I like looking at the similarities between plays, it is fun. First I’m going to give my rendition of a comedy, here is how almost every comedy ever written goes.
Guy loves Girl
Girl loves Guy
Girl and Guy can’ get married because of ____ (usually some social thing like class, or a different lover that goes in blank)
Every one switches places, and when it all comes out guy is able to marry girl.
Pretty much this is how every comedy play goes. When I was younger, (Middle, or High School) I had to read “The Importance of Being Earnest” for my English class. I think it was one of the few books I read for those classes because it was short. A few days after reading this book I went to a play with my mom in Denver, I don’t remember what the play was, all I remember was they had a big sailing ship on the stage like from the Disney ride and the story was identical to “The Importance of Being Earnest.” So at this point in my life I realized that all comedies are the same.
After reading Oedipus Rex I realized that tragedies are the same as comedies, only here is there outline
Guy is married to/loves Girl
Girl is married to/loves Guy
Some problem arises
The solution of this problem either ends with every one dead (Romeo and Juliet) or, a major reason for Guy and Girl to not be together.
So there you have it that is what you can expect from any drama you pick up, one of those two story lines.
I think it is interesting how important the orphan figure is in books, just off the top of my head I can think of quite a few stores that have this as a major part. The ones mentioned in class, Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, Huckleberry Fin, Tom Sawyer, The Golden Compass series, Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield, the bible is full of them, Star Wars, almost all comic books …ect. (I’m sure if I had read as many books as Luke or Prof Sexson I would be able to fill pages of books with this element). And so I started thinking why is this a common theme in all these stories, and I can only think of one reason. These people are more interesting, and they have more interesting stories. Take Huck Finn. How boring would that story be if he did not leave his father, or if he lived with a normal family I think it would go something like this: Huck when to school, he learned a bunch of stuff, then he came home, did his home work, ate dinner, did his chores, and went to bed. The next day Huck woke up…rinse repeat. This is lame, sounds like my day I had today, and the only difference is my name is not Huck. So the reason orphans are so important in stories is they make interesting stories, which help us escape from the rinse repeat of our days. The also allow for exciting plot twists in the stories, for example who saw that Vader was Luke’s dad, it makes them more exciding to read and make apart of your life. Now that I have brought this concept into the conscious part of my brain, i don’t think ill find many stories without the orphan, and the ones that do not have this aspect sound a bit more boring than something like Great Expectations, or Harry Potter. The other reason people like to use the orphan is it allows them to bring the personal battle that all people face when they are asked the question by the caterpillar, “Who are you?” and since they have an orphan they can make the orphan decide the answer to this question on their own, and it becomes a more important part of the story. This gives the author more malleable clay to work with.

Now for some house keeping, I have not sent the sonnet I wrote yet because I don’t know my friend’s dad’s address, and keep forgetting to ask.
The other day we were asked to find a line from a book that was profound yet did not have a moral lesson in it. The first one I thought of was from “The Importance of Being Earnest” it was in the first act and it went like this: “Devoices are made in heaven” not sure if it has a moral or deeper meaning, I just think it is funny. But then I decide I would look in one of my few books I have so I found George Orwell’s 1984 on my shelf and one line popped into my head with out even looking at it, and of course that line is: “Big Brother is watching you”
I just wanted to tell you a quick story about Delphi. My Fiancé studied abroad last year in Europe, one of the cities she visited was Delphi. She said normally she has trouble remembering her dreams when she is asleep, but the few nights she was in Delphi she said her dreams were crystal clear, and when she woke up she remembered them. So maybe, there is something special about that city, and the oracles were not just doped up all the time.
And one last thing then I am going to go to bed. After class one Weds. I went home and took a nap, during my nap I had two dreams, the first one I don’t remember all of it all I know is there was a fair in Bozeman, a Fair in Livingston, a bank drive up window that looked like it was advances enough to be out star wars, and I think I steep mountain I had to climb down, with a part of the trail that gave out to a sand pit type thing with big septic tank like things full of sand. I don’t know how these things went together, but I also know the second dream was the most important one. This summer I am in Math 170, and we have a test tomorrow morning. I thought I was prepared for the test, but I had the classic get to test and not know any thing dream. So I knew what that meant so I woke up and studied for my test.

A side story before I talk about stuff from class. Tonight I was talking to my mom on the phone and I mentioned that I had the read some of the Arabian Nights for the class. It turns out that she used to read the stories to me when I was a little kid. I can’t say I remember the stories from it, but I do have a vague recollection of my mom sitting in the rocking chair next to my bed, with me either in the bed or sitting on her lap reading me a book that after all these years I can still see the cover. (I’m not sure if this is the Arabian Nights or a different book). But when I go back home after the summer session I am going to try and track down this book and add it to my small collection of literature that I have. Just so every one knows I have three shelves on my bookshelf. The top row is half filled with lititure and has a few cookbooks on it. The next shelf is mostly full of textbooks, or the tall ones, but I’m pretty sure they are all textbooks, exciting things like Organic Chemistry, and Genetics. The bottom shelf is full of all of my history/ non-fiction books. And most of them are military history books. I am currently working on expanding my litutare collection. When I go home in a few weeks I am going to steal books from my parents so that way I will have more to read. And now, one on the list is that hard back copy of the Arabian Nights with the colorful Genie on the front, and I think maybe a fisherman…

I want to talk a bit about Mr. Pip, from last Monday, (my cat has been sick so I have not had much time to blog until now, and she is doing better). The most obvious theme I noticed in the book was this battle between reality and fiction. There is a movie that came out less than a year ago from Disney of all people that has this as a major theme in the movie. The movie is “Enchanted.” It is a cheesy Disney movie about a cartoon princess who gets banished to the real world of New York because the evil step mom does not want her marrying her son the prince. Of course she meets a man who has a daughter and is planning on getting engaged to his girlfriend. And then like any other comedy (like The Importance of Being Earnest) it all works out in the end, and this story has two weddings. (So not quite as funny as “The Importance of Being Earnest,” because that has three weddings, but back to my main point). The man the princess meets in New York is not a literature, imagination person. He works as a divorce lawyer and his ex-wife leaves him. So this man is a single father raising his 10year old daughter and he does not let her read fantasy princess story books to her, because he does not want her thinking the world is a “happily ever after” type of place. Of course when he meets the princess she is all about the fantasy books because she is from one. There is a clash between the two worlds in the move and in the end there is a hybrid of the two world that all three (the princess, the father and the dad) characters believe and live their lives. This seems like an unlikely place to compare an award-winning book to, but they are the same story. One is just oriented towards kids a little better. So this goes back to every story is a retelling of another stor