The Relationship between Stories and Their SourcesMost authors use some type of source when writing a story. The source could be religious, scientific, or something else thatis inspiring to them. Even great writers such as Shakespeare hada source in which their stories came from.
The source can beused for many different purposes. A certain author may use asource to show different parallels between two stories or to showsimilarities between events or characters. They may use thesource to prove a point or to add meaning to the book. Thesource could also just be an ambiguous connection that helpscomplete the story. Whatever the authors reason for picking acertain source it seems to give the story completion andsignificance.
In this class, we read many stories in which thesource deals with religion and especially the gospels. In thispaper, I will discuss these different stories and how they relateto their religous sources. The first story we read in class was, gA Visit of Charityhby Eudora Welty. In this story, the source that is eluded to isthe Genesis story of Adam and Eve. The story begins with Marian,a young campfire girl, who is on her way to an Old Ladiesf Home. Before entering the home she stops by some prickly shrubs.
Theoutside of the home was covered by beautiful shrubbery and thewhitewash brick building reflected the sunlight. Yet, the insideof the home was in bad shape. It smelled musky and the linoleumon the floor was bulging up. The details Welty adds aresignificant because it shows two different worlds. The one worldMarian still sees which is beautiful like the Garden of Eden andthe world she is slowly stepping into where things are notbeautiful and good. The story continues with Marian visiting twoold ladies who fought between themselves the whole time she wasthere.
Marian did not want to be at the home and especiallydislike visiting these two ladies. Although, the one lady wasfriendly to Marian she was still scared of both ladies. At theend of the visit the one lady grabs Marianfs arm and asks her fora penny or a nickel. Marian runs from the old lady withoutlooking back. When she gets outside she grabs the apple she hidin the prickly bushes on her way into the Home. As she jumpedonto the bus Marian took a big bite of the apple.
This is themost significant part of the story because it shows how Marianknew what she was doing was wrong but she carelessly did itanyway. She hid the apple in the beginning so the old ladieswould ask her for it and the only reason Marian went to the Hometo begin with was to get points for Campfire girls. Her eatingthe forbidden fruit signifies that she knew it was wrong justlike Eve in the Genesis story. Eve took the forbidden fruit andher eyes were open just like Marianfs were open after her visitwith the two old ladies at the home. In the book, gThe Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobeh thesource is the Passion story. C.
S. Lewis makes this source theframework of his whole story. The story begins with two brothersand two sisters who were sent to an old professors house to livebecause of air-raids in London. While exploring the professorsgrand house Lucy discovers a magic wardrobe that leads to theland of Narnia.
At first, no one believes Lucy really went toNarnia. They thought Lucy was just make-believing or lying aboutthe magic wardrobe. One day, when they were playing hide and go seek, Edmundended up in the wardrobe where he also found Narnia. Here he metthe cold-hearted witch that Lucy was warned about by Mr. Tumnus. Yet, the witch was nice to Edmund and gave him magical TurkishDelight to eat.
The only reason she did this was to get him tobring his sisters and brother to her, so that she could kill thembefore they had a chance to take over the thrown. When Lucy andEdmund return to the house Lucy tells everyone that Edmund was inNarnia too but he denies it and makes her look like a fool. When all the children finally end up in Narnia they alldecide to stay and try to find Mr. Tumnus who was turned to stoneby the queen for not turning Lucy over to her.
While makingplans to meet king Aslan and save Mr. Tumnus Edmund slips away totell the queen of the plans. This is significant because it showshe is a betrayer to Aslan just like Judas betrayed Jesus. WhenEdmund reaches the castle alone, the witch is very angry that hedid not bring the others. The witch and Edmund set off on hersledge to look for them. In the mean time Lucy, Peter, Susan, andthe Beaverfs were taking the back way to the castle so the witchwould not find them.
During the witches travels, the snow beganto melt so her sledge was not usable. The witch made Edmund lead,he was whipped like an animal. The rest of them meet up withAslan and his followers and head to the castle. This is whereAslan makes all the stone animals alive again. Aslan performsmiracles just as Jesus did. Then Aslan goes and saves Edmundfrom the witch before she could kill him.
Edmund is thenforgiven but the witch still wants him dead. Aslan and the witchmeet at the stone table and make a deal in which Aslan sacrificeshimself so the rest can live. Aslan is like Jesus sacrificinghimself for his people. That night Aslan had a quiet meal withhis followers which resembles the last supper Jesus had. Laterthat night he took his walk to be killed.
Lucy and Susan walkedhim most of the way but he told them to go no further when theyreached the hill the stone table was on. Yet, they did not listento him and followed behind him hiding in the trees. After Aslanwas shaved and killed the girls went, untied him, laid next tohim, and cried all night. The next morning, the girls found thestone table broken and Aslan had risen from the dead. They got onhis back and went towards the castle. In the mean time Edmundand Peter were back at the castle fighting the witches army.
Theywere losing greatly because the witch was turning all theresoldiers to stone. When Aslan returns to the castle he findsEdmund dying after being stabbed by the witch and Peter fightingthe witch. Aslan kills the witch and they win the battle. Lucyheals everyone and everyone is happy. This story follows thepassion story almost perfectly.
Aslan is like Jesus he has hisdisciples and those who want to persecute him. He dies for hispeople and rises from the dead to save the whole kingdom. Also,In the end, Aslan leaves with intentions to one day return tosave the kingdom again just like Jesus ascended into heaven toone day return to save us. This story made me look at thepassion story in the form of a myth that helped me betterunderstand what sacrifices Jesus made for us. In the movie, gJesus of Montrealh the passion story was alsothe source but the difference is that in the goal of this moviewas to retell the passion story in a more modern way. In themovie Daniel Coloumbe rewrites the play adding many new documentshe found on the life of Jesus but after the church sees the playthey banned it because of they considered it vulgar.
Yet, Danielcontinues the play until a scuffle with the police in where hereceives a head trauma and ends up dying. There are manysimilarities between Daniel Columbefs real life and Jesusf life. The first similarity was the way Daniel seemed to be the leaderof the group of actors and they seemed to be his disciples. Hefound the actors in the slums of the acting community just likeJesus always was found with sinners and the poor. Then after hisfall, Daniel goes to the train station and begins preaching likeChrist. In the end, both men lived and died for what theybelieved in.
The death of both men also resulted in helpingothers. Jesus died so that we may live and Danielfs deathresulted in a new heart and eyes for another. This movie made metake a different look at the passion story and see it in a newway. Another story we read was, gAtticush by Ron Hansen. Thesource of this story is the parable of the Prodigal Son.
Thestory begins with Scott coming to visit his father for Christmas. During the holiday, Atticus realizes how bad off his son is butstill shows great love for him. Not to long after Scott returnsto his home in Resurrection, Mexico he supposedly commitssuicide. Atticus travels to Mexico to bring his sonfs body homebut finds many things that point to Scott being murdered. Whilelooking for the murderer he finds his son alive and well. Although, he should be angry with his son he is overcome with joyand forgives him fully.
Atticus is a lot like the father in theProdigal Son Parable. He has one son who is pretty successful andanother who wastes his money on alcohol and women. Just like inthe parable. The son in both stories takes his share of hisfather’s money and goes away to live a dissipated life. When hecomes back the father encounters him with compassion. Thedifference between the two stories is that in The Prodigal sonparable it is the son telling the story, whereas in Atticus it istold from the fathers perspective.
The last two stories we talked about were by FlanneryOfConnor. In gEverything That Rises Must Convergeh and RevelationOfConnor does not make her source as well known as in the rest ofthe stories we have looked at. In these two stories OfConnor justeludes to the stories being about Godfs grace. In gEverythingthat Rises Must Convergeh Julian watches the mother that raisedhim die of a stroke after a confrontation with a black women onthe bus. His mother was prejudice but still tried to be nice tothe black womenfs young son. The black lady resented this becauseJulianfs mother seemed to be showing that she was better thanher.
The whole time they were on the bus Julian sat next to theblack passengers and tried to talk to them. He did this to try toshow his mother that blacks can be intelligent too and to makehis mother upset. Her having a stroke after getting off the busshows that God will take anyone at any time. In the gRevelationh story, Mrs. Turpin and her husband entera doctors office and scope out the room.
After striking up aconversation on refinement and how you have to be nice to niggersto get them to do any work. Suddenly a fat child named Mary Gracethrough her book at Mrs. Turpin and tried to strangle her. Laterthat night Mrs.
Turpin has a dream that all the niggers and whitetrash go to heaven before her. This shows that God has grace foreveryone not just those who are refined. Also, Mary Gracefs namecould represent mother of Christ. While looking at all the stories, I received a differentperspective of the gospels. Each story had its own twist on whattheir source meant.
In some stories the source was very welldefined and in others it was more ambiguous. Yet, in both casesthe source was meaningful and gave completion to the book.
