Princess and Prince Mouseskin - Amanda Cervantes p.4

 The king had banished the youngest princess and sent for the servant to take her away, once in the forest the servant who was devoted to the princess could not bring himself to do her any harm, the princess asked for a mouse skin, he went and fetched one for her and also one for himself, he decided he would go with her wherever she went for he had been hiding a deep secret his whole life and could not bear live in the castle with it. The princess mouse skin reluctantly agreed, they decided to leave their old clothes scattered about the forest to give the impression that they had perished or been eaten by the forest. They traveled together for some time until they reached a nearby kingdom, princess mouse skin disguised herself as a man and so they entered as meager peasants, they were soon employed by the king with the princess becoming the kings most  personal servant. Every moment he could the princess' loyal servant tried to work up the courage to tell her the secret he hid, until one day after the king had begun to grow suspicious of her, he decided to tell her, he was actually her brother, raised as a servant because he was born  a bastard. She was astounded at hearing this news but couldn't be any happier. A few days later she revealed her true identity to the king and became his wife under the condition that her brother be accepted as a nobleman of the kingdom. Some time passed and they held a dinner in which  mouse skin's father attended, here after so many years, the old king could not believe he was faced to face with the daughter he had banished long ago, he was confronted by both the princess and the bastard son, the king acknowledged his faults and asked for forgiveness, the two forgave him and they were happy. 

  After the old king died, the prince mouse skin was given his share of the kingdom along with the other two sisters, and princess mouse skin ruled her kingdom, they ruled their lands happily and in harmony.

Card of Darkness- " Who Let the Cats Rule?" - p.4

     After the humans had died out, the cats and us, the dogs had lived on our own in this abandoned city. from the beginning I remember hearing about how it was divided between the two groups, each taking a side of the city under the agreement that we would live equally and in harmony, trading resources with each other and sharing some of the most important like water, which had unfortunately become a scarcity for all of us recently, or so us canines thought. It was not Until one afternoon, Jojo, the old pug who lived on the edge of town lost his way and wandered uptown to the land of those felines, he was able to stumble back but what he described caught the attention of all of us, he claimed the cats were living the luxury life and had broken our agreement of harmony and understanding with each other; somehow they were surviving the rough times. The expression with which Jojo revealed all of this was enough to convince the town counsel to take action. Plans were made for investigation. Last week everyone received the announcement- for all able bodied male and females who were willing to undergo the journey to the unknown territory of the cats, to report for departure, the big day finally came and our chosen leader, Bruce, a strong Pitbull whose loud bark caught the attention of all of us gave the first orders, “woof, woof, guau!”, we were called to line up and march out. Up the road bridges and highways we went, as we trekked farther away I looked back and saw our town in the distance, old abandoned wooden houses, roads full of pot holes, and worst of all trash, trash everywhere, polluted and gray was our world, it had been that way even when the humans were around.

As we neared the territory, Bruce barked the order of attack, the plan was for us to barge through with gnashing teeth and extended claws, destroying anyone In our path, for the first few days we were quite surprised, the way of life looked very much like what we saw at our town, emptiness, and  run down places, we even met with some cats and conversed to them about our confusion of our relationship,  But it was all a lie, as we explored further what we discovered made us the angriest we had been in a long time, what Jojo had said was true, the felines had been living in large mansions and secretly hogging up resources we never knew any of us could attain, the worst part of all was they were hiding a water supply. With that we ruthlessly attacked everyone in sight, hisses and blood was all that was to be heard of in days. Our only objective was to get to the water supply, we continued with this ferocious behavior for a few months, until the rains came. We had to camp out and meantime changed our strategy towards the cats, maybe we could get some sort of compromise, find something that they wanted in return for some water, we persisted like this but the plan didn’t  go anywhere, the cats just would not budge, meanwhile, we had acquired some other resources that we had been lacking, we would certainly have enough of something to start fresh back home, but our goal was still the water supply, without it we could not survive for very much longer. As our given time here ran out, we decided on a final attempt, and it was brutal. The attack  was more deadly than the first, as we went along we lost a lot of what we had acquired but at the same time lost many of our opponents, which allowed for us to get closer to the water source. After a long wait, we were able to find a way to connect the water source to our town while leaving the cats with supply as well, those of whom survived our attacks that is. With a successful mission accomplished we returned back home after practically a year of troubling, and were able to bring home safely new resources to build up our town strong.

Was Blind but now i See - Chapter 22: Hes blind for a Reason You know

Foster refers to the story of Oedipus alot throughout the book, and the story of Oedipus is probably one with the most unsettling and ironic plots. Which again is something that has been pointed out throughout the book, references to these ancient pieces of literature. Foster talks about the usage of the blind man from the story and how there is a literary reason for him, a symbolic reason.
  When you look at things, disability is something that brings attention because it is something out of the ordinary, whether its blindness, or being deaf or physically impaired. I know that when i encounter someone with a difference like this it makes me curious about how they are able to do everything they do even though they are missing a part of them, or so it seems to us. It makes the person sort of mysterious, you cant make out the same things as instantly from someone who is blind than from someone who is not, theres always an extra step you have to take, to listen to them or tend to them. Which is something Foster talks about in the chapter, many of these blind characters attract the attention of others and have a sort of  mysterious strength in their vulnerability. Going back to the encounter of Oedipus with the blind seer, shows that perhaps our curiosity for someone with a differerence like this is something that has occupied people for a long time, enough to create certain symbolism and imagery around them. the blind seer is known to be wise and knowing of things to come even though he might not be able to see literally, this lack enables for further development of other powers. Not just in literature but people relate this in other areas as well, one thing that comes to my mind is the well known hymn Amazing Grace, how the person says they can now see that they are in the grace of a divine power, which is what we see with Oedipus, in a way he redeems himself and all his mistakes when he blinds himself but at the same time he gives himself the real freedom that he had always needed.

Actions speak louder than appearances- Chapter 14: Yes, Shes a Christ Figure, Too

   As Foster writes, chances are that even if you are not christian that some sort of theme or imagery from the christian bible is known to you. As ive been reading these chapters especially the ones geared toward symbolism, although most of them or all deal with that. I see how shallowly i read stories and books. In the case of recognizing biblical elements, i thought i would not have such a hard time considering as Foster pointed out our Christian culture, but it never crossed my mind that there could be alot of irony and more figurative adaptations of these sort of elements. apart from maybe the case of the Inferno which by the mere title gives it away. But apart from that, stories usually have certain developmental elements, there is a journey or some sort of climax in events, but that can only happen if its related to a character, the character is who experiences the journey and obstacles.
    So, the impotance of whatever message or idea the authour is trying to get the reader to see relies on how the character is shaped, what qualities do they have. Since the bible is a very ancient text, its events are very familiar all around the world, seeing that alot of them are also historically accounted for. Being such a universal and ancient reference gives it alot of weight and validity to our human understanding of ourselves.
    I remmember reading the short novel mentioned- The Old Man and the Sea rather quickly one afternoon at school, and it surprised me how fast of a read it had been, im even more  ssurprised , having read now that it exhibits very obvious Christian imagery as Foster writes. at the time i was not obviously on the look out for this imagery, but even in my half focused mind i recognized  the whole symbol of the fish and the mans relationship to the boy and his community was a primary part of the story, my interpretation did not move exactly in the direction that Foster explains, but as he says, the readers imagination engages and puts together their own puzzle pieces and connections.
   This brings me to the unexpected characters who contain the Christlike elements, why would an author create these qualities in such seemingly broken characters?  It creates irony no doubt, and confusion within the reader, pulling them in, making the character and their struggle very much more real, i suppose in order to make a reader more sympathetic, showing you another side of them that you wouldnt expect. Christlike qualities are from the 'good' side of the spectrum and helps complete another side of someone broken, eliminating the differences between people and their first impressions of each other and maybe their impression of themselves, allowing for someone to realize their own capabilities of compassion and love or the exact opposite, hidden within themselves.

Blog Post #1- chapter 3. Nice to eat you:Acts of Vampires

This chapter was an interesting read, i enjoyed the topic of the vampires and dark forces, clearly one of the first things that came to mind when reading this  for me, was the Bram Stokers Dracula film, in the film there are some scenes that could transfer as hinting towards the sexual nature that Foster says Dracula is about. Another thing that appears continously visually within the story is the usage of the color red, the main thing representing blood. I see this color in many other stories, especially associated with women, for example in the scarlet letter, or in the short story  The Red Shoes, this color could insinuate  or be associated with the loss of purity, and grotesque like what would come to mind when reading about a blood sucking creature. Which brings me into how many of these Victorian writers embodied their messages through grotesque beings like vampires and ghosts, this was something very interesting and new to me, normally i read these sort of stories for the spook of it and imaginative imagery, but hadn't ever really considered that it could represent something hidden deeper. The psycological realm of this creation of  unworldly beings by these writers has a really big effect i think on how we interpret things in our modern culture, one part i found interesting was when Foster mentioned Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and the whole concept of having a double, or another side to you, when learning about that particular story, i remmember thinking that it seemed like some sort of personality disorder. This is something as Foster mentions, Edgar Allan Poe did very well in his pieces, creating an eerie feeling that makes the reader somewhat uncomfortable but curious at the same time, one of his stories that comes to mind is The Black Cat, immediately you know that theres something going on there because of the black cat, which i suppose in our culture weve come to connect to something evil and demon, what i find interesting of this story and of many of Poe's is that- at least for me, they end with mystery, and the human characters seem to always become extremely paranoid and psychotic, as in the Black Cat, the main character begins to be tempted and obsessed with this cat, wich eventually ironically triggers him to murder his wife, the cat changed him and brought out the worst in him, another frightening part of him. As Foster describes, these victorian stories had some sort of controlling character that selfishly takes away from others for the sake of destruction, and twisting around of things. I think people are intreagued to these sort of tales because most people are always curious about the unknown, and all cultures hold their superstitions and folk tales, like the popular latin american legend of the ghost lady La Llorona, a story of a woman who from most sources, drowns her children in a creek out of jealoulsy caused from her husbands ways, and then now eternally wails for her children at night. Even though tales like these give the spooks, the story behind the action always leaves a marking impression on society, theres always some sort of human behaviour and morals at stake.



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