Miss Brill

Plot
If I made "Miss Brill" into a movie, I would make the story about her every day life. When I read the story, I had the impression she forgot about her age and envisioned herself as young. The story would be about an elderly woman, but the audience would not find out until the very end when the young couple say cruel things about her. It would follow her life and begin with her getting out her fur, because I think that the fur is an important detail. She would then go to listen to her outdoor concert and this is where she meets her lover. The story will focus on how they met and what happened to their relationship. She does not end up marrying him because he leaves her. After he leaves, she is lonely and continues going to the concerts and watches people. Then at the end, she goes back home and looks in the mirror and she is old.

Point of View
Miss Brill is the main character and it would follow her life. The world would be shown through her eyes, until the very end. She will be reliving her past and she will look as she did when she was young, because that is the way she sees herself. At the end of the movie, the audience will find out that she is not young, she is old. Miss Brill is naive and possesses an innocence that will be conveyed through her relationship with her lover. He is not the best person for her, but she only sees what she wants to see.

Setting
I imagined the story taking place during the early 1900's so the movie will take place during that time. The young Miss Brill would have been young in the 1920's so when she is older, the year would be in the 1980's. She sees the world as it was in the 1920's though. She was happy then. She was young and in love. The town she lived in was fairly small, but when she is older, the town expanded and modernized. She is not happy with the modernized town and longs for simpler times.

Characterization
Miss Brill is naive and does not see the world for the way it is. She misses her youth and is in denial of her true age. She was emotionally scarred by her love affair that ended badly and never loved again. She could not move on with her life and lived for the past. She is a lonely elderly lady. Deep down inside, she knows the truth that she has aged and she cannot live her past again. She hoped for love again, but could never bring herself to get close to anyone again. She tries to forget her lover left her, but she cannot forget him.

Theme
The theme of the movie would be live for the present, not the past. So many people live for the past and they never move forward in their lives. People who live in the past cannot appreciate whatever is happening then. They miss so much and fail to enjoy their lives. Miss Brill is stuck in the past and cannot move on with her life. She dwells on the negative event in her life and her life stopped because of it. She was not happy with her life and never tried to get past her problems. She should have addressed the problem so she could start the lengthy process of recovery.

Field of Dreams

Point of View

The main character in the movie is Ray Kinsella. He narrates the very beginning of the movie and talks about his father and how he was in the war and what his favorite baseball teams were. This is when the audience finds out about his poor relationship with his father, which is not in the short story. In the story, it sounds like he has a good relationship with his father and they shared a common love of baseball and they liked the same teams. In the movie, the audience does hear the same voice Ray hears when the other characters cannot hear the voice. The audience does get to see what Ray is going through though we do not know his exact thoughts or feelings.

Characterization

There were many new characters in the movie that were not in the short story. Ray Kinsella's wife, Annie, has a brother in the movie. He is a reminder to the audience of Ray's financial problems because he and his partners buy the note to the farm. Ray and Annie go bankrupt because of the field and he threatens them with foreclosure. In the story, when he tells Annie he has to build a baseball field she responds, "Do it, love" (pg 512). In the movie, she is hesitant and even tries to dissuade him from building the field. His daughter, Karin, is not two years old in the movie. There is another character named Terrence Mann. He is an author and Ray has to take him to a baseball game where they find out about Moonlight Graham. Shoeless Joe is not the only baseball player in the movie. In the story, Joe Jackson mentions bringing other players to the baseball field, but the story ends. In the movie, Joe brings in other teams so they can play games.

Setting

The setting in the movie was the same in the short story. It takes place in Iowa and the family own a farm. The farm house, in the story, is described as "a massive old farm home, square as a biscuit box with a sagging verandah on three sides" (pg 512). The house in the movie fit this description. it was an old white farm house with a big wrap around porch. In the movie, Ray Kinsella travels to Boston to meet Terrence Mann and the to Minnesota to meet Moonlight Graham. He does not travel to these places in the story.

Plot

The plot in the movie was also similar to the plot in the book. The movie had to add different scenes to make the movie an appropriate length. The main character hears a voice telling him, "If you build it, he will come." In the story, he immediately receives a vision of a baseball field and decides to build the field. In the movie, he does not know what it means and the voice repeats itself a few times and Ray struggles to decipher its meaning. The added characters in the movie contribute to the changes of the plot. Ray has to meet Terrence Mann and Moonlight Graham. These characters are not in the story. Ray also gets two additional messages from the voice. The second message was "Ease his pain" and the third was "Go the distance." Ray's father comes back to play baseball in the movie. He was the catcher for the team. Ray does not meet his father in the story.

Theme

The theme in the movie differs from the theme of the story. The theme of the movie emphasizes believing in something. Ray builds the baseball field and believes Shoeless Joe will play on the field. He and his family can watch the games but Annie's brother cannot see the players. He did not believe it was possible and thought that Ray was crazy. There was another theme about the bond between father and son. In the movie, Ray had a bad relationship with his father. He left home when he was about 17 and he never went back. His father had wanted to play catch with him when he was younger but he refused. He later regretted his actions and he was sorry. At the end of the movie, he plays catch with his father. The importance of family is also a theme in the movie, though it is not as strong as it is in the story. Ray loves his family, but Annie does not always support him when he needed her full support.

Popular Mechanics

Question 5
I preferred the title "Mine" better than "Popular Mechanics" because it seemed more self explanatory. I did not understand the title "Popular Mechanics." A couple is splitting up and they are also splitting up their possessions. They fight over the baby. They have no regard for its safety. The baby is just another thing to be claimed and the only thing that matters is that the other person does not get it. They tug and pull on the baby. Any parent would know that pulling on your children is bad because it physically harms them. The couple did not seem to notice they were harming their baby.

You're Ugly, Too

When I first read the story, I felt sympathetic toward the main character, Zoe. She was very eccentric and seemed to have few people in her life. She is even described as someone who tries but did not succeed. "She was almost pretty, but her face showed the strain and ambition of always having been close but not quite" (pg 353). I sympathized with her for that. As I continued reading I started sympathizing with her less and less. I started to become annoyed because she seemed disconnected. She would tell random stories to people. She was not well in conversation and could not connect with others. She pretends to push a guy off of a building and laughs. She went too far and her joke was not funny.

The Drunkard

Question 6
The principle irony in this story is that the little boy gets drunk. He was supposed to stop his dad from drinking and he drinks one his father's pints when they are at the pub. He gets drunk and the father is forced to take his drunk son home. The situation used to be the other way around. The son comes home and the mother calls him a 'guardian angel.' When the father would drink, the next day he would not go to work because of his hangover. The boy drank so the father did not, or so the mother thought. The boy just wanted to know what alcohol tasted like and ended up getting drunk.

The Lottery

Question 1
When I started reading this story, I expected someone to win a large cash prize. I was very confused when the process of the lottery was explained. People would just pick out slips of paper and I could not figure out how anyone could win a prize when no one put anything in. The title leads the reader to think something good will come out of the lottery when in fact the winner, or loser, depending on how you look at it, gets stoned. The reader is not prepared for the stoning of a townsperson though children are collecting stones at the beginning. I assumed they were just collecting rocks for fun because some children do enjoy collecting rocks. When I read the end of the story, I understood why the children were collecting rocks and why some of the townspeople were nervous for the lottery.