Final Timed-writing

Student number: 0557068
Name: JoJo
Date: Jun.21.2007
Timed-writing 3

Direction: If you were to create a filmed advertisement (a “trailer"  for a movie based on the The Grass-Eaters, which scene would you select? Why? Discuss ways in which you might film the scene. (100%)

I would like to choose the scene when Ajit is sitting in an abandoned wagon with his wife.

From this scene, firstly, the audience could through the appearance of the two characters to figure out how poor they are. And from the place they live, an abandoned wagon, the poorness of our main characters would leave an even deeper impression on our audience. This could be a relatively shock to our audience who are living in the metropolis, because of the huge difference of the living standard between our audience and our characters. Through this way can we draw the attention and curiosity of the audience, and thus attract them to the cinema.

Another reason is that in this scene they are quarrelling. The man, with only one ear and one leg and in the shabbiest clothes, continues closing and opening the door and the window, saying to his wife contently:” See, they could be opened and closed!Oh, it’s like heave.” Beside him, the wife is sitting there without and word, feeling depressed. When the man goes near to wife, flirts with her and asks to make sex with her, shouts the woman suddenly,” I don’t want to my child born in this wagon!” She broke out emotionally. And I believe this sudden emotional conflict between our two characters could also draw the audience’s attention, from the angel of emotions. They probably want to know why his wife all at once gets sick of this kind of life and will their life get better, after they realized they should not live like this any more. To call the audience’s curiosity is the most important purpose a filmed trailer should serve. And I believe the scene I select cloud serve this purpose perfectly.

Now let’s come to the way I will film the scene. At the very beginning, the movie camera should be high above in the sky, far from the wagon. The picture should see like this: Everything is in quiet. In a large desolate space stand a rusted wagon alone. The window of the wagon opens and closes. But a hand, which opens the window, can be seen. Then let the camera get near to the wagon, the hand. And from the hand, a man with a dirty face and only one ear is seen. He’s smiling, saying to his wife” See, they could be opened and closed. Oh, it’s like heave.” Then turn the camera to his wife. She only sits there with no reaction, around her is nothing could be called furniture. The man gets ear to the woman, asking sex. Suddenly, the quiet is broken. The woman shouted desperately:” I don’t want my child born here!” She started to choke with sobs. The man is standing there at a loss. The scene gets again quiet. Only the window is opening and closing because of the wind….

1 Comment 21.6.07 14:25, comment

Draft 2

Name: JoJo.Chen
Date: May.7.2007
Draft Two

                                     Title

“After the French Revolution (1789-1799), class distinctions remained an integral part of French society.”(38) It could be deduced that, though encountered the failure, the French upper bourgeoisie continued playing its role in impacting the value, which referred to aesthetic, life and most other things, of the masses. They were still envied or even worshiped because of the life they had. At least, at the first few years after the revolution.

Then there was no wonder for an ordinary girl, inclusive of Mathilde, to indulge herself in the fantasy of the upper class marked with luxury. And Guy de Maupassant, who was “born into an upper bourgeois family”(38), was sensitive enough to perceive this kind of phenomenon among the girls “born in a family of clerks”(38) like Mathilde. Out of the instinct of an author, Maupassant felt responsible to display the possible cruel consequence of this unrealistic fantasy. In the story, Mathilde toiled ten years to pay off the debt of an actual paste necklace, which should surely attribute to her unrealistic fantasy.

Firstly, the fantasy was gratrually driving Mathilde, through three steps, to tragedy.

Mathilde was a normal girl and married a normal man, but she could not stand “dressed plainly”(38). Nothing is more unendurable to her than “the poverty of her dwelling”, “the wretched look of the walls”,”the worn-out chairs” and “the ugliness of the curtains.”(38) This suggested some inner desire of Mathilde. Mathilde had a nature for pursuing a voluptuary life, which haunted in her mind previously and firmly. But the reality she lived in had a big difference from what she was dreaming of; therefore seeing all the surroundings was a torture. The only moment to get rid of that was when she was relishing the ideas of all the delicate things. Fantasy was the only comfort as well as the initial cause of her sufferings. It was understandable for Mathilde to be seized by fantasy, when reality are too far away from meeting it. This was the first step of the fantasy to do its crime, attracting Mathilde and making itself an indispensable part of her life.

To Mathilde, what’s more, her inability to obtain what she yearned for contributed to her tortures. Because she “had no dowry, no expectations, no means of being known, understood, loved, wedded by any distinguished man”(38) The more she was dying for, the more she suffered; the more she felt her powerlessness, the more she abandoned herself in the fantasy. It was a desperate loop without end. This was the second step of the fantasy to do its crime, girping Mathilde even more firmly in its hands.

And from the later text “She came to know what heavy housework meant and the odious cares of the kitchen.”(43), could we come to the conclusion that Mathilde war free from the housework before. The attendant result was that her chance to have a deep touch with the real life was diminished. If she spared a blink at the reality, things would turn out to be totally different: Mathilde would be more content with her life. In a manner of speaking, weltering overduely in the fantasy was a relatively dominating cause of reducing her contact to the real normal life. The door to the real life was shutted, now Mathilde had fallen the prey to her fantasy, totally.

Then happened a ball. After her husband told her the news, out of everyone’s expectation, Mathilde “threw the invitation on the table with disdain” (39). This reaction should be attributed to her fantasy, too. And from then on the fantasy began to drive Mathilde to do something. According to the fantasy, a ball without decent dress and jewels was not complete, and she would rather not to attend it if she had no ornament. So she was still frustrated, for “she had no dresses, no jewels, nothing.”(39) What she dreamed of was “to be pleased, to be envied, to be charming, to be sought after”.(39) Although there was still a huge distance between the reality and her fantasy, it seemed to be a good chance to have an experience at what she was longing for. So it was imaginable for such a woman to make every sacrifice, including sacrificing her husband’s gun and going to borrow jewels from a friend “whom she did not like to go and see any more” (39), to realize it. The huge desire of experiencing the fantastic moment gave her an immense impulse to do anything to fulfill it. That was why Maupassant had written so long a text before describing how deeply Mathilde immersed in her fantasy. Mathilde herself probably didn’t even know she had walked the first step into the tragedy. Until this moment all the intricate foreshadowing for Mathilde’s later ten-year-toil was over.

Now her fantasy started to playing another role in her tradegy-- blinding her eyes.

After she enjoyed “the triumph of her beauty”(41),”the gory of her success”(41),and “a sort of cloud of happiness composed of all this homage”(41) came the tragedy: Mathilde tumbled to find that the necklace was lost.

A woman in such a circumstance did all she could: asking her husband to go the same way back and inquire the cab companies and writing a letter to her friend to make time for finding. But they were all in vain. At last, the only solution seemd to be buying a new one for replacement, and so she did.

But why didn’t she honestly tell her friend the truth and beg for her forgiveness? It never occurred to her mind. It should still owe to Mathilde’s fantasy: the upper class’s life just like she dreamed of everyday was so nice that there couldn’t be anything fake. In her fantasy there were only things like “dainty dinners”, “shining silverwar”and “delicious dishes server on marvelous plates”.(39) As to Mathilde, how could anything fake exist in this splendid world? She was blinded by her fantasy, therefore neglected the truth that a wealthy family didn’t entail everything true, especially jewels. When she saw the diamond necklace at the first sight, “her heart began to beat with immoderate desire and her hands trembled as she took it”.(41) She was too excited to think about distinguishing it true or fake. This was the first mistake resulted by her fantasy.

The overwhelming joy and the overdue confidence according to her fantasy also led her to neglect her friend’s words when she asked whether she could have it for the ball:”why, yes, certainly” (41). Such a series of short, immediate and positive agreements was much likely to contain something worth doubting, for instance, the necklace didn’t worth much and therefore the owner felt no worry to lend it out. Mathilde should notice that, but she lost the last opportunity to reverse the tragedy. Then the only thing left was a heavy debt which cost her ten-year toil, her youth and her beauty after the necklace was missing. If she had made a casual inquiry to her friend, how would she suffer that much?

Her tragedy was doomed by her fantasy. Mathilde was a typical figure, who helplessly abandoned herself in the fantasy of an upper class life, which was the fundamental cause to the borrowing of the necklace and certainly the whole consequence. And it is because she indulged too deeply in her fantasy that made her doubtless about the rich life which could probably contain something not genuine. She did not make the  basic judgement and did not notice the suggestion veiled in her friend’s words, thus the only chance to know the truth before paying bitterly escaped. Ironically, it was not until the end of the story dawned the truth on her, and before that, during her ten-year-toil, she was still sometimes retrospecting her fantasy moment. “But sometimes, she sat down near the window, and she thought of that gay evening of lone age, of that ball where she had been so beautiful and so feted.”(44) A woman paid a ten-year toil, which was the exactly opposite to her fantasy, in return for a one-night taste for her fantasy. How miserable, but perhaps that was why a woman was a woman. 

At the very end of the story, Mathilde said nothing, but it could be easily figured out that all her fantasy about the upper class was crashed. And, of course, her own life, once ordinary but peaceful, was broken into pieces ruthlessly and worthlessly. Because the last thing she was “proud of”(44), repaying off the debts, was found meaningless and an ironic mistake.

Maupassant contrived such an unexpected and thought-provoking ending, while starting with a woman abandoned herself in the fantasy, to achieve his aim: displaying honestly the cruel consequence an unrealistic and excessive fantasy might bring about as a warning for the real life.

18.6.07 10:04, comment

Cover Letter

Dear Sir or Madam,

Thank you for taking time reading my portfolio. The five articles above are the chosen ones for my writing portfolio through this semester in the writing class of Mr. Corio.

My major is Germany, and thus English has become my third language. And I feel quite a few problems in my academic writing which is probably a rather practical skill, that is why I attended Ron’s class. Thanks to his teaching, my writing skills has been improved gradually. I am happy, and of course proud, of my progress.

In Ron’s class I have learnt firstly how to analyze a story through the settings, characters and many other elements according to the book International Story. And after reading the story, we started to write reading log, which is the first item in my writing portfolio. In the reading log I expressed my own feelings about the story I read, and exchanged views with the classmates through internet. That is a quite interesting process. Getting to know what other readers thinking about the story they’ve read and the way they express their thoughts are two very important things I have picked up in this writing class.

The second paper deals with time-writing. That is another quite important skill I have learnt—to write things in a limited time. In the first two timed-writing, I always met the same problem: The time was over before I could write much enough to clarify my thoughts. And especially, in my first timed-writing, I was quite nervous, worrying about things like what if I did not write long enough or what if I forget the spelling. Of course, they proved unnecessary. Through several trials I did learn some skills in timed-writing. First, taking four or five minutes pondering over the whole structure and what I am to write. Second, writing the main sentences for each paragraph then concretize them. And while writing, do not always spend time on wording. And the last trick is to set aside about ten minutes going through the whole article again and polishing. Those are the skills for timed-writing I have learnt through my writing class.

The following ones are my essay drafts which I worked most hard on in this semester. I was usually confident about my writing, but from draft one to draft three, the problems in my writing uncovered. Improving them little by little should own much to Ron’s helpfulness and his general knowledge in writing. As to me, the problem most likely to be neglected is quotation. Adding the page number and quotation marks when quoting. This is a basic rule, but I used to forget, and this is surely unrespectful to the original author. Similarly is the punctuation problem. It was not until Ron’s remind did I realize how many error I made about punctuation. Another basic writing skill I learnt which left me a deep impression is the thesis statement. I still remember the first time when Ron refered to the thesis statement, I even did not know what it actually was. But later, what I concerned about was how to make my thesis statement clear and strong. That is a progress, isn’t it? And what also changed with the draft number is the logicality in my essays. I polished them over and over.(Hopefully, you can see it through my three drafts.) What determined a good essay is not, as I thought before, good diction, but logically strong and clear. Wording is superficial however somehow a plus, while logicality makes a essay carry conviction.

Moreover, I am here sincerely giving my gratitude to my peers, who worked hard in proofreading for me.And my lovely teacher, Ron!

This class of a adventure in writing is over, however my interests in writing have been greatly triggered. What nice!

Thank you again for reading my portfolio. Hopefully, you could see the progress I have made and what I talk above could give you some inspiration in your writing improvement

Sincerely,
JoJo

2 Comments 18.6.07 10:02, comment