Our Town, act 3

I thought that this act was very interesting as it deals with death. During the previous acts we get the different stages of life, and now we are at Emily's funeral. The one thing that I focused on is when Emily asks to go back to a day in her life so that she can re-live it. She is told that it is a bad idea and when she asks to go back to an important day, she is shut down and told to go back to a day that is boring and has little importance. Going back after you're dead must be very weird, and you get to see all the little things that you stress over that never even mattered. We do not really get to see how precious our life is and the everyday things that we can experience and learn, until we go back. Emily wished that she would have never done it and I think that is important. We do not appreciate the little things in life and I think that is why they told her to go to a day that didn't matter, the simplicity is something that is taken for granted and it really shows.

Our Town

While reading the first Act of Our Town, there was a few things that I couldn't help but notice. For one, the fact that the director was stopping the play right in the middle to tell characters to get off stage or for the audience to ask questions opened my eyes. The director had total control and I thought it was a little weird how it was written that way with so many interruptions. Another thing that I focused on was the title. Since it is called "Our Town" and not Grovers Corners it made it feel like a more general town. We see from the start that there are not really any props so it is up to our imaginations. The characters seem to be generalized so we can kind of picture this town like any other. One relationship that caught my attention was the mother - daughter relationship. When they're at the table and the daughter asks her mother if she is pretty she doesn't exactly have anything to say or when she does it is to general. I feel like many mothers (like my own) go above and beyond to comfort their daughter and tell her yes she is beautiful and someone will want her, but she doesn't really do that.

Movie vs. Huck Finn

Since we just read Huck Finn only a week ago, I still had the book on my mind. Although there were not any black characters or black-white relationships in the film, I think that it forced us to look at other relationships in the movie, or at least that is what I focused on. One relationship which I really concentrated on is the young boy and the new “father.” All I could think of when seeing these scenes were Huck and his father, Pap. All that both of the “fathers” were after was the money, and they would both do anything to get it. In Huck Finn, Pap went to the lengths of locking him up in a cabin to fend from himself. In the movie, their new “father” even killed the mother and tried killing the little children as well when they would not tell him where the money was. Both of these works showed me the theme of greed and the things people would do to get rich. I never really thought about this theme before when dealing with Huck Finn because I think there is so much more to the plot in that story. Another thing that I looked at was the relationship of Ms. Watson and the woman taking care of the little children in the film. Both of these characters were motherly figures but we got to see the difference in the way that the little boys take to her. Huck does not want to be civilized and runs away. Huck stays at Ms. Watson’s in the beginning but does not really enjoy it but instead thinks of suicide and a way of escape. In the film, the boy really seems to confide in the motherly figure when he asks her to tell him the story of the kings again and grabs her hand. He and his sister in the end are adopted and we see him hugging her after giving him a Christmas present. He seems to enjoy having a mother figure and we see a different relationship. There are different characters in the book and the movie, but also some of the same. Watching the film and reading the book made me look at character relationships like I haven’t before. I found a new theme of power of greed in Huck Finn which I sort of looked past before watching the film so I do think it allows us to consider Huck Finn in a new light. I was forced to look at different relationships and I think the film was worth watching so we can look deeper into the book.