Blog Post 3.3
My final essay will be about my grandmother’s life in three stages: coming to America, its affects, and going back home. Although, my grandmother suffered from Alzheimer’s, I do not want to frame the story around that, but of her final days with this illness, which gives a deeper impact of all the suffering she had endured.
This has been a topic I have been working on since her death and have attempted various ways and structures to tell her story. It’s a beautiful fairytale with a sort of “Happily every after” ending.
I would like to frame this story around the story of the “Little Red Riding Hood” as told by the Grimm Brothers. This is a story my grandmother told me every night and reminds me of the journey she had taken.
The purpose I would like to get across is the struggle of life and the beauty of death. It will consist of sections rather than paragraphs. I will provide three or maybe four different scenes in her life and give great detail and imagery. I want the reader to feel as if they knew her and can relate.
My essay will be a lyric essay. I am intertwining two stories: my grandmothers and Little Red Riding Hood. This creates a parallel between both characters. It will be abstract as I will attempt to leave holes in which the reader can fill with their imagination. I would also like to incorporate an image if I feel that it fits with the story.
I might change my mind regarding the type of medium I want to use for my final draft.
I will write about 4 pages double-spaced, but I am not too sure. I am still figuring out how to structure it and correctly develop the story. It is UNDER CONSTRUCTION.
The title of my essay will be: ‘Discontinuity’
4 responses so far
This proposed essay has a lot of potential. I think it could be really interesting to literally interweave quoted passages/sections of the Grimm tale with your essay. Is that what you’re planning on doing? Just include a works cited with the Grimm edition you’re using. IT’s a format and approach that could be very evocative and effective. I also LOVE love love the potential for “the journey” being a vivid and powerful theme for your essay. Little Red’s story is the story of (among other things) a literal journey (and a metaphorical journey out of naivete and into adulthood), and those journeys can be put into interesting parallel to the literal and metaphorical journeys of your grandmother’s life. Give some thought to journeys before you start drafting and as you write. Maybe make a list of Red’s and your Grandmother’s journeys that you will explore, and draw out the parallels you can think of. Sounds like this will be very rich!
I know I’m not in your editing group but…I wanted to say that it sounds like combining your own personal story with the surreal is a brilliant idea. I hope you find the right words to express your thoughts on paper!
Grandmother seems to be a muse for a lot of our classmates in this class. Personally, I have never been that close to any of my grandmothers–three in numbers. So for an outsider, I am very much interested in knowing how different people see their relationship with their grandparent as. I remember reading Hutch’s account of her grandmother and I loved it. Hopefully I would be able to say the same about yours, especially with this interesting frame of a fairy tale you have chosen. As of now, what shape this interweaving of these two stories will take, but I can already envision the different directions it could take and that’s exciting.
I think I have a little trouble understanding the second half of the first paragraph–which is the object of your essay. It seems to be saying that you won’t be too consumed by the affects that Alzheimer had on your grandmother and you, but suggesting that the illness would still be an element of the story, “but of her final days with this illness.”
As far the medium is concerned, I think it has a huge potential for an audio essay, but I can also see it in the form that “Illustrated” or “Illuminated” Poems were written in.
Hey Andrea,
‘’The struggle of life and the beauty of death,’’ this line is very mind blowing.
Definitely, your essay will be a lyric essay because I have already sensed it in your proposal. The idea of telling two stories is awesome, but the selection of two stories, grandmother and fairytale, is even more wonderful. I can picture you and your grandmother in my own cultural perspectives, because that’s the only thing that I find common in eastern and western world. Now I regret for not writing anything, not even a single line about my grandma even after all those rich memories she had created in my being.
I have full faith on your writing, and I also know that you are going to do a magnificent work for your capstone essay. I saw you cry while watching video on Alzheimer disease. And I have no doubt that you will be a great writer in future provided that you maintain continuity in writing nonfiction.
I hope your ‘’Discontinuity’’ will create that continuity.
Sincerely,
amzad