Week 11 Storytelling: Lost in Wonderland

Alice and Courtney were the closest of friends and did everything together especially going on adventures. The two girls always loved to venture from others and find their own fun. One day, there was an adventure that they would never forget because it was so weird

A few weeks ago, the girls walked along the desired path in their favorite forest while they talked about their days and other small talk until they came across a new path that was branched off from their own. It caught their attention and decided to follow it down into the deeper part of the woods.

They noticed something peculiar when they saw a white rabbit in the distance because it was running toward them form the opposite end of the path. The two continued to walk forward, towards it. It puzzled both the girls because they had never seen a rabbit attract to humans. Once the rabbit was in site, the two could see that the rabbit not only started to run on it's two hind legs but also was wearing a suit and carried a pocket watch in his front right paw.

During the time the rabbit passed between the two girls, he said, “I’m late, I’m late!” After he spoke his final word, the two girls looked at one another and everything around them turned black and they began to fall into a hole in the ground. Once they landed, they noticed they landed on a bed of red playing cards that were the same size as the girls.

 Once they got up from the ground of cards, they looked around to see that they were in a different place. The flowers began to move as well as the trees and it even looked like they had faces on them. Terrified, the girls ran the opposite direction and ran into a caterpillar that sat on top a mushroom in the middle of the forest.

 The mushroom and the caterpillar were bigger than both of the girls. Something really strange, thought the girls, was the fact that the caterpillar was smoking a hooka. After he was aware of the girls, he slowly raised himself up from lying down to face the two. As he spoke, his words would spell out in the air by the smoke that escaped his mouth.

“Who are you?” He waited for their reply but they were too stunned by the talking and smoking caterpillar that they found themselves speechless. The caterpillar sighed, for he grew impatient. “You shouldn’t be here,” he continued, “you need to leave. Quickly, leave behind the mushroom.”

Without hesitation, the girls followed the caterpillar’s suggestion and went around the mushroom. Once behind the mushroom, they found a hole in the ground that looked like it was slowly closing up so they decided to jump in as fast as they could.

The two then popped out of a hole in the ground and found themselves on their normal path in the woods. Ever since that day, they two girls refrain from going into the forest.

Down the Rabbit Hole by John Tenniel (1865).

Author's Note: I used a story from Alice in Wonderland called Advice from a Caterpillar to form my own story. I used the same character name, Alice, and the life size caterpillar smoking hooka on a big mushroom. I also used a phrase the caterpillar said in the original story, "who are you", and the rabbit's phrase "I'm late, I'm late" since I thought it fit in that part of my story. The rest of the story I made up keeping in mind the theme of the original story. 

Reading Diary B: Alice in Wonderland

The more I continued to read the story of Alice in Wonderland the more I remembered how frustrating the story was. All of the characters are short in their answers, they always answer in questions and they make Alice look unintelligent. Firstly, Alice ran into the Mad Hatter, March Hare and the Dormouse in A Mad Tea-Party story. Alice sat down at the tea party that was only filled with chaos, frustration and time wasting riddles. After all the confusion and weirdness form all the characters, Alice left. But during the time she spent with the Mad Hatter, March hair and door mouse was more than what she thought. In their conversations, the Mad Hatter refers to time as a person and from then on, all Alice had known had been flipped upside down. For example, the Mad Hatter recited the “twinkle twinkle little star” song but he said it all wrong. Alice said that it wasn’t the right way but the Hatter didn’t pay mind to it and thought she was being stupid. They continued to treat Alice like that so she was finally so fed up. Later, she found the garden (in The Queen’s Croquet) of hearts in wonderland and found out how artificial all the rules as well as the garden was because the roses were painted red. It is within this story when Alice finds her true potential. But her newfound power got her into trouble and caused her to go to court ordered by the Queen of Hearts. After the court hearing, she woke up and it was all a dream.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Charles Robinson (1907)

Reading Diary A: Alice in Wonderland

This week, I chose to read the unit of Alice in Wonderland because it was one of my favorite stories when I was a child and one of my favorite Disney movies. I remember in middle school I read the Lewis C. Carol version of the story but I didn’t remember all of it’s connect, which is why I chose to re-read this story to remember the content. The first half of the unit is of course the first half of the story from Alice noticing the white rabbit with a watch, going down into the rabbit hole, being in an unfamiliar place and changing body sizes in the drop of a hat. But one part of the story I really want to focus on for my storytelling this week is the Advice From a Caterpillar. In the section, Alice meets the hookah smoking caterpillar that tried to seek guidance and help from him only to come out frustrated. Alice didn’t like how the caterpillar continued to ask who she was because, from all the transformations she went threw during the day, she had no idea who she actually was anymore. The caterpillar asked Alice to recite a poem, “Father William,” which is about the importance of having moderation in one’s life. When she recites it, she doesn’t remember it correctly and the caterpillar called her out on her mistake, which caused Alice to become angrier. Before the caterpillar leaves, he tells her that each side of the mushroom distorts the body, big or small. Alice tried both sides and grew very small then extremely tall. Her neck stretched into the trees, causing one bird to think she was a serpent.

The Caterpillar by Sir John Tenniel (1865)

Essay: Eskimo Folk Tales

The stories in the Eskimo Folk Tales were my favorite tales to read in the past few weeks. They are so interesting with the context of their stories because some are very gory as well as sporadic like a dream. For example, in the story of The Wife Who Lied, when the woman returned to her people and had them think she was treated poorly in the other village, they took revenge. They wanted to hit the village where it hit them most which was to attack all the women in the village when the men were away. They could have easily waited till the men returned from their battle but they wanted to take revenge in a sinister kind of way by attacking the vulnerable women who didn’t have anything to do with the ‘bad’ treatment of the main character. Later in the story when the woman’s village destroys the village, two men in her village kill her. Not in any way either, they cut off her arms and let her bleed out in the forest because she lied about her ill treatment. The best example of a story having a dream theme to it was Makíte. The story starts off with a husband who lived with his wife and her family. The wife said she would leave him if he were unable to kill any seal. Since he can’t catch any seal’s, he runs away. When he runs away the family chases after him until he elongates his strides to outrun them. He came to an old house and when he opened the door, a loud scream was made then he saw the owner of the house. After a deal with the owner, Makíte sleeps in the house only to wake up to the housekeeper trying to kill him. He ran away and ran into another house but this time it was a house that had dwarfs trailing in and out of the house. Once he walked into the house, he saw a dark figure coming at the house through the window. The dwarfs prepared for war with the darkness. The darkness and the dwarfs summoned their own dog that barked waves. The dwarfs dog one and the waves drowned the darkness. Makíte then built a house there and lived there till he died.

An Eskimo by E. Nielsen (1890).

Week 10 Storytelling: Nightmare

            In the nightmare, lived in a village with a husband and his whole family. This man was very handsome and seemed extremely nice but his family gave me a weird feeling like something bad was going to happen at any moment. We all lived in a small cottage within the forest and we all seemed happy from what I can remember.

            But all of a sudden the bad feeling made itself present when I over heard the family wanting to eat me. I was so shocked I froze in my tracks thinking about what to do. My innate instincts kicked in and I ran for it. I didn’t tell my husband nor anyone. I just opened the front door and ran. But as I ran, one of the family members was outside and when he saw me, he yelled inside the house that I had ran away.

When I turned around after he finished speaking, I noticed that the entire family started to run towards me with a full sprint. All of a sudden my legs grew a few inches that caused me to have bigger strides so I was able to outrun them.

I then explored inside the forest admiring the huge trees. But as I continued to walk deeper into the forest, the trees got bigger and tighter together to where I felt claustrophobia. Scared, I started to run until I came upon a wooden cabin. The wood was rotten on some parts of the house and there was grass growing in the cracks of the house so I assumed it was abandon. Without knocking, I opened the door, which caused a loud scream. The scream was so loud I had to cover my ears until it stopped. I looked around frantically and saw a thin man standing inside the house. I don’t remember what he said but I know he wanted me to stay the night. Since it was late, I agreed and fell asleep on the couch.

            I woke up to a loud stabbing noise next to my right ear in the middle of the night. When my eyes opened, I saw the man trying to strike my head with a spear. I pushed him off and began to run into the forest again.

            After running a couple of minutes, I came upon a small house with a line of dwarfs waking in and out of the house. Squeezing behind one of the dwarfs to get in line, I walked into the house.  As the line moved inside, I saw a black figure coming from the horizon. When the line walked outside, I could see the figure getting closer and closer. The dwarfs prepared to fight the darkness with a dog. When the dog barked a huge wave crashed onto the darkness and drowned it. Then I woke up.

Nightmare by Nicolai Abraham Abildgaard (1743-1809)

Author’s Note: I used the story from Eskimo Folk-Tales called Makíte by Knud Rasmussen (1921). I used the outline of the story like the family chasing the main character out of the house, running into the creepy house and being chased by him, the dwarfs walking in a line into the house and the dwarfs dog barked a wave that killed the darkness. The only things I  added were the family man eaters, my legs growing and the small details of the forest. I created the story as a nightmare because as I read the story, I felt like the situations were so random and weird that it was some sort of dream.