Famous Last Words: For the Last Time

This is officially my last post for Mythology and Folklore blog. For the first part of this post I want to look back on my the class this semester. I must admit when I first started this class I was intimidated by the amount of work we had to complete each week. But after some serious time-management skills and a awesome planner I was able to organize my schedule and make a habit out of this class. I think that was one of the hardest things I learned, once you understand that this is like a physical class and you need to schedule the work as if you were going to class it makes it much easier to arrange your time.

I think my writing has improve this semester. While I have always considered myself a good writer this class taught me a lot about writing creatively. I found out that I need to practice brevity in my writing and work on getting to the point of the story faster. I really liked that we had a word count to base our stories on! It pushed me as a writer and as a student!

Overall, I really enjoyed this class! I think that while it can be seen as daunting, when you reach the end its such a sweet thing to see what all you have done and the different stories you have created. I am taking the other MLLL class next semester, so I will be using the skills I learned in this class and applying it to that one! I am excited for the new challenge.

As I finish this post I get closer and closer to dead week. I am excited to be done with my classes and papers and to go back to Lubbock for the winter. We are all so close to finishing the year! We can do this!!

Yet another reason why I wish I went to Hogwarts! Source 

Reading Notes: Hans Christian Anderson Part B

This week I read Part A of the Hans Christian Anderson tales. I found the first story of the Princess and the Pea to be really interesting. I knew the general information of the story before reading it but I though the actual story would contain more details. I was a little disappointed to read that the only thing that marked the princess as a real princess was the fact that she was so sensitive.

If I were to expand on this story I would like to potentially give the the princess more tasks to prove that she was in fact a "real princess." It would be fun to make it into some kind of Real or Not: A Princess Game Show. I think it would add a lot of fun and excitement into an otherwise very straightforward story.

In this game show the contestant would be five princesses from different kingdoms. These princesses would have to compete in a series of tasks and the winner would get to date the prince. While this is a little old fashion I think it could be a fun twist on the traditional "guy fighting over girl" stereotype.

For the character of the prince in my story I want to make sure he is nothing like the Wicked Prince. The Wicked Prince is another on of Anderson's stories. The prince in that story is very mean and dies a horrible death. The prince in my story will be nice and somewhat reluctant. His mother is the one that is pushing him to do this contest in the first place.

A statue of the Princess and the Pea. Source 

Fairy Tales and Stories by Hans Christian Andersen, translated by H. P. Paull (1872).

Reading Notes: Little Mermaid

This week I read the Little Mermaid. This was one of my favorite stories as a kid and I have to admit I was a little disappointed with the original story. In the Disney version of the Little Mermaid a lot of the more gruesome details are glazed over and she gets a happy ending with the Prince. In the original story I was surprised to read that in order to get legs the little mermaid would have to suffer through needle like pain in order to have legs. This was a big feature that was not touched on in the original story.

Overall, I love the story of the Little Mermaid, because of the main character. In the book and in the movie the character has a thirst for knowledge. She is basically the underwater version of Hermione Granger. For my story this week I would like to play around with the idea of of the story from either the princes eyes or the sisters eyes. One thing that is so impactful about the original story is that The Little Mermaid was willing to give up her family to be with the prince. It would be interesting to see how the sister reacted to finding out that her sister gave up her tail to live on land. This POV would also be interesting to analyze the progression of the Little Mermaids interest in land.

The next angle I could go with is from the princes point of view. I would probably use the Disney version of the prince because I like the fact the Disney version ends in a happy ending. In this version of my story it would be interesting to see what the prince thinks about a random girl showing up on the beach who couldn't talk. Getting this second perspective on a well-known story would be a great way to show the audience a dual perspective.

My favorite version of the Little Mermaid Story. Source 

Fairy Tales and Stories by Hans Christian Andersen, translated by H. P. Paull (1872).