Category Archives: The Little Prince

For the comrades and lovers eyes only

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Walt_Whitman_by_Mathew_Brady

While some take a sadden viewpoint on Walt Whitman’s No Labor-Saving Machine, I see it as a positive reminder. Mr. Whitman (1819 – 1892) is primarily known for a collection of poems called Leaves of Grass.  I believe there are three things at work here; first, a speaker coming forward realizes his shortcomings and openly admits to them; second, the speaker openly admits what he is able to do and what is able to leave behind. And finally, labor versus the introduction of production (machines). Judicious about his legacy, Walt Whitman’s last contribution to the world would be “Leaves of Grass”, to which he had collected a lifetime of reflections about society and himself. Whitman would only to be rediscovered and restored to the American public by a group of editors set out to gather his “vibrating carols”, after his death. These “vibrating cords” included six very different editions of Leaves of Grass, and thousands of manuscripts, letters and journalistic pieces.

To me, this screams the saying “life is too short” Life is too much to worry about the wealth you will leave behind or the patriotic actions for your country; even the book and stories to which you will write. What matters, as identify by the author, are ones nearest and closest to him/her, friends and lovers. This was Walt Whitman’s and Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s literary success. The art of simply caring for the little things. Whitman’s repetition of the word “Nor” in a list fashion almost seem to clarity the truly unimportance of what follows. “Nor literary success, nor intellect”; taken from his own life, Whiteman’s education ended with elementary school and at times he was chronically poor, but in the end he managed to  work hard and soon he enjoyed the fruits of his labor, only to be rediscovered years after his own death.

The title “No labor-Saving Machine” also tells another story. Walt Whitman live in the time of exponential growth the United States. It was the time of Carnegie, Ford, Morgan, and Rockefeller; where man was being replaced by faster machines and newly innovative methods. Similarly to no labor, save the machines seems to relieve the sadden implications outlined by a few. The death of labor? The death of the American worker per se? I am skeptical.  Labor-saving machines, does reduces demand for some workers but increases demand for others, more specialize. However, for the author this may be different or difficult to understand.

All in all, Walt Whitman acknowledges that there is nothing to gain from major success nor of a person to showcase their talents or materialistic items; but at the core, to do only what you think you can do even, in death, to leave behind few carols (stories), vibrating (traveling through generations) through the air (history).

 

 

A World Too much in itself

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The sonnet, The World Is Too Much with Us by William Wordsworth (a 19th century English  poet), portraits an idea that people have become so involved in earning  money that they have not only lost touch with all things beautiful in the world but also within themselves. Born, raised and educated in the time of the Industrial Revolution, where the transition from old to new manufacturing processes occurs; William Wordsworth witnessed much of the changes in his beloved Great Britain. He conveys his frustration about the state, which he sees daily throughout the poem.

Stating his dissatisfaction, Wordsworth writes “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers” to clearly portray that people have given up their “powers”, whether that meant their livelihoods, passions, or even freedoms, (since the industrial revolution introduce the time clock), for this form of efficiency. Would that be true today? William also goes on to say “we have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!” The word “boon” means to be helpful; however, he uses the word after writing “sordid” which means dishonorable, or ignoble motives. Elevating his tone from dissatisfaction to anger, William here, showcases the significance of the problem; all while depicting cynicism and the decadence of society.

In this poem, it seems that human society beginning in the speaker’s time as made a bargain with the devil. Literally or figuratively, society have lost our powers in the bargain, our lives revolve around a clock of work, earn and spend to then work again. A dark and empty pit, we, society are blind and find ourselves alone. But is it preventable? William writes near the end of his poem “Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea”; having the sight of Proteus, is define as one to have the ability to foresee the future or what the speaker notes as potential “glimpses”. The hopes that this ability can help him become less forlorn or sad about the world we see around us.

William Wordsworth criticizes materialism and distancing of humans from the nature of our world and most importantly ourselves. As I read this piece: I wonder. Are there forms like this that exist today? Would we as a collective agree with Sir William Wordsworth? Are there those out there, with the ability of Proteus to notice these changes? Have we, as a society, fell victim to our own problems too greatly to witness the changes to our world?

 

The Little Prince: Book Mock Up

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These first two pictures show two pages that make up our book, along with post-its that describe some of the key features of the book itself.

The following images show the front and back cover of our book. The set up is so the book appears to be 2-in-1 in that from one side you open into a manual and from the other side you open into a pilot’s log. Our reasoning behind this idea is that the pilot would’ve had very little to work with after he crashed into the desert. Therefore, it is very possible that he would take whatever he had with him, in this case the manual for the plane, and use it to record his last days in whatever way possible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next images show the first page from whichever end of the book you open up on. The first is from the manual side and the second from the log side. Using the backs of the pages of the manual allows for what appears to be a separate book, within an already existing one.

 

Finally, below are two examples of the drafts of what we will be including in the foreword. These types of notes will add to the explanation of the book itself as well as fulfill all of the project requirements.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To Do By the Dates Listed:

5/10: (1) Burn the edges of the pages of the prototype and have in class on Wednesday; (2) Bring in ribbon or rope material which we will experiment with during the in-class workshopping for the binding of the book; (3) Bring in scrap paper and watercolor/colored pencils to experiment with potential sketches we may want to include within the pilot’s logs; (4)  Talk to Professor Curseen about “file folder” which we will put the book inside

5/12: Have final drafts of all of the pilot’s logs and forward content complete 

5/15: Group will meet to make FINAL copies of the first two books for the book fair

By the project deadline, the remaining 8 books will be split up among group members to each finish 2. 

 

The Little Prince Check In Part 2

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After reading your comments, we have decided to design our book about a book as a presentation of an artifact from the pilot’s actual crash in the Sahara desert. We considered your input on us actually purchasing the journals, and have instead decided to use what will appear to be a pilot’s manual. We found a website titled “Militaryfactory.org” which lists the aircraft information of many planes used by various countries. Through our research of the time period the book was written in, the 1940s, we found that a plane that could have very possibly been flown by the pilot is the “Amiot 354,” a Medium Bomber Aircraft in the French Air Force. Using the website that gives specifications of such an aircraft, we are creating our own representation of the pilot’s manual. The following images are examples of three pages of what will be included in the manual. 

 

Similar to what you suggested that the Scarlet Letter group does, we have decided we will use a file folder (which we will get a better idea about from you in class this week) that will allow us to include a foreword. In this foreword we will cover the following components of the assignment:

  • Labors that went into creating the actual work
  • Analysis of how parts of the work are in conversation with the authors/artists of other works
  • How works have come to be considered great and what we believe makes a work great
  • Bibliography

We will print such a manual on one-sided sheets of paper, leaving the backs blank. From there, we will include the pilot’s entries on the backs of each of the pages. This will contribute to authenticity as we will explain in part of the forward because we will make it look as though the pilot realized he may not survive in the dessert and wanted to record the events of his last days. Being that he was stranded in the Sahara, it is realistic that the only thing he could use would be the manual on his aircraft, therefore he wrote his daily entries in it. The entries will describe the 8 days that he was stranded in the desert.

Similarly to how copies of “The Little Prince,” have a “Translator’s Note” in the beginning of the story, we plan to include one in addition to our foreword. In the translator’s note we will fulfill the overview of the work’s reception and preservation over time  by explaining how our version of the story through the pilot’s log will again add to the already existing versions of the story.

We will incorporate the close reading analysis into parts of the pilot’s actual logs and keep the authenticity of the first person aspect of our book, by using passages of text coming solely from the prince. In this way we can truly go into all of what was being said in the text, but it can be presented from the perspective of the pilot. We will write these log entries as the pilot contemplating something said by the prince, and perhaps how it affects himself.

We will also incorporate the creative response into the actual logs themselves by including a map of what the pilot believes is the positioning of the planets that the prince visited. It will be an image of the night sky in which all of the asteroids are labeled (an estimation), and finally we will see a place where he questions the placement of the prince’s planet.

It would be infeasible for us to handwrite each of the entries for all 10 copies of the book, therefore we will type the journals entries and print them onto the paper we will be using (the back of the manual). To maintain authenticity in the fact that the pilot would be hand writing all of his entries, we will use the font titled HanziPen or a similar one, which resembles handwriting.

As previously explained, we will be making the paper itself appear worn and as though it has been through hardship in the crash. To do this we will use teabags and potentially burn the sides of the pages, giving it a slightly destroyed look. In addition, we will have visible markings on the cover of the manual where the prince would have crossed out the title and wrote the meaning of the new journal, his own last days or at least what he thought would be his last days.

The Little Prince

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The What

Our group is planning on purchasing a set of 10 small journals for this project, to use as our starting point. We will be purchasing the journals rather than making them ourselves to represent the pilot’s connection to the society surrounding him, beyond the reaches of the desert in which he finds himself. The journal cover will appear simple, and be smaller than the size of a normal sheet of paper. This size and appearance is to ensure that it appears realistic as to what the pilot may have on his person while stuck in the desert, in order to record the events of his days. Although we are looking at a few different options for the journals, we are currently leaning towards one that features a brown, sandy looking cover, to give the journal the look of blending into the sand of the desert.

We will decorate the journal to appear as though it has been used as the pilot’s actual daily diary while stuck in the desert, including some visible “wear and tear.” We are not positive how we will do this yet but this may involve something along the lines of using tea bags to make the edges of the pages look worn.  At the top of each page, we plan to organize it as a journal entry being that we will have “Day 1, Day 2, etc.” as the headings. We will then go on to incorporate the necessary information for the project into those “entries” although we have not yet decided if we will organize our information from the perspective of the pilot or otherwise. Another option we are considering is adding certain journal entries which feature the pilot contemplating the existence of the prince, as it was a large uncertainty to us when reading the book ourselves. In this way we can challenge the existence of the prince from the perspective of the pilot’s experiences, and in doing so address part of the reason as to why we see the book as being great.

The Why

We want to use a physical book in this way to connect the story as much as possible to the actual events that took place in the pilot’s life. In reality if the story were to have actually happened and the pilot had wanted to record it, he would have done so on whatever he had with him. For most taking part in such travels as he was, this could very likely be a small journal in which he keeps track of what happens every day during his time away from home. In this way, we can bring our own description and interpretation of the key elements into the form that most accurately represents his experiences.

Much of this interpretation also came from one of the field trips which I attended, at the Grolier Club. In this exhibition I witnessed a variety of different paper forms which featured different engravings. What was noteworthy about this samples on display was that the engravings were simply added to regular paper after they were completed, without using paper that has meaning such as what I learned many did from the panels at the Center for Book Arts. In addition, the engravings often had personal meaning to the artist, and not even the people for whom the engravings were being done. This relates to our own project because we will be taking already made paper, and adding something to it such as the “wear and tear” as earlier explained. In addition, the features of the book such as its sandy color and the worn appearance we will attempt to create, will relate to a personal meaning the narrator of the story may feel and not necessarily its readers. The sandy cover can remind the pilot of the desert while not impacting readers in any way. Although final details of our physical book are not yet set in stone, we plan to follow this description as closely as possible to give our book the greatest possible accuracy as it relates to the original story.

Learning to See through the Little Prince

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In this graphic, I chose to illustrate the separate lives of the Little Prince and the pilot after the events of the story took place, based on my own interpretation. In this first panel, the Little Prince is looking back on Earth from his planet, alongside his one rose. In the second panel, the pilot is looking at the night sky and seeing the Little Prince embodied in one of the stars, with his singular important rose. Finally, in the third panel the pilot has returned to drawing the elephant inside of the snake, having learned to see “regular” things from a different perspective.

Graphic Narrative Assignment Due 4/12 (Plus Examples from Past Students)

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Hey Everyone.

Remember your graphic narratives are due, Wednesday April 12th by 5 pm.  Your narrative should add or revise some aspect of your final project book. Think about it like fan fiction.  You can add a deleted scene, or a piece of back story, or a memory, or add a minor character, or change an ending, etc.  Just make sure you have some reason for your choice and some main objective that you hope to accomplish by way of the choices you make for this revision.

Please upload your picture as a compressed, jpeg file to the site.  Remember to check all appropriate category boxes.  If you feel extremely shy about your graphic narrative, you may email it directly to me.  Please know that being a perfect or super-skilled artist isn’t necessary.   What I’m looking for is thoughtfulness about all your choices from  panel size and layout, to color, to inking, and dialogue.  I am also looking to see that the product looks complete and finished.  While it’s not required that you ink, inking does help give the graphic a sense of completion, so you should consider inking, or at least inking the panel frames.

Don’t be afraid to do more than one draft!

Click Here: We Monsters to see examples of students’ finished graphic narratives.   Please note in the past the graphic narrative workshop was part of my Young Adult Literature course (ENG 3045) and not Great Works, so their assignment was different.  Instead of creating a graphic related to their final project book, their assignment was to make a graphic that engaged the ideas of adolescence and monstrosity.    All the same, I hope these examples  give you a sense of the range of possibilities.

 

Graphic Novel Wkshp. – Bring Three Panel Graphic Strip Idea

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For next Wednesday you should come to class with an idea of what you want to represent in your three panel graphic.   Think about a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end.  Having a beginning, middle, and end doesn’t necessarily mean you  have to squish a novel’s worth of action into three panel.  You can think about a scene or a moment.

Your moment, scene, panel should in some way engage the book which  your group is working on for the final book project. Think about the assignment as fan fiction in a a graphic art form.   So, for example, you might revise a scene in your primary text, or maybe you add an additional scene, or change the end or beginning.  Or perhaps your panel is something like a prequel, or the beginning of a spin off.  You can also insert  other characters from other stories, from  history, or your own life into the story.

While I hope you find the experience fun, you should also keep in mind how revision and adding and mixing can actually be a powerful way to make a point about  what a text is doing or about it’s limitations and possibilities.   Remember how in ABC the image of Chin-kee is a visual allusion and revision of the 1882 political cartoon in a way that calls forth so as to challenge and put pressure on the racist imagination at work in that image and how that racism persists even into the 20th and 21st century imagination of the Chinese/Asian other.  You might consider how your own graphic illustrations might engage something in the book you’re focusing on in such a way that helps make an argument or emphasize your interpretation of a key part of the novel.   Your group might decide to use some of the graphic illustrations in the final project.

A Child’s Inner Demon

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The graphic novel “One Hundred Demons,” illuminates many of the difficulties young people face in life. Whether it be overcoming toxic relationships with people around you or stepping into roles of newfound responsibility, Lynda Barry gives a unique perspective on what “demons,” both internal and external, one might face.

The main character appears to be a depressed young girl, trying to overcome social isolation. She struggles to build relationships with other children around her and loses many of the important relationships she does manage to build. Two specific lines exemplify her “broken” emotional state and the way that she struggles to cope with her increasingly grim view of the world. By using the “archealogical dig” method in this close reading, readers can find this meaning behind the literal words written on the page.

The text found on page 70 of the graphic novel, emphasizes the internal demon which young adults may face on their way to reaching maturity. The line, “Remembering not to remember fractures you, but what is the alternative?” uses a variety of literary devices to make such a point. The oxymoron found in “remembering not to remember” brings attention to the difficulty, and quite literally, the impossibility of the task. The young girl can’t help but remember the emotionally damaging events of her social interactions at school and this only worsens her internal conflict. The hyperbole found in “fractures you,” emphasizes this emotional damage caused by attempts to forget, while not able to actually physically break the girl. The rhetorical question found in, “what is the alternative,” seems to almost plead with the readers to find some other way to make the “dark ghosts vanish.” She can’t escape her demons all together by trying to ignore them, but accepting them would only send her further into a depressed state. From this one line alone, we understand the pain of the young girl in the graphic novel, trying to overcome the social obstacles in a difficult childhood.

Further into the text, yet another line brings attention to this internal struggle in stating, “This ability to exist in pieces is what some adults call resilience. And I suppose in some way it is a kind of resilience, a horrible resilience.” Again we see the use of certain literary devices to emphasize the internal conflict the main character faces in the graphic novel. “The ability to exist in pieces” is not physically feasible, but in this case the author is using another hyperbole to represent an emotional rather than physical state. The girl has broken herself down in an attempt to overcome her internal conflict, and now lives in different shells of her former whole self. The repetition of the word “resilience” allows it to go from being a positively denotated term, to one that connotates a negative emotional state from the inability to “remember not to remember.” Her emotional wellbeing is further at risk from this resilience with which she dwells on her difficulty in forming social connections with the people around her.

Elements of this theme can be seen in “The Little Prince,” through the emphasis on different perspectives of the world between children and adults. Children such as the prince see the world beyond the surface, through creativity and ingenuity. In the eyes of an unhindered child, a box could represent a sheep and a hat could represent a snake eating an elephant. Meaning lies in the eyes of the beholder in this case. On the other hand, when such an openminded perspective of the world is shut down from a young age, we lose the ability to see the world in the pure light of a child. The pilot had given up on representing the snake eating an elephant, when those around him could not see past the image of a hat. In the case of the graphic novel, the young girl had all of the positivity of a typical eager child, but it slowly deteriorated as she grew up and encountered certain aspects of the harsh world. She slipped into depression as she was grew older, and lost the view of the world which she once had.

 

The Importance of Being Unimportant

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Walt Whitman’s, “No Labor-Saving Machine” addresses the importance of a seemingly unimportant person’s life. From my understanding of the short piece, Whitman is answering the age old question of “How will people remember me when I’m gone?” Each line plays a role in depicting this idea and brings in the fear that many have of living an unimportant life. “No labor-saving machine,/ Nor discovery have I made,/ Nor will I be able to leave behind me any wealthy bequest to found a hospital or library,/ Nor reminiscence of any deed of courage, for America,/ Nor literary success, nor intellect – nor book for the book-shelf.” Whitman’s repetition of the word “nor” at the start of lines 2-4 emphasizes the lack of a significant impact the subject of this piece has on the world around them. They have made no contribution to society which eases the burdens of mankind, and likewise have not made any footprints in the literary world. Such a view of a person’s life is not an uncommon one, as in this day and age living a normal life can often be seen as living an irrelevant one.

In the last two lines of the piece, Whitman states “Only a few carols, vibrating through the air, I leave,/ For comrades and lovers,” meaning that a person who lives such an “unimportant” life may only be of meaning to the people closest to them.  This idea is one that correlates with one major theme that I picked up on in the book, “The Little Prince.” The prince in the story seemed to arrive on Earth to meet a person of inconsequence, at least in the grand scheme of his existence. It was merely chance that brought the two together but that meeting opened the eyes of the stranded man in the desert. He learned from the young prince that the worth of something lies in the eyes of the beholder and the connection one makes with it. While a single rose on the prince’s planet was a true rare beauty, on Earth it was just another plant. The difference was that the little prince had a connection with his rose, and it was unique for that reason. Such a connection gave it worth and meaning in a world of millions of seemingly minuscule and unrelated existences. One may leave no significant impact on humankind and may pass away unnoticed, but they will mean the world to the people they make connections with. Such connections give them an importance that surpasses even the most famous inventor or writer.

This piece by Walt Whitman really made me think about my own ambitions in life. At a school like Baruch, so many people are interested in making something of themselves and proving to the world that they are worthy of recognition. Such competition cannot allow for us all to be remembered for some act of genius that improves the world for generations to come. This idea made me start to think, “How will I make my life mean something to the people around me? How will I become the single unique rose in the bush?”