A Lucky Lily

In Act 1 of Translations by Brian Friel, the character Manus stands out as being an important part of the play overall due to his involvement in many aspects of the town life. Manus is the older son of the Master of the school, and is the primary teacher to the students. The descriptions of Manus compared to his younger brother Owen along with the dialogue between them at the end of Act 1 hints at an underlying tension within the group. By all accounts of history it is usually the eldest son that receives all the glory and honor. Yet, Manus is overshadowed by his younger brother in terms of money and political power. While Manus is described as being pale faced, shabby dressed and lame, Owen is described as handsome, charming, and smartly dressed. Manus is continually ignored by his father and brother even though he is the primary worker in the "school." Due to these descriptions and familial interactions, Manus comes off as trying to prove himself better than his brother w...

The story "A Private Experience," by Chimamanda Adichie, is told from the 3rd person and the point of view of a girl named Chika. It is the story of Chika and a woman hiding from the riot and killings taking place in the streets. The audience learns of the initial encounter of the two women, what takes place during their time hiding out, and what happens to Chika after the violence had ended. The only insight we have comes from Chika and her thoughts, and this makes a difference since we can't trust that her side as the full story. We never learn the name of the other woman or her thoughts on the situation. I found this particular detail interesting because it can confuse the reader by only presenting one side of the story. These two characters are both united in their grief and worry, and yet come from different backgrounds and the reader can only experience one background that might be influenced by stereotypes. How the story is told affects the tone of the story. If pa...

In some ways, the movie is both the same and different from the book The Complete Persepolis. Overall, the movie remains true to the book in that it remains a graphic narrative. The movie begins with an adult Marjane in an airport on her way to Tehran instead of with the wearing of the veil as a child. In this way the movie does not follow the chronological order like the book instead it tells as if she was remembering certain moments from her past. this is also shown as the adult Marjane is in color, but when she recalls a memory everything is in black and white. Whereas in the book, everything is in black and white. Obviously the movie had to cut out some of the scenes in the book in order to save time so they have a different approach of telling the story. One scene in particular made me feel like I was watching a play. In order to show time passing and yet informing the audience of particular things, the movie would fade to show a character saying something and then return to b...

When reading The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, I noticed something interesting in the way she wrote. Persepolis was written as a graphic novel and is dedicated to Marjane's parents. Yet the book is written to an audience that is not familiar in Iranian culture and history. This is evident by the two "voices" throughout the book, the narrator speaking at the top of each episode is the adult Marjane explaining or providing insight. Whereas, the narrator speaking in the bubble of each box is the young Marjane going through these experiences. The adult Marjane continually has to provide insight into her culture or background on certain topics to the audience reading the book. Yet, one would think since the dedication is to her parents that she expects people familiar with her culture and history to be reading the book. In fact, its the complete opposite, since the book is banned in Iran the majority of its readers will have little to no information on Iranian hi...