Month: February 2025

For this assignment I’ve chosen to retell the Brothers Grimm story of the Dog and the Sparrow. It follows the titular bird, who befriends an abused dog. He brings him food and keeps watch when he sleeps. Tragedy strikes when the dog gets run over by a carriage, despite the sparrows’ attempts to stop it. The bird then takes his anger out on the carter, tricking him into killing his horses and destroying his carriage and load. He makes every bird nearby ravage his house for seeds, and he lets him destroy all his belongings in a blind rage. The climactic turning point happens when the man captures the sparrow and decides to swallow him. The sparrow resists and breaks loose, taunting him through his teeth. The carter’s wife, in a last ditch attempt, takes a swipe at the bird with a meat hook. She kills her husband on the spot, and the sparrow flies away. 

In my retelling however, I want to focus more on the sparrow itself. The story cuts off after the man dies, but for the bird to wreak such havoc in his grief, I’m sure that when the man fell down lifeless he still did not feel satisfied. I want to omit the dog at all from my diorama to highlight that all the destruction and pain the sparrow has caused, including the death and misery of innocents (horses or the carter’s wife), did nothing to replace the bird’s beloved friend. I want the sparrow to be highlighted among the violence he has enacted, showing that in his pursuit of retribution, he embodied tenfold the qualities of the dog’s killer. He flew away, defiled and unsatisfied, now forced to grieve without an enemy to distract from his loss.

I chose the myth of Perseus and Medusa, because I have always been a fan of Greek myths. In addition, I visited Sicily last year, and Medusa’s head is on the crest of Sicily.

The key scene I chose was the scene where Perseus sneaks up on Medusa on a desert island where she is living with her two immortal gorgon sisters (Medusa is the only mortal one) and cuts off her head.  Perseus needs Medusa’s head because the father of the girl he wanted to marry demanded it as part of his bride price, so Perseus is doing this task out of love.  Medusa is viewed as a monster, because she turns men to stone and has snakes for hair. But she used to be a beautiful maiden before she was cursed to become a Gorgon.  Perseus received assistance from the gods in this task, including a magic sword, a mirror-like shield, and a special bag to hold her head after he cuts it off.  When it is time to do the deed, he sneaks up on Medusa while she is sleeping with her sister on a desert island and cuts off her head, using the mirror of the shield to look at her to ensure he doesn’t get turned to stone.

I am showing this scene from Medusa’s perspective, where an overpowered evil man (represented by Darth Vader) sneaks up on an innocent girl to cut off her head with a magic sword (a light saber) in the name of love.  He only sees the snakes on the back of her head, and views her as a monster.  But she still sees herself as a beautiful maiden forced into exile because she is viewed as a monster, innocently living on this island in the middle of nowhere, not harming anyone. The mirror is cracked because when Medusa no longer wants to look at herself in a mirror, doesn’t want to see the monster she has been turned into.

In this story twist, Cinderella is not just a naive princess but a strategic and smart one. As Cinderella heads to the ball, she knows that once the clock strikes midnight her beautiful ball gown will turn back into rags. Once she meets the Prince and dances with him she knows that she will want to see him again. However, she realizes that her evil Stepmother will not let this happen and will do everything in her power to stop this. As midnight approaches Cinderella comes up with a plan for the Prince to find her. When the clock strikes twelve, she runs down the steps off the palace and purposely leaves her glass slipper on the ground. Cinderella knows that the Prince will see the shoe and locate her. Even if her Stepmother tries to hide Cinderella from seeing the Prince she will not be able to do anything once the slipper fits Cinderella perfectly. Overall, this story twist shows Cinderella as a intelligent and wise princess that is going to get what she wants and truly deserves. She does not want to live in the shadow of her Stepmother and step-sisters her whole life but rather achieve her goals and dreams.

I have chosen the Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus. Daedalus, an inventor, made wings of wax and feathers for his son Icarus. He told Icarus not to fly too close to the sun, or his wings would melt. But Icarus did not listen; the warmth of the sun melted his wings and so  he plummeted into the sea. I selected this myth because it is one of my favorite Greek myths with a lesson about the risks of being over ambitious by trying to reach the unattainable. It serves as a reminder to not “fly too close to the sun”, and instead to appreciate what you have and to be reasonable. I also thought that the story would translate well for this project due to the imagery of the sun, water and wings. The key moment I have chosen to depict is the moment where Icarus’ wings melt and he falls into the sea. This climax of the story is a dramatic moment that artists have depicted over centuries to capture the story, so I am eager to create my own rendition of this scene with found objects. However, in my diorama, I have included a large hand reaching out from the sea grabbing on and catching Icarus the moment he touches the son. This hand could be interpreted as Icarus’ father, Daedalus, saving Icarus from his death, which is symbolic of the paternal love and support for their children, especially in moments of failure.

I decided to choose Rapunzel as my story because growing up I have always loved the Disney movie inspired by it; Tangled. Although Tangled is not the exact same storyline as the original Rapunzel fairytale, it is the one I know better so I will be basing this project off of it.

One major turning point for the main character, Rapunzel, is when she decides to leave the tower. All her life her “mother” has kept her trapped in the tower and told her how scary and dangerous the outside world is, and Rapunzel has believed her and never strayed from the tower. Her escaping the tower is an important moment for her, as she chooses to be brave and lets her curiosity take over and make her own choices.

In Tangled, Rapunzel’s “mother” is depicted as an evil witch, who has kidnapped her at birth and kept her hidden in a tower to use Rapunzel’s special powers all for herself. In my depiction I will make it so the witches’ decision to keep Rapunzel locked in the tower is not out of greed but instead out of love and fear for Rapunzel. A main theme from the story is that the witch tells Rapunzel that the outside world is scary and dangerous, and I think it would be cool to feed into that, and twist the witch to be caring and trying to look out for Rapunzel in fear that others will try to use her powers for themselves. 

I chose Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for this project because it’s one of those stories everyone knows—The Golden Ticket, the spoiled kids, and Wonka’s Factory. Each kid’s fate pretty much matches their personality and self-obsession; Charlie wins because he’s the only decent one. At its core, the story is about imagination, consequences, and how being a good person actually matters. It’s stuck around so long because it’s fun, a little weird, and still makes people think about what they’d do if they got their own golden ticket. Plus, the images of candy definitely help keep people interested.

One moment I focused on was when Wonka announced the factory’s reopening. It’s what kicks everything off, but I started wondering—what if none of it was real? I had chocolate and a wine glass sitting in my room, and it got me thinking: What if Wonka, after a few too many drinks, just made the whole thing up? What if the factory, the golden tickets, and even the kids were all part of some elaborate fantasy?

In my version, the story would lean into that idea, blurring the line between reality and imagination. “Wonka” is just a regular guy who dreamt of this whole idea of owning a chocolate factory to leave their boring reality. My art piece resembles this idea by making the viewer wonder if this popular movie was some normal guy’s escape. 

For my revisionist storytelling project, I will be using the story of Hansel and Gretel. The reason I chose this story was because it was one of my favorite stories when I was younger. I really liked how the kids were able to beat the bad guy (the witch) by the end of the story. While it was scary for me to read, it had a strong ending that made it worth it. I’ve decided to focus on the part of the story where the witch tries to eat Hansel and Gretel. This is a central part of the story, and is what leads to them defeating her and escaping. However, I have decided to take a different approach, where the children are the antagonists instead of the victims. The witch, like her home, is made out of candy, and the children try and trap her so that they can eat her instead. I have basically decided to flip the narrative of the story. I think this will add an interesting switch, because the children did break into her home, and it will show how that could go in a different menacing path. I am going to attempt to display a scene where the children are looking down upon the witch outside of her home, when they were about to intrude.

Story: Sleeping Beauty

The story I chose is Sleeping Beauty. I chose this story because I wanted to choose a story tied to childhood and put a disturbing twist on it. Though, I feel as though the story of Sleeping Beauty is quite dark on its own if you think about it for long enough. The moment that I am going to focus on is after Aurora is already under the curse and is asleep. However, I plan to mix the spinning wheel with this moment as well. This moment is significant because it is the falling action. Aurora has just touched the spindle of the spinning wheel and is now cursed to sleep forever. Though Sleeping Beauty has a happy ending I want to focus on the reality that the curse could have instilled had it not been broken. I plan to do this by focusing on the bed she slept in hinting at a reality where she never does wake up. By taking and mixing the moments of the spinning wheel with the moments where she is asleep I plan to bring my vision to life. Getting the message across of how the story could have potentially ended a bit differently.