Never eat raspberries.

Otay, my adaptation is for "A Rose for Emily."

Just so you know.

Point of View

I'm changing the point of view to Homer's because I don't like this communal townspeople point of view business that Faulkner tries to pull off. Also, I like the idea of getting into Homer's head. We know that Emily has a thing for him, but what does he think of her? We would also get to see Emily from an objective point of view, but one that still allows for indirect characterization. This would become Homer's story, not Emily's. Also, I want it to be omniscient, so there's no bias in Homer's perspective, but I the camera should primarily follow him around. Since he ends up dead, this would also make the story into a horror movie. Watch out.

Setting

Remember how I said "A Rose for Emily" reminded me a lot of the story of Annie Palmer? She lived in Jamaica, and I think it adds to the spookiness if the movie takes place in a country foreign to where it's released. The time period would be contemporary, which I think makes it more personal, and thus scarier. I think Emily would have to be on the rich side of things; in Jamaica, there's an enormous gap between the rich and the poor. Maybe Homer is on the poor side, and that could be a small part of his motivation for friendship, as well as her father's disapproval. This would be a source of gossip in the town, I suspect, which could be a backdrop to the plot, but not a major dynamic like it is in the short story.

Characterization

I've got the major cast members aaaaaaall figured out:

Homer will be played by Usain Bolt. He seems like quite the catch. Ahahahahaaaaa it's a pun. Sort of.

Also, I decided that Emily is the Jamaican-born daughter of her British father. She's played by British-Jamaican actress Noemie Harris.

Her British father's played by Michael Caine.

That's much better than my original mental image:

But in terms of AP Lit characterization, they'll all be a whole lot more Jamaican. The cultural twist will probably leak into every element of the story. They'll speak with Jamaican accents. They'll eat "patties" a lot, probably. Erm... bright colors might be prevalent in their wardrobe. I feel like I'm stereotyping.

Plot

Emily's still gonna keep her dad's dead body and then kill Homer and keep him around and whatnot as well. I'm not into the whole Minority Report change-everything-except-the-lead-character's-name thing. Howeverrrr, I'm going to leave out that bit about Emily needing to pay taxes. I think the Homer/Emily/dad story is more intriguing without the distraction of the town. Also, I want an actual rose in the story. I'll work that in by having a rose arrive at Emily's door that's from Homer, who had it sent there as a surprise. Emily's never going to fiiind it, though, because she'll never leave her house again after she kills Homer. It'll just sit there on her front doorstep, and she'll die like Bartleby, never knowing it's there. It's one of those everybody-dies-in-the-end movies that I hate.

Theme

The theme, of course, will be considerably different at this point. In Faulkner's story, the theme is something like, "Love makes us do crazy things." In my version, that will still be there. Howeeeever, it's a horror story, so the new theme is "Watch your back." (Not literally.) I want more thrill, the same amount of creepy, and slightly less sentimentality. There's plenty of room for that in chick flicks. I want the viewers to leave with the thought, "I sure hope I never have a crazy significant other who kills me and hoards dead bodies."

Christmas is canceled.

How is it that no one warned me that Bicentennial Man is the saddest movie known to mankind? I mean... I should have figured it out for myself, given that the short story was pretty sad, and the lead actor was Robin Williams, but... I underestimated the extent. Lesson learned.

Everyone knows that movie posters are better auf Deutsch.

All right, so Plot.

Let's start with the obvious, shall we? In the short story, Andrew does not go gallivanting across the country in search of a companion. And also he does not get married, to a human, no less. That completely changes the theme, the way I see it, but I'll get into that later. The addition of Little Miss's wedding adds depth to the relationship between Andrew and Sir, as well. It shows that Sir's greatest fear is of everyone leaving him, and it justifies his later irrational anger at Andrew's desire for freedom. And in general, there is a bit more detail to the plot, because less time has to be spent on setting in a movie than in a short story, as the audience can clearly see the setting, whereas in the short story, one must rely on words. Another example of this is Andrew's creepy hovering at the dinner table when he first arrives at the family, and his getting pushed out the window, as well as his shattering of Little Miss's crystal horse; it adds dimension to the rocky start that the reader only suspects Andrew probably had.

As to point of view...

It wasn't one of those movies with a narrator built in. However, there was the addition of some subtitles saying things like "In the not so distant future...." and "Many years later...." Essentially, though, the point of view was the same. Since it was Andrew's story, we rarely if ever saw a scene without him as the central character. Therefore, the point of view was third-person omniscient. I also think it was slightly less limited than the short story could have been argued to be because it lacked the biased interludes of prose. We see Andrew's reactions, but we get no concrete words to describe them, so they are left open to interpretation, as are the reactions of all the other characters.

A lot of the plot differences contributed to the differences in characterization, as well.

For instance, when Little Miss gives him her stuffed animal named Woofy in return for the wooden horse figurine, it strengthens their bond as characters. It also makes the last moments of Little Miss' life much more *cringe* tender, because she was holding the little old horse figurine in her wrinkled, nearly-dead hands. It also tenderizes (seewhatIdidthere?) the moment when Andrew takes in the stray puppy, and later we find out he's named it Woofy after the stuffed animal Little Miss gave him. These are examples of indirect characterization, but direct characterization isn't something one sees in movies a lot. Speaking of referring to oneself as one, Andrew does that a lot in this film, but he stops when he is freed by Sir. This strengthens the development of both characters because it shows both Andrew's value for freedom and Sir's care-in-spite-of-anger/hurt/bitterness when he notices the change. And I loved how in the movie, Andrew is afraid of heights because of when the mean other Miss makes him jump out the window. Also, when Andrew runs off looking for other robots like him, it makes his character more sympathetic, as the audience begins to see the loneliness of his condition. Also also, it reminded me of this:

As for setting...

They are extremely similar. In both, the story begins in the somewhat foreseeable future--2005 in the movie, which is now the past-- and continues for exactly two hundred years into the future after that--ending in 2205, which is well beyond my estimated longevity. In both, the story takes place in some ambiguous portion of the United States of America. When Andrew goes about trying to find himself a friend, I have no idea where all he looked, and he might well have left the country a time or two, but there's no telling for certain, and it's not really important to the story. I don't believe the short story mentioned the Martins' living near the ocean. That adds to the romantic and sentimental element of the story, I suppose, although it seems annoyingly cliché. It does make sense for Andrew's woodcarving hobby to have begun thusly, however.

And at last... theme.

In the short story, the theme was more about the foolishness of bigotry and the values of freedom. In the movie adaptation, the theme was more about the importance of love and companionship to the human condition, and how time inevitably changes all that and leaves people brokenhearted until they die too, perpetuating the cycle. Ahem. I don't like when movies try to make that seem okay. In analyzing how this happened, I'm going to first point out the addition of the piano scenes with Andrew and Little Miss. It would seem that piano scenes conveying sentimentality are a pop cultural favorite in film adaptations. Check out this blatantly illegal recording someone did of the latest Harry Potter to see what I mean:

Also, Sir starts us on this path early with his "lessons" to teach Andrew what he hasn't been programmed to know, one or two of which included The Birds and the Bees, for sure. Also also, he... you know... marries Portia and dies holding her hand.

HEY. They made it look like he didn't even ever know that he was declared a man! Whaaat's theee deeaaal wiiiith thaaaaaat??? I suppose they were trying to make some kind of point. It doesn't matter what other people think. What matters is what you know in your heart. Blaaaah blaaah blaaaah it STILL would have made Andrew happy. Instead, he just died.

I'm going to assume the girl android with the dancing-->temper-->skin was just incorrect. I know she's a robot and all, but... Andrew knew. Otherwise, Christmas is canceled.

I keep thinking love should be like a tree.

I have a moon mask. There are pictures, but... no.

1. What is the significance of Zoë's many eccentricities--for instance, her keeping all her pocketbook items in Baggies, and her unusual way of interacting with her students. Does her eccentricity make her more or less sympathetic as a character.

I personally got the vibe that those are defense mechanisms, but that's the second time I've used Psychology in AP Lit analysis this semester, and it makes me uncomfortable. (<--four syllables.)

But especially on page. 357, something struck me as sort of self-defense against her own... distress. "Usually the wives would consent to flirt with him. Under the table sometimes there was footsie, and once there was even kneesie." If we consider that the point of view is third-person limited, we know that "kneesie" is Zoë's terminology. It's followed closely after she admits that the third of the three men she's seen since coming to Hilldale-Versailles used to flirt with other women right in front of her. She's trying to lighten the mood. She doesn't want the audience zeroing in on her weaker Heidi points. Thus, she acts like a weirdo. Except I don't know what the Baggies thing is all about. I think she just likes Baggies, and she feels self conscious about it, but not enough so to stop using them.

Therefore, I think her eccentricity makes her more sympathetic as a character. But I still don't like her.

I ffffeeel ffffunnny.

1. What are the sources of humor in this story? Does the humor arise from observation of life or from distortion of life? What elements of the story seem to you funniest?

The sources of humor are mostly ironic. It's funny that Larry is the drunkard in the story. It's funny that Father classifies funerals in varying degrees of excellence based on qualities like the number of priests, when usually, they're just classified as terribly sad. It's funny how Larry walks down the street like a drunken little man, and it's not frightening or disturbing like it is when it's a grown man, but just funny and a little bit cute.

I feel like the question is leading me to say that the humor arises from distortion of life for some reason, but I disagree. I didn't see any distortion of reality. Things were funny because they were unusual, but they weren't untrue. Larry really did drink all of his father's beer while he wasn't looking, and as such, he really is really really drunk when he goes home.

Spazzy McSpazatron

"The Lottery" reminded me of The Hunger Games. I would also like to say that I missed who the antagonist of the story is because I was too excited about Mr. Costello making a Harry Potter reference. And ALSO saying schadenfreude! It was a good day. Oh! Also, I have read The Giver, and we said the settings seemed similar; I didn't like that story at all either. The babies die.

I thought this story was about tradition, and how sometimes it's sort of senselessly carried out. Annnnnd, um... the point of view is significant because the narrator is an objective but omniscient party. And the protagonist, I got, was the town. The title was ironic because the lottery is a frivolous thing people do in meager hopes that something great will come of it, whereas this lottery is a decidedly grave matter of deciding who gets stoned to death.

Maybe not half. Maybe... asymmetrical fractions.

My face when I realized that, indeed, the baby was going to get torn in half.

Aaaand I decided because of foreshadowing! "Then she noticed the baby's picture on the bed and picked it up." "He held onto the baby and pushed [pulled?] with all his weight."

I have decided that there are some metaphors in the story too. "But it was getting darker on this inside too," for instance, is a metaphor. It's not really getting darker inside because daylight doesn't have much of an effect on indoor lighting, usually. The real meaning is that the atmosphere is darkening. Also, since the story itself is actually about divorce, the baby getting torn apart (=[=[=[=[=[=[=[!!!!!!=[) symbolizes the way that divorce can, sometimes, tear a family apart.

The author's distinct lack of quotation marks lends to the tug of war feeling of the story. She tugs and shouts, and he tugs and shouts....

Aaaalso, the title "Popular Mechanics" is probably a reference to the mainstream/status quo and divorce. At first, I thought it had something to do with the mechanics of babies and how they are structured, because to be honest, when I read something, and the baby dies at the end, it becomes a story about a baby dying, no matter WHAT anybody else says. Nyeugh.