Fun Homework!

Yes, I have pictures to post and stories to tell. I'll try to get to that this afternoon :)

I've gotten a few requests to share my assignments for this week. We are studying how context and perspective change a story and are using the story of Cinderella as an example. Last night's assignment was to change the context of the story to see how the story changes. Tomorrow's assignment is to rewrite the story from the perspective of two other characters. I'll leave off the whole analysis part :)

Context change ~
In the modern-day world, a single father with one attractive and talented daughter (Cinderella) remarries a single mother with two chubby and much less talented daughters. The father dies, leaving Cinderella in the care of her step mother. The step mother resents Cinderella’s beauty and talents and openly ridicules Cinderella in an attempt to make her own daughters feel better about themselves. The stepmother excuses her daughters from many chores and Cinderella’s punishments tend to be much harsher than those of her step sisters.

The night of prom, Cinderella’s stepmother refuses to buy her an outfit. Cinderella tries to borrow items from her stepsisters, but they refuse to lend them. Her stepmother grounds her for asking to borrow the items, then leaves to chauffeur her daughters to the prom. After her step-sisters leave, Cinderella sneaks out the window and goes to a friend’s house, borrows a dress and goes to prom.

While at the prom, Cinderella manages to catch the attention of the quarterback of the high school’s football team, but has to leave early to get home before her step-sisters do so her absence won’t be noticed. The quarterback asks her out the next week at school though; they end up dating for the rest of her senior year and running away together the following summer.

Perspective change ~
As Narrated by the Step-mother ~
I was thrilled to marry my second husband. Life with my first husband had been very difficult; he was very controlling and quite a skinflint. My first husband’s death had provided my daughters and me with financial stability and I hoped my second marriage would bring love into our lives. Unfortunately my second husband died shortly after our marriage, leaving me to care for his daughter. Like his first wife, his daughter, Cinderella, lacked tenacity and self-esteem. He had voiced his concerns in this area to me and hoped that the examples my daughters and I set would help Cinderella to become stronger. I learned from my first marriage how important it was not to allow yourself to be controlled by someone else and did not want Cinderella to have to go through a similar experience.

That girl is next to impossible! I tried everything I could think of to teach her to stand up for herself and not allow other people to walk all over her, but nothing worked. No matter what I told her to do, no matter how unfair I tried to make the situation, Cinderella would just do what I asked. As the night of the Prince’s ball approached, I knew how much she wanted to go. I hoped that such a strong desire would finally goad her into sticking up for herself and asking for a dress, but instead she came downstairs in some monstrosity she created from scraps! Obviously she couldn’t go out in that outfit. My girls even showed her how flimsy and tattered it was, but she just didn’t seem to care anything about her appearance.

I was so disappointed that I hadn’t been able to help her that I could barely concentrate at the ball. When the Prince’s footmen came by with the shoe, it didn’t even occur to me to have Cinderella try it on as I didn’t think she had gone. It appears that she managed somehow to find an appropriate outfit and make it to the ball after all! We are so happy for her that she found someone who loves her! Hopefully the prince will take good care of her. She must have found some gumption from somewhere to have managed to make such an impression on him. I hope I helped!

As narrated by one of the Prince’s footmen ~
Having worked for royalty for so many years, I’m used to ridiculous requests, but this one topped them all. Finding a girl the prince decided he was interested in using only her shoe. Does he really think only one person in the area will fit that shoe? The whole staff has been working overtime for weeks trying to prepare for his ball; we were really looking forward to taking some time off. What kind of an idiot spends the whole night with someone and doesn’t even ask what her name is? It’s a good thing the prince is so well liked or I think we’d get a lot more doors slammed in our faces.

We finally found her! That only took six hours of my life. I’m so glad that girl heard us and came in to try the shoe on. What kind of mother doesn’t even know one of her daughters was at a ball? How did they not hear what was going on and come forward? It would have saved us a lot of time and blistered feet. Now we get to go back and clean up from the ball. I guess its all part of the job though. If you work for individuals who are so privileged, you should accept that you work to serve their every whim without considering your own needs. Maybe I should have listened to my father and been a farmer.