A Cherry Blossom in Bloom: A Parody of the Traditional Folk Tale Mulan

Fa Mulan sat underneath the Cherry Blossom tree. She watched the sway of the branches and the blossoms as a petal or two fell to the ground. Her father sat down next to her.

“My, my, how beautiful the Cherry blossoms are when they are in bloom. ”

“Father the match maker says I am hopeless.”

“Your mother told me.”

“There was a cricket in her tea. I was only trying to get it out.”

“I see.”

“Father I will not be able to find a husband.”

“Look at how this blossom is late, when it blooms it will be the most beautiful blossom of them all.”

            At that moment a warning bell sounded from the street, and the emperor’s men came riding through the village.

“Stay inside,” Mulan’s father instructed her.

Mulan climbed the side of the wall that looked over the street, while her younger brother stood just outside the gate.

 “The Huns have invaded China,” the emperor’s advisor said, “One man from every family must serve the emperor in his imperial army.”

            The Emperor’s advisor handed Fa Zhou the summons for the Fa family.

“I will go to serve the emperor,” said Fa Zhou.

Mulan ran to her father.

“No father. Please you can’t.”

“Mulan.”

“Please, he has already fought for the emperor.”

“You would do well to teach your daughter to hold her tongue in a man’s presence.”

“Mulan, you dishonor me.”

“Report tomorrow to the Wu-Chung camp.”

“Yes Sir.”

            Mulan watched her father pick up his sword again when he thought she wasn’t looking. He couldn’t.

There was silence at the dinner table. Mulan poured the tea. Her Father ate rice.

“Father, you shouldn’t have to go.”

“Your brother is too young.”

“There are already enough young men.”

“It is an honor to serve my country.”

“You have already served honorably.”

“One man from every family must serve. I will do what is right.”

            Mulan sat by the feet of the Great Stone Dragon, raindrops dripping from the ends of her hair. She watched the shadows through the window, her father and mother, their heads hung low. She looked at her reflection in the puddle at her feet. The light in the window went out, and Mulan took the jade hair comb her mother had given her out of her hair.

While her father slept, Mulan placed the hair comb beside his cane and took the summons papers the Emperor’s advisor had given him. She cut her hair with her father’s sword, and tied it in a knot on top of her head. She found her horse grazing by the Cherry tree, every blossom in full bloom. She brushed him, put the saddle on his back and rode to Wu-Chung camp, as dawn was just about to break.

            The war raged on for years, and Fa Zhou heard no news of his daughter. Whether that was good or bad he did not know. He would sit beneath the Cherry tree and every year he would watch the blossoms bloom. He was right about one thing. The last blossom to bloom was always the most beautiful.

            Four years after the war had started he sat as he always did and watched the branches sway in the wind. It had been a hard winter and all of the blossoms were late. He doubted they would bloom at all, and then one in particular caught his eye. It was in full bloom. He went over to it. Just then Mulan walked up the path to the Cherry tree.

“Father,” she said kneeling down before him, “ forgive me. I should not have disobeyed you, but I have brought honor to our family on the battlefield fighting in your name.”

Fa Zhou brought her to her feet and said, “The blossom that has the strength to bloom against the will of the earth is the rarest and most beautiful of them all.”

A Nation and It's Curency: A Long standing Relationship

Thesis: The most effective measure to take regarding the increasingly economically ineffective penny is not to completely abolish it, but to implement legislature that would limit its use and circulation, because of the simple fact that something must be done and this nation is not quite ready to give it up.

50% Clean 50% Dirty

Although this poster’s message about stopping the spread of sexually transmitted diseases is clear and convincing, the blatant sexism that the poster shows in getting this message across is completely tasteless and actually serves to undermine the ultimate goal of completely eradicating venereal diseases.  The phrase printed at a diagonal between the typical 1950s woman and the soldier, businessman, and sailor which immediately catches the eye completely condemns all women as the sole source of sexually transmitted diseases, and the use of the soldier, businessman, and sailor serves to elevate men above women as superior and more honorable, while the mention of World War II builds a sense of patriotism and duty that is supposed to convince men to avoid women who might have STDs. Although this may seem an effective way to reach men in the armed forces, and may actually reach its goal of getting more men to be careful about their sexual partners, it actually completely undermines the larger goal of eradicating venereal diseases. The creator of this poster seemed to completely forget that the women who have STDs, almost every woman according to the poster, had to have gotten it from a man in the first place. By not addressing the men in regards to their own bodies he is actually doing them a disservice. How can the spread of STDs be stopped if men are not held accountable for their 50% of the equation?

The Physicality of Tragedy

She smelled like trees

She took my hand

And we ran

Through the bright rustling leaves

Caddy smelled like leaves

“What is it?”

“What are you trying to tell Caddy?”

“Did you come to meet me?”

“Benjy?"

“What is it Benjy?”

“What has Caddy done?”

I couldn’t smell trees anymore…

Caddy… Caddy

I was trying to say…

Miss Caddy done gone

I caught her… Caddy… trying to say

Done got married and left you

Trying to say and trying…

Caddy

I began to cry

I looked at myself

I began to cry

Looking for them aint going to do no good

They’re gone

We reached the gate

I began to whimper again

We all looked up

The house

Square

Paintless

Its portico rotting

Blasting Away Child Abuse

The most effective thing about this image is how much the words punctuate the picture with the understanding that without the picture the words would have no punch at all. The intense shadows that fall around the toy soldiers speak to the dark and sinister world that a child suffering from abuse would live in. The fact that the child's toys, the items in a child's life that are supposed to fill it with carefree joy, are the only things protecting this child from his or her demons speaks not only to the loss of an innocent carefree childhood, but also the complete solitude of this existence, in that these toys are all this child has. The slogan "If you don't fight child abuse, who will?" is written in white letters directly in the spot where the toy soldiers guns are aiming, further signifying the soldiers’ fight on the child’s behalf. Not only do the words make the picture more relevant, but the unusual sight of toy soldiers really puts the idea of solitude that this slogan offers into perspective. If “you” cannot help, these children are so alone that they must protect themselves using only their imaginations and little pieces of plastic. The slogan alone may be poignant and the photograph with its intense values may give pause to its viewer, but the layering of the two creates a bone-rattling effect in the eyes of the viewer that not only speaks volumes about the cause this Ad represents but truly sticks with its viewer having a truly lasting effect on him or her.

Truth on Womanhood: The Effectiveness of the Individual Story

What makes a woman a woman? Is it her strong will, or maybe her ability to create new life? Or, is it simply that a woman is a woman regardless of age or race who should have the same rights as a man because she is a human being? These questions, raised by Sojourner Truth in her speech Ain’t I a woman? made her short speech at a women’s rights convention in 1851 a very powerful speech, indeed. The use of the repeated question paired with Truth’s first hand experiences and her use of irrefutable biblical references make her argument stick with her listener.

            The question she repeatedly asks is “Ain’t I a woman?” this is a powerful question to ask because the only answer is yes. She traps her listener this way, so that when she continues to list the reasons that she personally deserves respect and equal rights, her listener is forced to think of her and see her the way she sees herself, “I have ploughed and planted and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman?” She establishes herself quickly as an expert on women’s rights when she talks about a man’s view of women as frail and weak refuting the idea that “women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches,” through her own experiences and repeatedly asking her audience “ain’t I a woman?” The last thing she does is reference the bible. This is very important because as this was a speech her audience could have been illiterate, or less educated than herself, so by referencing the bible, and not just any story but the creation story of Adam and Eve and Jesus’ birth she ensures that not only will everyone in the room be familiar with the stories, but that her points will resonate fully which each individual. At the very end by thanking her audience for listening she makes listening their choice and changes the entire tone of her speech from impassioned and angered to informative and somewhat nonchalant. This leaves the audience reflecting on their own emotions instead of trying to make sense of hers, which will allow the audience to form their own opinions about the subject.

            By offering many proofs that she is a woman and that she has worked as hard as any man, Truth leaves no room for logical rebuttal. The types of reasons she uses to support her argument have a lot of bearing on how easily someone could rebut it. She does not cite some statistic about the number of workingwomen in 1851 rather, she tells her own story, and because she is the only expert on her own life no one could possibly prove her wrong. The same can be said about the biblical stories she cites. No one can rebut the use of such universally accepted tales, so by relating them to her own argument she proves it’s integrity.

"Let It Go"- Jo Dee Messina

Jo Dee Messina's "Let It Go" perfectly outlines the relationship between the protagonist in Miller's Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman, and his son, Biff. The song describes the lack of communication between the two men and gives the only solution to their issues, letting go of everything that is separating them.

Welcome to the Plastic Beach

The beauty of this album cover for the Gorillaz’ plastic beach is its ability to mix a playful artistic flare with a public plea for environmental and ecological safety and preservation. It hits at the center of and brings awareness to our world’s problems; through it’s playful representation of the tackiness of modern culture. The hazy atmosphere and brownish orange color pallet speak to the mistreatment of the environment in the modern world. The only green in the entire piece is a few sad-looking palm trees and a bit of brownish grass on the mushroom shaped island, which confirms that there is bad air quality and lack of oxygen in the air around the island. The mushroom shaped island is symbolic of psychedelic drugs and that in a world as far-gone and desolate as this, consolation could only be found in escape. The humans in this world are trapped. They are trapped in the bird-shaped house that looks like it is trapped inside the island. A bird with only one wing forever attached to the island and the world it destroyed, only able to escape in its mind, unable to escape the horrors of what it has done to its own world. Humans have become these flightless birds entirely alone and isolated on small islands, having already destroyed everything we needed to be happy, namely our environment. It is most effective in communicating its message of environmental awareness because of these unusual images.

Gesture without Motion: A Simple Lack of Effort

I agree with Pamela that the number of times the words appear in the Wordle have no significance in relation to the crux or meaning of the poem. And, I agree with Virginia that the crux of the poem is "Shape without form, shade without colour, /Paralysed force, gesture without motion" (Elliot, 1.11-12). I think it speaks to the general sense of meaningless and lifelessness that the poem gives, but at the same time speaks to the confusion and fear the men feel at the prospect of leaving limbo and not finding the meaning that they so desperately want.
Each of the four phrases in the crux relates to a later quote in the poem that is a key piece in understanding the mystery the is "The Hollow Men." "Shape without form" alludes to the "shadow" (5.9) in which each of these hollow men live. It never takes form and becomes anything because none of the men ever make the choice to get out of limbo, entering into either "death's other Kingdom" (1.14) (heaven) or "death's dream Kingdom" (2.2) (hell). "Shade without colour" is like “the dead land… [the] cactus land” (3.1-2). This existence they’re living is a form of death. They can find sustenance and survive in this “dead land,” but they cannot really live. One can survive on the water and life inside a cactus but what kind of life is that? It is “shade without colour,” life without meaning. “Paralysed force” is “behaving as the wind behaves” (2.17). The wind is an entity that is so free and so impossible to catch that it becomes paralyzing. For these men to be able to “behave as the wind behaves” would be equal to never having to move ever again. It would be effortless. And finally, “gesture without motion” is equivalent to the line “We grope together/And avoid speech” (4.7-8) because of the way these men desperately come together for support and mutual understanding but then never get it because they are too afraid to speak. They make the gesture but are too afraid to complete the motion. That is the same thing as not making a choice and staying in limbo, and the same thing as finding sustenance but not life. They go for whatever they feel is most effortless, because they are afraid that if they try they will find out that their efforts were meaningless.