Spring break blog! Third Prompt

The Juxtaposition of the Magical and the Mundane

From the depths of Piers Anthony's imagination comes A Spell for Chameleon, a fantasy story set in a magical country drawn in parallel to our own world, aptly called "Mundania." This magical country is known as Xanth, structurally similar to the state of Florida, except rife with enchanted objects, paranormal creatures, and literal puns. Enriched by their magical atmosphere, the citizens of Xanth look down upon and pity the "Mundanes," who have actually technologically surpassed the Xanthians and live far more comfortable lives than the backwards and medieval society of Xanth.

The story opens with a character named Bink, a citizen of Xanth in danger of exile for not possessing a magic talent. His society is governed by a senile King that is unable to protect the village from the ravages of the wilderness, and so Bink sets out to prove his worth and define his magic. Upon banishment to the evils of Mundania, Bink is astounded to find a thriving Mundane society, built upon science and military might. The two different, yet parallel lands showcase different aspects of advancement--the exalted Xanth stagnating in its medieval values, with the most basic of technology and heavy reliance on magic, as compared to the supposedly inferior Mundania, bereft of magic but flourishing with its capable leaders and scientific innovation.

The senile King of Xanth is in stark contrast with the handsome and urbane Trent of Mundania, a resourceful man that had risen to the rank of General by his own ability. In Xanth, hierarchy is determined by the strength of one's magical talent, with those with "spot on the wall" variety talents making up the lower class of society. In Mundania, personal advancement results from one's own ability and ambition.

Despite the benefits of life in Mundania, Trent's objective is to use Bink to find his way into Xanth. Once in Xanth, Trent swiftly deposes the senile king and erects a new regime, opening the borders to Mundanes and creating an influx of new blood into Xanth. Ultimately, this causes the rule of man to once again assert dominance in the magical region and firmly establishes Xanth's Golden Age.

Overreliance on magic stagnated the way of life for the Xanthians, and while their land was heralded as a "paradise," Xanth was rife with dangers such as dragons and malignant demons. The age of man dwindled with the rule of the senile king. In Mundania, the absence of magic promoted the development of science and technology, and the dominion of man in their world. When Mundania overran Xanth, the magical country benefited from the sound leadership and practical experience that the Mundanes could supply.

A long-forgotten story, patchwork memories.

Out of the classics of Greek mythology, Sophocles brings to life the tragic story of Antigone. The character Antigone is faced with a crippling moral dilemma as she is forced to choose between following the word of King Creon and obeying the edicts of the gods. The plot follows the death of Antigone's brother who is declared a traitor by his homeland and denied the rites of burial, leaving his soul bound between life and death. According to Creon, the person who buries the traitor's body will be killed; but leaving the body unburied is to leave Antigone's brother to a fate worse than death, a fundamental crime to humanity. Antigone faces her internal conflict as she considers defying the rule of the king and society to secure for her brother his proper funeral.

Creon regarded honoring the dead body of a traitor to be a sin. From the start of the play, Antigone's sister Ismene is pleading with her not to risk Creon's wrath, because the consequence is death. Regardless, Antigone repudiates Ismene, buries the body, and is condemned to being entombed alive by Creon. Antigone speaks no word in her defense, but vehemently challenges Creon to continue defying the will of the gods. It is revealed that the entire society agreed with Antigone's actions but refrained from speaking out due to fear of Creon; the conflict of Antigone was not a singular person's moral conflict, but the will of a society oppressed by tyranny. A prophet tells Creon that his actions have brought down a curse from the gods; Sophocles describes the resulting catastrophe of the "curse from the gods" as Creon's son and wife take their lives because of Creon's actions.

In this play, Antigone meets a grim end because of her conflict, but Creon, the instigator, is left with a far worse fate. Sophocles clearly demonstrates that in the conflict of the gods' will versus man's will, to defy the gods is to invite disaster. Antigone accepted the consequences of her actions because she believed the alternative to be far worse.

First blog post, and it's about homework.

A kaleidoscope of broken glass and shattered memories create the forlorn script of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie. The three main characters, Tom, Laura, and Amanda, are all curiously out of touch with their own reality and the play describes their wretched existence in the delusion of their stagnant idiosyncrasies.

Laura, in particular, is devoted to her collection of glass figurines. As a character, Laura is described as painfully shy, up to the point where her shyness actively interferes with her life and her interactions with other characters. Instead of getting a job and a husband, as Amanda urges her to do, Laura occupies herself with her glass menagerie. When Jim, the potential suitor, comes a-callin', Laura shyly shows him the prize of her collection--the glass unicorn.

Unicorns are symbolic of innocence and purity, and in this case, loneliness. Jim points out that unicorns are extinct in the modern world, much like Laura herself, who is unable to function outside of her glass menagerie. Laura expresses a wish that the unicorn wouldn't feel out of place with the regular horses in her collection. Later in the scene, the unicorn's horn breaks off. Jim, in the midst of hauling Laura up to dance, knocks into the table and the unicorn figure falls. Laura graciously accepts Jim's apology and tell him, "Now he will feel more at home with the other horses, the ones that don't have horns..." The unicorn, symbolic of Laura herself, is beginning to assume an aspect of normalcy and "fitting in" with the herd.

Jim, caught up in the moment, kisses Laura, but then anticlimactically reveals that he is engaged to another girl. With that, Laura's hopes and dreams are irreparably shattered, much like the glass unicorn. She retreats back into her dream world and gives the broken unicorn to Jim as a souvenir. The unicorn, once a catalyst of Laura's peculiarity, has forever lost its appeal as an individual and is only a broken remnant of what it used to be.

In The Glass Menagerie, the tragedy of the gentleman caller shatters the dysfunctional family and Laura continues to slip further into her personal delusion. The glass unicorn not only represented Laura's oddities, but also her emotional frailty; when shattered, Laura's sense of reality and her attempts to assimilate into modern society cease to be.