We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,–
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
—Ulyssess
While this happens to be a poem about an old man who can’t just can’t quit now that he’s old and finally back from a twenty year long odyssey, it really is a young man’s poem about death versus immortality. In this poem, Ulysses finds that even though his long journey tired him, he no longer fits in with the people he ruled over, what should be normal for him. He also decides that he doesn’t want to die as just another name, but something much bigger than that.
So Ulysses decides he wants to go back to being a mariner even though he knows he might die if he goes back to sea. However, Ulysses is certain he will die if he stays where he doesn’t belong and his conscience won’t let him rest. While it can also be called doing what a person loves, it’s also a case of normality is relative.
This is the classic and timeless super hero story, but it also speaks to humanity. I can’t count how many people I know and have heard that tried to retire from something they had been doing all their lives only to realize they can’t stop and will die if they don’t go back, even though they may wear themselves out doing so. However, since I don’t use real life examples on this blog, I’ll stick to the two that came to mind as soon as I read this poem.
Rewrite One: Bruce Wayne from Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises
The Dark Knight Rises takes place after the last movie where Batman took the blame for Harvey Dent’s crimes in effort to prevent all the criminal Dent had put in jail from being released and all progress Gotham City had made be undone. Ten years later, he’s obviously aged, worn out and a recluse, but one would think after retiring from vigilantism, Bruce Wayne would be relieved. He’s not.
Reminders of who he used to be are all around him and though he wants to be normal he can’t. All it takes for him come back out as Batman again is for Selina Kyle to steal his mother’s old necklace. Alfred even begs him to stop, saying that when he had disappeared decades before, he never wanted Bruce to come back. Instead he wanted Bruce to settle down and start a family somewhere.
I won’t spoil the end of the movie since it is fairly recent and there are many people who haven’t seen it, but Bruce obviously lives by the philosophy to rest when you’re dead because despite everyone telling him to leave Gotham behind, he can’t stop being Batman. Batman lives forever and unless he can find someone else willing to carry the idea Batman represents, Bruce won’t stop. He can’t be everyone’s definition of normal.
Twist: Super heroes are now part of modern pop culture, but Batman is the only one who purposefully dresses up as something he’s afraid of to instill fear in criminals.
Rewrite Two: Danny Fenton from Butch Hartman’s Danny Phantom
For what many would call a silly cartoon for the sole purpose of entertaining children, Danny Phantom is all about someone who lives in an otherwise normal world trying to be normal when he and the circumstance around him aren’t. After an accident in his parent’s lab with a ghost portal, Danny Fenton become half human and half ghost. When ghosts begin to attack his home town, he transforms Danny Phantom, the town hero who sends the ghosts back to where they belong with the powers than come along with being a ghost.
It’s pretty obvious Danny has a hero complex, even when he isn’t fighting ghosts. Though he may be mischievous with his powers every now and then, for the most part he uses them to selflessly help others. But it takes it’s toll on a high school teen who is trying to juggle school, a crush on his best friend, and hide from his ghost hunter parents. So when Danny gets the opportunity to be normal in the series finale, he takes it… Only to realize he can’t be normal!
Danny can’t ignore the need to save people. Even without his powers Danny risks is life to gather the ghost to help save the planet from an incoming asteroid. Danny may not be an old man past his prime, but by the time he tries to settle down and be normal he’s been fight ghosts for a few years and while it has worn on him, he can’t stop because no one else can fight ghost like he can.
The Twist: It’s easy to ignore the lessons in Danny Phantom because at the end of the day, it is a cartoon about a boy who is half ghost. However, the cartoon deals with some serious issues every now and then. There’s also no resting when you’re dead in this cartoon. Rest and relax while you’re alive and kick ghost butt while you’re dead.
Other examples:
Like I said, this is the classic super hero tale so I could spend all day naming examples. An interesting one is Ironman who decides to become a super hero after what would be considered his prime. But life was far from normal before that and I doubt he has any desire to give up his suit. In fact, he is reluctant to let even the government get their hands on it. My classmates told me Jame’s Bond in the new movie Skyfall is an example but to be honest, I know nothing about Jame’s bond.
If anyone has heard of Carmilla, they usually know one thing about her. She’s a lesbian vampire, the classic femme fetalé. Unassuming and charming, but dangerous in more ways than the fact that she’s just a vampire. Carmilla is an odd sort of vampire novel for the Victorian era seeing that instead of going after male victims, like the female vampires in Dracula do, she goes after females. She takes a peculiar liking to Laura, her newest victim.
One might say that she is killed for obvious reasons since she is a vampire and sucks people’s blood until they die. The more subtle and interesting reason Carmilla is dangerous is that she poses a threat to traditional values, especially in terms of masculine and feminine roles. Carmilla is described in the novella with adjectives that might be considered masculine. She’s tall, has a deep voice for a woman, goes after what she wants, very obviously lusts after Laura like a man would in terms of how forward she is, and she is very possessive of Laura and by influencing Laura is threatening to make Laura like her. So the unspoken fear of people in the novel becomes, if woman can do everything men can do, then what use would society have for men?
Carmilla is threatening the very social order present in the Victorian Era and at the end, she’s punished for it. Carmilla wasn’t the last woman in literature to challenge the social order…
Rewrite One: Mulan from Disney’s Mulan
Keep an open mind! Mulan and Carmilla have more in common than meets the eye when the reader gets past the fact that Carmilla’s a lesbian vampire. In Mulan, Mulan is a young girl who’s at the age to get married in Ancient China, but she’s a tomboy. She fails her matchmaking test through no fault of her own, but she doesn’t want to be a bride anyway. When her father is drafted to fight in a war against the Huns, Mulan decides to disguise herself as a man, and join the Chinese Army in his place.
Only men joined the army and were trained to fight. Only men could speak their opinions and minds. But Mulan rejects society despite the fact that the penalty is death, similar to how the penalty for Carmilla not conforming to society norms is death.
However, since this is Disney, Mulan is instead praised for going against society norms when her deception is discovered. Also like Carmilla, Mulan goes after what she desires. She’s cares about duty, but not to society. Her duty is to her heart and that’s something that was against her traditional Chinese values. Even though Mulan is praised for her accomplishments outside of traditional Chinese feminine roles, the subtle fear in the movie still is that if women can do the same things men can, what are men for?
The Twist: The story is set in ancient China. And again, Mulan is praised for going against the norms of society unlike Carmilla, who is punished for it.
Rewrite Two: Katniss Everdeen from Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games
Katniss Everdeen is a medium between Carmilla in Mulan because while eventually Katniss is praised for going against society norms, at first she is punished. Katniss lives in a dystopian future USA where the masses are ruled by an upper class called, the Capitol. Under the Capitol are twelve districts. Katniss lives in the last and the poorest. Her father dies when she is twelve and as a result, it’s up to Katniss to take care of her helpless little sister and her mother who is now in a zombielike state because she is so torn up from her husband’s death.
Before the story even gets to the actual Hunger Games, the main plot of the novel, Katniss is already going against the norms of society. First, she is the primary caretaker of her house. Second, she illegally hunts (something considered masculine) so that her family can survive. Third, the only thing she wants is to protect her sister (the reason she eventually goes to the Hunger Games). Fourth, she has no interest in being a mother or being a bride. These roles that Katniss finds herself in makes her seem more masculine than she is feminine.
Everything else aside, the illegal hunting is punishable by what might as well be death. Then she goes against the rules of the Hunger Games and forces the Capitol to choose two winners instead of the traditional one. At first, she is punished for it, forced to pretend she’s in love and squash the threat of rebellion or the Capitol will kill everyone she cares for. Eventually in the series, the rebellion that defeats the Capitol, and she is praised for being the catalyst to produce the change Panem desperately needed, but it’s at a price. Her sister dies, she loses her best friend, her home is destroyed, and she’s not as mentally stable as she could be.
The Twist: Katniss represents the overwhelming masses of the oppressed in Panem as they fight against the Capitol. So the question is changed slightly. What roles does authority play (represented by President Snow a man) in a world where those who are ruled over (represented by Katnisss a female) want to rule themselves instead? She is also both praised and punished for going against society norms.
Other Examples:
Literature is full of people who went against society norms to try to establish a change whether it was good or bad. Voldemort from Harry Potter, the Rebellion form the Original Star Wars Trilogy, Planet of the Apes, Christopher Nolan’s Batman, Jane Eyre etc. They all ask the basic question, what happens to traditional roles when someone tries to step out of their role? But there were none quite like the above three examples.
There were two things I knew about Hercules when I was a child. Disney made a movie about him and he had twelve labors. Contrary to popular belief those labors had nothing to do with him showing off to the gods so Zeus would allow him to come back to Olympus. Hercules was actually proving his worth as a good person after a fit of madness, induced by a jealous Hera, where he killed his wife and children. When he went to the king trying to find forgiveness for what he had done, the king sent him on the twelve labors. In other words, the twelve labors were labors of redemption even though he managed to prove himself as a great hero in the process. Hercules’ labors aren’t the only place twelve labors or trials appear.
Rewrite One: Game Freak’s Pokemon (Video Game Series)
The Pokemon gameplay hasn’t really changed in the last fifteen years. It’s the same basic idea choose a pokemon, run an errand, get a pokedex, catch pokemon, defeat the eight gym leaders and the four elite four. Essentially, that makes twelve boss fights, twelve fights fought for very similar reasons to Hercules’ reason for going on his trials. It’s not so much that the main character of the game is redeeming himself or herself for something terrible, but proving his or her worth to themselves.
Similar to how a king sent Hercules on his labors, a professor tells the main character to go collect data for him and on the way go fight the eight gym leaders and defeat the elite four to become the champion to test their strength. Like Hercules, each gym or trial is a test of the player’s perseverance. Some challenges are a matter of strategy while others are a matter of brute strength and luck.
By the end, the main character has proven not only how strong he or she is, but also how good he or she is in the face of evil. An important part of the gameplay is defeating those who would use their pokemon for evil and try to persuade the main character to do so also. So like Hercules, the main character has proven their worth as a hero and as a good person.
The Twist: “Pikachu! I choose you!” Instead of the main character physically battle people, he or she essentially coaches little monsters called pokemon to do it. That’s much harder than it appears. I know. I’ve played these games for since I was seven.
Rewrite Two: Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games
And so it was decreed that each year, the various districts of Panem would offer up in tribute, one young man and woman to fight to the death in a pageant of honor, courage and sacrifice.
-President Snow, The Hunger Games
Twenty-four tributes from twelve districts thrown into an arena to fight to the death. Only one will survive and be crowned victor. That is disturbing and so unlike Hercules and Pokemon. Where is the honor and courage in slaughtering twenty-three other children, one of which comes from the same district the winner will? To the twisted minds of The Capitol, there was a lot, but that’s not the point. The point is that the winner did have something to prove. They had to prove that they had the right to live, and they did that by outsmarting all the other contestants.The similarities between the participants in the Hunger Games and Hercules are less obvious, but still there.
Similar to Hercules, the tributes from each district are sent to the Hunger Games to fight as punishment for rebelling against the government. Each district is known for some attribute or special skill, some more useful than others. For instance, the people from District 4 are great swimmers; the people from 11 are great at climbing trees and agriculture. District 12 is known coal mining, but that does little to help in the games. Katniss Everdeen, the protagonist of the series from District 12, is hardwired for a skill that is the point of the games. Survive! She has to use that skill to overcome the advantages the other competing districts have, sometimes gaining their weapons and supplies afterwards.
If Katniss had played by the rules, she also would have had to kill Peeta, the boy from her district, which would have left her as the sole survivor of all the districts that competed. However, Katniss doesn’t quite play by the rules in her books. Regardless, in order to win the games, she is still forced to prove her strength, values, and perseverance against the twelve districts, even when the odds are against her.
The Twist: This novel happens in a dystopian future where from the ashes of the U.S., Panem was born. When the districts rebelled, they were punished and had to send of children as tribute in a gladiator style fight to the death.
Other Examples:
I found other examples of this hard to identify. Twelve appears often in literature, but not so much as a number of trials and labors that I know of. In Star Wars, the Jedi have similar trials that they have to go through to become knights, but they only have five.
“Nelly, I am Heathcliff – He’s always, always in my mind – not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself – but as my own being – so, don’t talk of our separation again: it is impracticable.”
–Catherine, Wuthering Heights
This semester in school, I read a lot of Gothic romances and always the idea of the soul-mate came up. Every time my teacher talked about it, she said that no one could talk about soul mates without talking about Wuthering Heights, and she kept repeating the beginning of the above quoting line. Being the curious little English Major I am, I looked into it and if they aren’t the prototype for the soul mates. Two people so connected that it goes beyond the physical plane, that together or apart, they are one. What affects one affects the other and nothing else in the world matters but them being together.
Circumstances cause Heathcliff and Catherine not to ever be together physically, but they are still connected, despite their different classes, despite people keeping them apart, despite even death! The thing that bothered me about this and bothers me about other works that feature soul mates is that I was beat over the head with the fact after I was pretty sure even the least cautious reader would have picked up on the idea. That feeling was familiar…
Rewrite One: Stephanie Meyer’s Edward and Bella from Twilgiht
Unfortunately, there is no way to talk about the soul mate in 2012 without mentioning this couple. We all know the story. Girl meets vampire, and they begin and epic (debatable) love affair. For years I would not read Twilight because I thought I wouldn’t like it, but decided recently to put all my biases aside and read the darn thing. I was right. I hated it and you’re more than welcome to check out my twitter page to see my impressions as I read the book.
My critique of it is for another blog, but one of the reasons I couldn’t stand it is because even though I was beat over the head with the fact that Edward and Bella are meant for each other, I wasn’t quite sure how. But whether I was convinced or not, somehow Edward and Bella’s love is true in the the book. After Bella said, “I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him,” it was pretty clear. If that statement doesn’t get it at that point, the long drawn out meadow scene does, which was one of the scenes of the book I enjoyed.
If the first book doesn’t get the point across, New Moon, Twilight’s sequel, beats it back into us when Edward leaves, and Bella goes into a zombie-like state for months only coming out of it with the help of her friend Jacob. Though it’s obvious Jacob is head over heels in love with her, Bella chooses Edward even though he has broken her heart. Edward even wants to die to be with Bella when he thinks she’s dead. Their love even transcends death, literally, because Bella is willing to give up her humanity to spend forever with Edward. I may have hated the book but Stephanie Meyer made it clear that one way or another, those two were meant to be.
The Twist: The book is described as a paranormal romance and vampires and werewolves are certainly paranormal enough, especially when they fall in love with a human.
Rewrite Two: Naoko Takeuchi’s Usagi and Mamoru from Sailor Moon
There is no way to watch or read Sailor Moon without noticing the theme of the soul mate. Long story short, there was a moon princess and an earth prince who fell in love. A woman on earth got jealous, attacked the moon kingdom, killed the moon prince and then in her grief, the moon princess killed herself. Then the moon princess’s mother took pity on them and used the last of her magic to save their souls and give them a chance to reincarnate on earth in the future. They become Usagi (Sailor Moon) and Mamoru (Tuxedo Kamen).
This is certainly a romance that transcended death which definitely makes these two soul mates. But not only did Usagi’s past life kill herself, Usagi was willing to do it again when she though Mamoru was killed again! If that didn’t drill the point home, there’s a story arc about Usagi and Mamoru meeting their daughter from the future in which they are married and rule the earth. Not only that, but an overwhelming theme in the manga-and even more so in its anime counterpart-is the theme of love giving people the strength to overcome evil. While I find that a little cheesy, it can’t be denied that Usagi and Mamoru are soul mates, whether you like the characters and the show or not.
The Twist: Sailor Moon is a magical girl Japanese cartoon series where girls in miniskirts get power from the planets they represent. Enough said.
Other Examples:
I was going to write one about Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala, but since I did a post on Star Wars recently, I let it go. There’s also another manga called Cardcaptor Sakura wherein two characters, Sakura and Syaoran, are obviously meant to be together and if we didn’t get the point in that series, the writers went and did an alternate universe about the two characters that really drove the point home.
Don’t let the picture fool you. I’m not talking about the Disney cartoon movie Hercules. I mean the actual original myth. According to the myth, he was a dumb guy who acted out on his emotions, particularly anger. He had the capacity and ability to do great things, good things, but also the capacity to do terrible things. Hera, who hated him for being her husband’s illicit child, drove him mad and in his rage, Hercules killed his wife and their two children. However, Hercules’ story also shows that nothing is above redemption. Hercules always managed to redeem himself for whatever stupid or mad deeds his emotions drove him to do no matter how terrible they were. In fact, Hercules’ entire life, from his conception to his death, is a story of redemption. Redemption has always been a prominent theme in literature. In fact, there’s this one guy who did an entire movie series about redemption…
Rewrite One: George Lucas’ Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader from Star Wars
Anakin Skywalker’s entire life is about redemption. All the way from episode one to episode six, the audience is looking at a man who has a good heart, wants to do good, and is a well known hero but is easily misguided by his strong emotions.The only reason Anakin joins Dark Side is because his emotions get the best of him, causing him to betray his comrades (the Jedi), overthrow the Republic to create an Empire, and kill his wife (directly or indirectly is debatable). But by the end of the movies, he redeems himself by saving his son, who is the last Jedi.
The similarities to Anakin Skywalker and Hercules don’t end there! When Hercules’ wife puts poison in his cloak it burns him, continuously. Because he’s a demigod, he can’t die from it and lives with the pain of his body on fire until he finally orders a youthful follower of his to build a pyre and burn him. When he does die, the gods bring him to Olympus where he reconciles with Hera.
Similarly, Anakin Skywalker is burned to the point of death, but survives with the help of a special suit and mask, though he still lives with the pain of being burnt alive for twenty years! When he does die, it’s because his suit is electrocuted after he redeems himself by saving his son. Note that electricity is a kind of fire. Furthermore at the end of Return of the Jedi his son, his very youthful son, builds a pyre and burns his remains, after which he becomes one with the Force and his spirit is embraced by the comrades he betrayed.
The Twist: If Star Wars didn’t happen a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I would call Anakin Skywalker’s story George Lucas’ retelling of Hercules. In fact, I would bet good money that George Lucas studied Greek mythology and got inspiration from Hercules to create Anakin Skywalker. The similarities are just too alike to call a coincidence.
Rewrite Two: J.K Rowling’s Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter
The similarities between Draco Malfoy and Hercules aren’t nearly as staggering as the ones between Hercules and Anakin Skywalker, but definitely worth mentioning. Draco Malfoy is a perfect example of a person who does terrible things out of emotion (usually fear) and then redeem himself. In fact, it’s a trait his mother and father also demonstrate.
From book one, Draco’s a jerk to Harry and his friends and not at all subtle about his prejudices. But it’s not until the end of the series that Rowling reveals that Draco’s just misguided and more driven by his emotions than he lets on. The only reason he officially joins Voldemort to begin with is because Voldemort threatens to kill his mother. Even though he helps turn the tides of the war by letting the Death Eaters into Hogwarts, he doesn’t kill Dumbledore and he doesn’t really want to, which is proven by his halfhearted attempts to do so throughout The Half Blood Prince.
Draco’s scared for his family, so he talks the bad guy talk and pretends to walk the bad guy walk. But Rowling implies whose side he’s one or wants to be on when Draco’s aunt capture’s Harry Potter, where Draco lies about Harry’s identity. At the end of the book his mother also tells Voldemort that Harry is dead even though he isn’t. Without her doing that in an attempt to make sure Draco was safe, Voldemort would have killed Harry. In the epilogue, he’s not friends with the good guys, but he gets married and has a son which proves that somehow Draco redeems himself and wasn’t that much of a bad guy to begin with.
The Twist: Draco and his family are more anti-heroes than heroes. Everything they do is out of a purely selfish desire for the Malfoy family to survive, even their eventual redemption. At the end of the day, Draco and his family had a better chance of survival if Voldemort lost.
Other Examples:
This post was almost left as a comparison between Hercules and Anakin Skywalker until a friend and classmate, Kristin Hanlin, gave me Draco Malfoy as another example. I considered Severus Snape, who is also from Harry Potter, but everyone talks about Snape. Murtagh from The Inheritance Cycle is an example too, but I wasn’t sure on the details since I never finished the series.
Note: This post is written under the assumption that most people haven’t been living under a rock for the last decade and have a general idea what Harry Potter is. If anyone hasn’t read the books or seen the movies, the Harry Potter Wiki will clear any confusion.
Henry James’ novella, Turn of the Screw, is about a woman who gets hired as a governess and is convinced she is seeing ghost that area after the children she is supposed to be watching over. No one else sees the ghost, but by the end of the story, one of the children, a boy named Miles, is found dead in her arms.
Now whether the governess was mad or she just had one of those freaky supernatural powers that lets her see ghosts while others can’t is a question that is never answered. We’re left to jump to our own conclusions not just about the ghosts but the implied story behind the previous headmaster and headmistress. A case of sexual abuse is heavily implied, but there’s no proof. Henry James implements a writing technique that I call telling the reader everything and revealing nothing at all.
To be honest, this tale could have been written in twenty pages with all the scenes that repeated and did nothing to further solve the mystery of the story. If James was trying to get the reader to actively participate in his horrific tale, I don’t know whether or not I appreciated it. But it was a good read, and I know of a few stories that definitely rewrote this one.
Rewrite One: The Haunting of Hill House
This was the first story that came to mind as I read Turn of the Screw. The obvious reason is because the audience is never sure whether or not there is an actual ghost or not. But while James did this by putting his story in first person and purposely make the reader distrust that point of view, Shirley Jackson does it by making none of her characters actually see a ghost. They only hear strange unexplained noises. For all anyone knows, it may just be because old houses like to make noise sometimes.
What is really startling is how alike the unnamed governess in Turn of the Screw and the character, Eleanor, in this story are. First, neither of these characters have a fleshed out background. All we know of Eleanor is that she thinks her family treated her bad, but Eleanor’s about as dependable as the governess is in Turn of the Screw. Both are also convinced that not only there are ghosts, but that they have to do something about it. The governess is convinced that she has to protect the children from those ghosts and Eleanor is convinced the spirit of the house wants her. The texts suggest to the reader that whatever feelings the two women have may be a product of their minds. Regardless, The Haunting of Hill House leaves its audience with the same uncertainty ending that Turn of the Screw. There’s no concrete answer about what’s happening.
The Twist: There are no children that need to be protected. The reason the guest go to Hill House is for an experiment, unlike the governess who goes to the supposedly haunted house for a job. I won’t give away exact details, but both stories end with a death; however the death in the end of this is a little less ambiguous.
Rewrite Two: Blair Witch Project
It’s not a haunted house, but it is a haunted forest that has all the tropes of the typical haunted house. There must be something going on and so group of film students trying make a documentary go to investigate. Strange things start to happen like someone or something messing with their stuff, piles of strange looking rocks, and they can’t find their way out the forest.
By the end of the movie something bad has happened to all the campers, but it’s strange that the audience is only left to assume what has happened. We only see the effects of something, never the cause and because the camera goes out at the end, the audience doesn’t know what happened next. For all the audience knows, every supernatural element in this movie could be an elaborate hoax by the villagers like in Scooby Doo and the Witch’s Ghost.
Twist: It’s documentary style, and it happens in a forest instead of a house. There’s also the absence of young children Unlike Turn of the Screw and The Haunting, there are three questions instead of two. Are the students making a big deal of something natural, like really being lost in the wood and they have gone mad with fear? Is there something supernatural going on? Or is this an elaborate hoax?
Other examples:
I considered using Paranormal Activity, but it’s apparent that there is something that is absolutely supernatural, therefore there is no ambiguity. I also considered the movie Hide and Seek, but again it lacks the ambiguity because it is revealed in the end that the father is mad. The Others is supposed to be based off Turn of the Screw but the ambiguity is gone. Everything is answered at the end of the movie.
Great Expectations is another novel that I just got through reading for class. Unfortunately, it did not meet my expectations, but just because I wasn’t fan didn’t mean that I didn’t get something out of it. So the basic plot of this story is that Pip, who doesn’t know where he comes from, gets a benefactor and comes into a large sum of money. Now he has to live up to the expectations that come with that, including trying to woo his love interest. The question of the novel is, will he?
Note that this takes place in the Victorian era, so those expectations include keeping his money, getting married, eventually having children etc. By the end of the story though, Pip doesn’t live up to those expectations; however he lives amongst people who did meet those expectations without it being expected of them. That sounds odd I know. Regardless, what this story reminded me of will probably surprise my readers…
Rewrite One: Hino Matsuri’s Vampire Knight
I know. I know. How in the world did I compare Vampire Knight to the Great Expectations? Well, in Vampire knight, Yuuki, our protagonist is in a similar situation as Pip was. She doesn’t know where she came from and then later finds out that she is descended from a pureblooded vampire family. Now she has to live up to the expectations that come with her being the sister of one of the most powerful vampires and the fact that she is supposed to be a powerful pureblood. The problem is that she’s more human at heart than she is a vampire, and she wrestles with that. Similar to Pip, she also has an odd romance going on with her love interest, Kaname. If I say anymore, I’ll give spoilers. But there is a scene, a confrontation between Pip and his love interest (Chapter 38) that reminds me of a scene between Yuuki and Kaname. The chapter I’m not sure of because the latest twenty chapters or so have many similar scenes to it.
The Twist: Well, certainly vampires. But there’s also the fact that it’s a manga, not in first person and there’s a lot more going on plot wise, so much so that it’s hard to keep track. Not that this manga isn’t finished yet, so I may change my mind about this later.
Rewrite Two: Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha
I have to admit, this second example troubled me, and I had to go back and brush up on my knowledge of this book to make sure it would fit. Again, it’s not as obvious, but this theme of a person going from rags to riches and now having to live up to the expectations that come up with that is totally Memoirs of a Geisha. She’s forced out of her poor village, separated from her sister, and now has to live up to the expectations that come with being a Geisha and the only reason she decides to live up to them is because she falls in love, which is a no-no for her world.
I have to say, I preferred the movie ending because it infers that she’s going to get her happily ever after rather than Sayuri summing up the end of her life like the book does. But one thing the book does do that the movie doesn’t is show that like Pip lives amongst people who are living the life he once wanted for himself in the end, Sayuri has to quit being a Geisha, which she has come to love, and watch those around her continue living the live she once had after she retires.
Twist: Well, it is about the Geisha, although I hesitate to actually call this a memoir because she goes through her whole life rather than ending right at the point where she finally finds out her love is requited
Other Examples:
Ice Princess came to mind as wrote this, but didn’t make the list because in the end the main character does get everything she wants and it’s one of those so-so Disney movies. I also briefly considered some aspects of Star Wars and Harry Potter, but the theme is averted in the bigger picture of both stories.
My class and I discussed this poem in our 19th Century British Poetry and Prose. For the life of us, we didn’t know whether to label the guy who murdered his lover mad or feel sorry for him because their love was forbidden and he just wanted to be with her forever. It’s the classic “If-I-can’t-have-her/her-nobody-will” love story. The element that split the class was that the man doesn’t appear to regret it. Whether he regretted it or not, the story of Porphyria’s Lover is eerily familiar.
Rewrite One: George Lucas’ Revenge of the Sith
Obsessed much Anakin Skywalker? As I was reading this poem, I was beginning to wonder if there was any way that George Lucas had not read this poem, because it sums up what Revenge of the Sith was all about; a man overcome by his passion and obsession with a woman that eventually it drives him to do anything to keep her with him and in the end, he kills her (debatable).
The Twist: I don’t know… a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away maybe? In addition to that, spaceships that travel between planets as easily as we take a plane to get from the U.S to France.
Rewrite Two: Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”
I discovered this one in my creative writing class recently. It’s a short story about a woman that’s obsessed with the idea of love. It’s not until the end that the reader learns how sick that obsession made her. I won’t spoil it for anyone who hasn’t read it, but let’s just say I was suspicious as soon as I read she wouldn’t let anyone come in to get her father’s dead body for three days.
The Twist: Well, it’s a woman who is so obsessed that she kills her lover so she can keep him forever and I wonder if she didn’t kill her father too…
Other Possible Examples:
Fatal Attraction is also an example that comes to mind, but Alex Forrest fails to kill Dan Gallagher though she does try. Anime fans will also enjoy comparing this to the event that serves as the catalyst to the Inuyasha series in which Onigumo sacrifices himself to demons to become Naraku because her loves Kikyou, and soon after Naraku kills her. It may not count though, because essentially the demons destroy Onigumo and what’s left of him becomes Naraku. Make of it what you will.
My creative writing teacher says that all stories, short or long, are about two things. Those two things are someone takes a journey or a stranger comes to town. Every possible idea and topic that has to do with those two things have already been done. A writer doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel, my creative writing teacher added. I’m guessing that was supposed to be comforting. It wasn’t because while writers don’t have to reinvent the wheel, they do have to rewrite it and in a way, that’s a lot more daunting than inventing the damn wheel to begin with.
Still don’t believe it? Still don’t believe that all writers do is rewrite? Don’t worry. This blog will prove it. I will make it my job (outside my regular job) to compare works of literature, movies, texts, etc. and make connections between literature, poetry, and proses that on the surface wouldn’t seem to connect at all. I will prove that even the greatest writers have only rewritten the wheel, not to mention give suggestions about how other writers can pull off their own rewrites.
Warning:
I am a Star Wars Scholar, especially when it comes to Revenge of the Sith. I just thought I should warn readers that I have a document full of examples for those movies and I’ll mention them often.
Rewriting the Wheel 