all the time wherever he goes.At the last stop, George realized painfully that Lenin is a burden and does not bring good to anyone and he should end it for the best, so he, other people, and Lenin himself won't get hurt anymore. He learned that from a old guy whose best friend is a blind stinky dog and he made the painful decision of letting it get killed. The old guy made a mistake of not ending his old pal's life himself. George made a painful decision of ending Lenin's life and all his troubles.

Making Time Move Slowly

The Contents of The Dead Man's Pocket


It was eight minutes ago since he left his house and into the freezing outside world but it seems like hours have gone by. The author Mr. Finney made it seem like a long time by taking a lot of time describing about feelings. He takes something that is happening simultaneously in Tom's mind and present them sequentially to the readers. Also, the use of punctuation and comma series that makes something fast into a long paragraph and long sentences can really make time move slowly.

Values

Values:

• Time
• Family
• Friends
• Money
• Fame

I think all the non-materialistic values should be much valuable than the materialistic values. I think Time is the most important of all the values because it goes by the fastest and there's no coming back. It's the most important thing in life and we all need to cherish what's so valuable. Family stands next because family usually what cares the most about you. Friends are slightly less important than family because friends' meaning is just a miniature version of family's support. Money is of the most important materialistic values because it is the foundation and base that helps you obtain other materialistic values. Fame is right behind money because it's not a comparison between what money gives you but it competes with what money gives you. Some people get fame with money, some just get it. There's debate about whether fame's better or money.

Picture Description

House of Flying Daggers Movie Scene

The picture is full of vertical objects such as the bamboo and the stealth ninjas hanging upside down in the background. The horizontal ground had a contrast to the scene. The setting is in a bamboo forest full of green and light in the front but the background was covered by heavy fog and darkness towards the end contrasting the front of the picture. The space between the bamboo created negative space that makes the audience focus into the bamboos.

The setting of the scene seems to be oriental with the ninja, Asian fighter, and the bamboo forest, and it seems to be in the past with the weapon choice. The tense facial expression and the dark background, creates a suspense mood. It felt like somewhere there's going to be an action.

Collection I - Human Stories

"There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before"
                                                                - Willa Cather

• birth
• childhood
• adolescence/unruly
• work
• marriage
• journey(spiritual or physical)
• death
• happy time <---> bad/sad time

Stories repeats a cycle of the main character being unhappy in the start or turns unhappy during the story and then goes through a journey of spiritual or physical. Eventually the main character goes back to the original state or maybe better. This broad cycle can be fit to almost all stories but there are some stories that don't follow the cycle. Usually if a story does not follow this routine, it is a bad story because this cycle has a introduction, conflict, and usually a climax, then resolution being that the main character goes back to how he started, or better.