Princess Pinto Bean

Princess Pinto Bean

    Once upon a time, in the south, there lived a prominent man and his three young daughters. This man was Leroy Montgomery, a successful agricultural tycoon, who had been dubbed “Prince of the Pinto” due to his reputation for growing the most delicious pinto beans in Fayette County, Georgia. He loved his three daughters dearly and depended on them after the death of his wife. His two eldest daughters, Maribelle and Henrietta, loved engaging in the traditions of pageants and galas. They were true southern belles who loved getting dolled up and partaking in Fayette County Society events with their father. Their sister, Susie May, couldn’t have been more different.  She was an absolute tomboy. She loved to roll around in the mud, wrestle, and spit, attributes her family weren’t to keen to accept. Every July, it came time for the annual Fayette County Daddy-Daughter Pageant and Leroy asked his daughters to enter with him in memory of their mother who loved pageants and seeing her girls dressed up. He insisted that his girls be dressed in their most beautiful gowns. Maribelle and Henrietta were ecstatic; Susie May wasn’t so thrilled but decided to submit to her father's wishes regardless of how she felt about pageants.

The day for the pageant finally arrived and it had come to the portion of the contest where each daughter had to answer how much they loved their daddies. Maribelle strutted confidently up to the microphone with her beautifully curled hair and scintillatingly bright yellow dress and said, “ I love my daddy more than sitting under the cool proud branches of a magnolia on a warm summer’s day.” The audience and judges all gave a big grin of approval,  impressed with her charm. Next, Henrietta sashayed over to the mic, grinning from ear to ear in her deep red princess dress, and said, “I love my daddy more than bees love fresh sweet honey from the honeycomb”. Everyone giggled at the cliche but cute comparison of love for her father. It was now Susie May’s turn. She clumped her way over to the mic, wearing a simple black dress and pigtails, and said, “I love my daddy more than dirt.” The audience gasped in shock at such a meaningless and insulting answer. Leroy, so embarrassed and hurt by his daughter’s words he plucked his daughters from the stage and dashed out. Once back home, he stomped and yelled at Susie May for being a disappointment and an embarrassment to their family. She tried to explain herself but her father turned a deaf ear to her.

After the pageant, things got tough for Susie May. She wasn’t allowed to go outside and play with any of the kids in the community. She was ostracised by her sisters and father. One day, feeling alone and ashamed, she found the brief opportunity to call her mother’s sister, Faye. She began to tell her Aunt Faye everything that happened and the reason why she said what said. Her Aunt Faye gave her specific instructions on what to do next. That night, Susie May snuck outside and gathered a box of dirt and a couple of bean sprouts. The next Morning her father woke up to a pile of dirt in the shape of a heart in a box next to his bed. The pile had beans starting to grow out of it. Leroy’s first instinct was to be enraged but then he took a good look at the humble pile of dirt and looked back up at Susie May, who had dirt all over her face and hands. She said, “Daddy, I said I loved you more than dirt because it is your dirt that makes you grow the best pintos in this county. You need dirt to make your pintos grow strong and healthy besides you also know how much I love to play in it”. As Leroy’s clouded judgement was cleared he began to shed a tear as he realized the error of his ways. He had wanted his daughter to be and respond in a way that was not her. He pulled his daughter in his arms and hugged her, apologizing for being embarrassed and ashamed of who she was. Even though he wanted to honor his late wife’s wishes he had to let his daughter be true to herself. From that day forward, Leroy understood the value of his daughter’s love and Susie May played in the mud, wore overalls and loved life.

Sugar, spice, and everything Christ!

In today's day and age there is widespread religious freedom and diversity however, Christianity has continued to have a major effect on much of the literature and cinema people enjoy. Christianity centers around the story of Jesus Christ, the humble, giving, and healing son of God, that sacrificed himself to humanity to save humanity from itself.

Authors are aware that not everyone reading their book will be well-versed in the Old and New Testament or even Christian, so they make it their job to not really focus on the religious aspect of the story of the man, but choose to focus on the archetypal and symbolic purpose it serves. When authors incorporate Christ-like themes it is about the archetype. The traits of Christ are universal and can be applied to anyone and anything. He was 33, humble, self-sacrificing, forgiving, was resurrected, and the list goes on and on. The application of these traits and situations onto a character turns them into a Christ-like figure. A Christ-like figure doesn't need to have all of these traits exactly otherwise they would be Christ. They just need to have a connection to Christ's situations and traits.  Essentially the author is just borrowing the symbols and situations of Christ and applying them to a character to bring about a point using a commonly known story to advance the plot and deepen the meaning of what he or she is trying to say through the character and its situations.

Christian symbolism can be obvious and exacting or abstract and formative.  I think one of the greatest examples of "in your face" Christian symbolism has to be that of " The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe". The book tells the story of how a group of siblings stumble into a magically conflict between good and evil through a wardrobe. The good being Aslan, and the evil being the White Witch. It is clear from the from the mention of Aslan that he represents a Christ-like figure.  He comes  after a long time of suffering and sadness to set things right, like a Messiah. He is portrayed as a lion which in its essence is Christ-like because one of Christ's titles is "The Lion of Judah". The most obvious Christ-comparison is truly the sacrifice. Aslan has to be sacrificed in order to save Edmund, black sheep of the family, who has betrayed his family for personal gain. Aslan is taken, shaved, chained,spit on, beat and finally slain however, unbeknownst to the White Witch, he is resurrected due to an important clause in the Deep Magic of Narnia. This is completely the story Jesus Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. He sacrificed himself to save a people that betrayed God.

Authors continue to pull from stories of the past because they are well established and respected. Christian themes in literature are important as all stories of the bast because they add substance to the characters and the story. They serve their purpose by ushering more archetypal borrowing and less a salvation. Well as far as literary analysis goes...........


http://biblehub.com/revelation/5-5.htm

Vampires Wear Prada...............

What is a vampire? A sinister creature that goes bump in the night, an ironically bloodcurdling image, or even an imaginary character brought forth by the imagination of Bram Stoker? Even though vampires are one of the most iconic monsters we hear about in our childhoods and on, people tend to put the vampire in a mythological box that doesn't leave Transylvania. Is it to scary of a thought to believe that vampires are real and thriving?

Vampires are real! A notion like this is hard to believe, huh? Most of the people who disagree with this do so because they are looking for a tall pale figure in a cape that has blood on his fangs, but vampires are never just vampires. This archetypal figure with the same type of situations wouldn't have had existed as long as it has and been included in so much literature from Victorian to Teen-Modern, if it was just meant to be a scary bed time story. Vampires are beings, traditionally men, who would pray upon young innocent women in hopes to steal their life force, blood. The vampire puts his needs above hers in order to progress himself, in the process weakening her and planting a seed of selfish lust to do the same. You won't see a psycho like this walking the streets at night. This figure exists in the behavior and the character flaws that rest within people. 

I guess the reason people don't want to believe that such evil exists is because they don't want to believe that it might exist within them. Not the blood sucking, sexual assaulting monster we've come to love, but the manipulative, self gratifying, and egocentric being that easily find its way into us.  A vampire can be anybody, that's the scary part. They walk around in broad daylight and carry on with same agenda as Stoker's character, to survive by feeding off of others, leaving them starving whilst planting a corrupt seed. What is truly sad is the state of tarnished innocence that the victim is left in because once it is lost it's not something that can be regained. As Henry David Thoreau said, "There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted".

A great literary and cinematic example of the idea of the vampire is that of "The Devil Wears Prada". A story where successful NYU student and paper editor, Andrea "Andy" Sachs, goes to work for major fashion magazine editor, Miranda Priestly. From the start Andy has a child-like innocence to the world of fashion but relies on her quick wit and intelligence. The crass and demanding Miranda does her best to try to break Andy by having her perform Herculean tasks that seem impossible but Andy fulfills them. Miranda is the vampire.  She sucks the life force from Andy by eating her time, and pushing her to do the impossible for her  own gain at the cost of stress on Andy's interpersonal relationships with her boyfriend and group of close night friends whilst her own relationships are crumbling due to her life choices. In the midst of being fed upon, Andy starts to change, becoming someone she truly isn't. This shift almost costs Andy what matters most, her relationships, her life source. When given the opportunity to continue in the way that Miranda has, she turns it down and regains herself before fully losing it.

As shown in "The Devil Wears Prada", vampires come in all shapes and sizes and can be hard to detect due to their sometimes charming velour. We must remember that the vampires we've heard in stories our entire lives are just reminders of the darkness that lies within people and how the transfer of the darkness or the "feeding" is subtle. All we can do is examine ourselves and don't get bitten. Vampires are real so look out.http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/henrydavid153931.html

Double double, boil and bubble, is communion worth the trouble?

As a child, I grew up to love the Harry Potter movies (based on the book series by J.K. Rowling). One common image that came back in every movie was that of the great dining hall. Every year the students would return and commune together to celebrate their triumphs, languish over their defeats, and find refuge in the camaraderie of their tables. Even though the student loved to stuff their faces, they were not just communing but sharing in the experience of one another.

Using an example as Harry Potter alone shows that, communing doesn't have to be a religious event even though when most think about the word, a picture of the last supper pops up in their head. Communing isn't just eating either as those who taking a Freudian approach to it would think. When someone sits down to share a meal with somebody else, their encounter becomes communion because they are "breaking bread" with one another. This encounter is the same as fellowship.

Because Communion often is thought to have a religious or formal setting, it often hard to believe that it and fellowship are not that different. By definition Communion is the sharing of intimate thoughts and experiences with others but does that not include fellowship in the process? The religious use of the word communion makes that connection more clear because again, people often think of the fellowship of the last supper.

In my own life I have experienced that even though communing with one another is an essential social interaction, it is not always easy to share such an intimate experience. Eating with others can be a challenge when the food is not good, people are messy eaters, or most importantly, food becomes a distraction from the importance of the moment. Food is what we surround ourselves with when we commune but ultimately it is about the experience of connecting with another person on an intimate level using food as a common ground into another person emotional bubble. In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Ron, Hermione, start the basis of their friendship by communing over candy from the candy cart. In the end it wasn't about the candy, it was about using something familiar and loved to connect to another person.

On the other hand, I've spoken to many people who have said eating around others is a vulnerable occasion because eating when other are around brings about anxiety and insecurities about food and people to the surface. This is a good thing because the best way to work through our problems, even if they base off of something as familiar as food is, together and with support.

Rather it be a huge buffet or cheese and crackers, Communion is something divine that can reaches everyone in all realms. It doesn't matter if a person is rich, poor, black, white,young or old. It brings about fellowship and helps to connect people on a divine level that we can't understand. This happens through simple eating. Who would have thought?

http://www.wearethepractitioners.com/library/the-practitioner/2013/10/30/sometimes-a-cigar-is-just-a-cigar