Author: g.arrieta

5081190220187983
11/30/15

Curious George (1941) Mess Post

Curious George (1941) uses the binary of human and nonhuman in story to teach a lesson to kids about curiosity and decision making. This original story begins with a monkey who is captured by a hunter, travels with him, and during this time gets himself into mischief. To be more precise, the story uses an animal from Africa to demonstrate the difference between decision making from black and white people. George the monkey (non human)  symbolizes African Americans, and the hunter(human) represents White Americas . The story begins with the curiosity of the Hunter who is a white man, and his interest in George. When he decides to capture George, there are no mistakes. The Hunter easily captures George. However, when George gets curious and has an idea of his own, something bad happens. An example of this is shown in the boat scene “On the deck, He found some seagles. He wondered how they could fly. He was very curious. Finally, he had to try. It looked easy, but, oh what happened? First this, and then this”. When George thought of an idea, he accidentally fell into the water and almost got himself killed. His decision making is flawed. Overall, this demonstrated the belief that the decision of a white person is superior to that of a black person.

Citation

Rey, H. A. Curious George. N.p.: n.p., 1941. Print.

 

10/19/15

Spongebob Squarepants Vs. Little Bird Little Bird

I chose to read “Little Bird! Little Bird!” from the Flowers for Children Series by Lydia Maria Child. The story begins with someone preparing a nice home for a bird and inviting it to come live there. This person promises to bring flowers, feed, and take care of the bird if it comes to live in the cage. The bird however, politely declines the offer. It says this because it prefers to live in nature, where it can roam freely in the air, and live in a comfortable nest. Then the person asks the bird what will it do during the winter time. The bird responds by saying that it will migrate to a land that has green fields and warm skies until the winter passes, and then it will return.
This story was created to teach children the living environment of another animal. A contemporary cartoon that teaches this lesson to kids is the TV show Spongebob Squarepants through the character of Sandy the squirrel. Just like the bird, Sandy lives in an area where other species of animals live in. However, she has her own home that’s different from the other animals. Sandy lives in a dome in the middle of the ocean that preserves the air, the land and the temperature of the environment, making it a perfect environment for a squirrel. Another common idea that both stories share is teaching kids what happens to certain animals during the winter time. For “Little Bird! Little Bird”, the bird migrates to a different location until the winter time has passed. For the Spongebob TV show, it teaches kids that squirrels hibernate by eating extra food to store body fat and sleeping during the winter.

Word Cited: Child, Lydia Maria. “Little Bird! Little bird!” Flowers for Children. Boston: C.S. Francis &, 1854. Print.

09/15/15

Binary A: Alice and Wonder Land

The first binary that I was able to see when I read the text is the expected vs the unexpected. The author uses this binary to answer what will happen next in the story. An example of this is shown at the end of the first chapter when Alice discovers a drink that makes her shrink. After doing this she discovers a piece a cake and says to herself ” Well, I’ll eat it, and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key, and if it makes grow smaller, I can creep under the door” (Caroll, pg 13). The door and key refer to a garden that she is trying to get into. The reason Alice believes that the cake possesses some form of power is because everything around her seems out of the ordinary and what she drank beforehand made her shrink. She figured there was a pattern here, but to her discovery, “she was quite surprised to find that she remained the same size” (Caroll, pg 13). What this demonstrates to the reader is that the author uses the binary pair of expected vs unexpected to create a pattern for the story. This pattern is that things will go the opposite of what Alice expects it to go. This is validated again when Alice convinces herself that the cake will not change her size, she grew again.

Work Cited: Carroll, Lewis. The Annotated Alice: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass. New York: C.N. Potter, 1960. Guttenberg.org. 19 May 2009. Web. 14 Sept. 2015.

09/15/15

Child As A Site: Snow White

The original Snow White focused on the  relationship between Snow white and her Step Mother and how she wanted Snow White to die because she was more beautiful than her. The Adult Desire here is an attraction to things that are beautiful and deceptive. The most well known scene of the story portrays this, which is when Snow white receives the poison apple. “‘Snow-White longed for the beautiful apple, and when she saw that the peasant woman was eating part of it, she could no longer resist, and she stuck her hand out and took the poisoned apple”. In the original story, Snow White gets deceived 3 times by the step mother, the first time with a beautiful dress, the second time with a beautiful comb, and the third time by a beautiful apple. In all instances, the author uses the word beautiful to describe the objects, and it is purposely there. This is to emphasize the deception of beauty. Because this is a the third time that it happens to her, you would think that Snow White would know that it is another deception, and she does. Before this scene, Snow White tells the woman ” I am not allowed to let anyone in. The dwarfs have forbidden me to do so”. Also in the first quote, we see that Snow White not being able to “resist” anymore. Snow White responded this way because she already knew the apple was  a deception, but she eats it anyways, and it is because she finds the apple beautiful. Through these examples, the author identifies our own natural desires as humans to desire the beautiful, yet deceptive.

Work Cited: Grimm, Jacob, Wilhelm Grimm. “Little Snow-White.” Grimm 015. University of Pittsburgh, 7 Sept. 2011. Web. 14 Sept. 2015. <http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm015.html>.