Bel Canto : An Unrealistic Fairytale

There are numerous genre’s in literature, but the level of importance and influence on an individual will differ. Exposure to books and stories is especially important for children because it their chance to acclimate themselves to written language and in turn create their own visuals for the toneless words. “Why Fairy Tales Matter: The Performative and the Transformative”, by Maria Tatar contains an ample amount of textual evidence from author’s research into fairytales, as well as writer’s personal experiences with fairytales. Although Tatar supports her claims with evidence, her resources are not concrete, and seems excessive at times. Also, her assertions are weakened by her failure to defend her conclusion against competing beliefs.

Author Jeanette Walls is an example of someone who has preserved and made something of herself despite the fact that she has a less-than-normal childhood. Her parents Rose Mary and Rex Walls struggled at time to parent efficiently, as shown in Jeannette Walls’ memoir of her childhood The Glass Castle. In the recalling of her unique and sometimes disturbing childhood, Walls paints a picture of inadequate parenting, dangerous techniques used on her siblings and herself, and events that may have inflicted permanent damage on the Walls children. Not only Jeannette, but her other siblings Brian, Lori, and Maureen Walls were also negatively affected by the way they were raised and the things that happened to them under their parent’s watch. Rose

I know they say that every fairytale starts with “Once upon a time…” but honestly this fairytale happened last week and it won’t be all that magical to tell you. I guess I should probably introduce myself right? Hi, I’m Cinderella. I’m just your average blonde who looses glass slippers at balls. Don’t let me fool you though. This story has absolutely nothing to do with me. I’m just the narrator.

Once upon a time, there was a literary genre commonly know as fairy tales. They were mystical and wonderful and a child’s fantasy. These fairy tales were drastically misunderstood throughout many centuries, however. They endured a hard life of constant changing and editing to fit what the people of that time wanted. People of our own time are responsible for some of the radical changes endured by this undeserved genre. Now, these fairy tales had a young friend named Belle. Belle thought she knew fairy tales very well, but one day she found out just how wrong she was.

Most cultures have traditional tales about wishes that don’t work because, these wishes probably won’t happen in real life. For example, if your wish is to be able to fly. It can’t actually happen. And, if you had to choose a wish. It will probably be a wish that is unreal. And these wishes will never come true, so why would tales want to give false hope. In conclusion, some tales have wishes that come true. But, the tales in which the tales don’t come true, are more realistic.

Through the words the author weaves together, despite the terrorists evil intentions, as the hostages start to bond with their captors from Stockholm syndrome, the audience also falls in love with the characters. The beautifully written Bel Canto made me feel like I was with them in the mansion, transporting me right next to the characters.

Triumphant reward in spite of unjust punishment is a universal sentiment that transcends languages and cultures. There are thousands of folktales and fairy tales that are firmly rooted in individual cultures, yet the tale of Cinderella has been told through many centuries and throughout the far corners of the world. With thousands of versions of this classic tale in print worldwide, the tale is believed to have originated with the story of Rhodopis, a Greek slave girl who is married to an Egyptian King. The story of Rhodopis, which means rosy-cheeks, dates back to 7 BC and is attributed to a Greek geographer named Strabo. The Chinese variation of this fairy tale is named Yeh-hsien. The Chinese version is traceable to the year 860 and appears in Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang by Duan Chengshi. Yeh-hsien is a young girl, motherless and in the control of her stepmother, who befriends a treasured fish. The jealous step-mother kills the fish, but it’s bones provide Yeh-hsien with magical powers, eventually enabling Yeh-hsien to escape the control of her step-mother for a royal life. The Story of the Black Cow which is found within the pages of Folk Tales from the Himalayas by John Murray, published in 1906, the child who is mistreated by a stepmother is a male and the role of savior is portrayed by a snake, with a cow serving as the moral of the story, faithfulness. These two versions of Cinderella carry many common threads that are

Norma Elia Cantu’s novel “Canícula: Imágenes de una Niñez Fronteriza” (“Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera”), which chronicles of the forthcoming of age of a chicana on the U.S.- Mexico border in the town of Laredo and Nuevo Laredo in the 1940s-60s. Norma Elia Cantú brings together narrative and the images from the family album to tell the story of her family. It blends authentic snapshots with recreated memoirs from 1880 to 1950 in the town between Monterrey, Mexico, and San Antonio, Texas. Narratives present ethnographic information concerning the nationally distributed mass media in the border region. Also they study controversial discourse that challenges the manner in which the border and its populations have been

The mayor made a drastic decision to set the prisoners free to keep them safe from the fire as well. So, they were released into the midst of the burning streets. Albeit, the police thought the prisoners would run and seek shelter. . . that is quiet the opposite. The prisoners rushed into the streets and begin smashing windows of abandon buisnesses and homes, looting them of their goods.

There is nothing more precious and heartwarming than the innocence of a child. The majority of parents in society want to shield children from the bad in life which is appreciated. Within human nature exists desires of inappropriate behavior; envy, deceit, selfishness, revenge, violence, assault and murder. The most well-known fairy tales depict virtue and the evil in life. Even more important, the form and structure of fairy tales suggest images to the child by which he can structure his daydreams and with them give a better direction to his life. (Bettelheim).

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett The theme of the novel draws its most core intensities from the art of opera. Patchett fantastically utilizes the language and the pathos of music for the examination of jungle born revolutionaries and the international hostages. This novel reflects our extraordinary aptitude to structure emotional associations in improbable and shaky ways. Manette Ansay, author of Midnight Champagne says: "Let me put this plainly: Ann Patchett has written the best book I have read in a long, long time. Bel Canto is a masterpiece to its title, a beautiful song, and a broad, bold entirely original love story destined to become an international classic. This is the book we all wait for, the one we thrust into the hands of friends, saying, 'You've got to read this! You've got to read this now!'" According to The New York Times Book Review: "Expect miracles when you read Ann Patchett’s fiction." The plot captures the attention right from the opening. The action begins with the very first sentence of the novel as the lights drop out during a party at the mansion of the vice president of a poor revolution-torn South American country and suddenly a band of terrorists flood in the room from the upstairs, from behind curtains, through the doors, and even from inside the heating vents. Terrorists were aimed at kidnapping the country's president, but their ambition and the whole strategy is hindered when they discovered that he was not among the guests. The

Fortunately, the negotiators were able to extend the deadline to five p.m. in order to buy more time. However, the terrorists refused to back down on their demands and Israel also refused to release the 234 prisoners. At that point, a confrontation became inevitable (Rosenberg). Around 10:30

The plot of the story unfolded as Jeremiah Donavan revealed that the prisoners were actually hostages and that there was a possibility that they would have to execute the Englishmen. As the story continued to unfold, the possibility became reality when Feeney the intelligence officer revealed that the prisoners were ordered to be executed. It is in this pivotal moment that the conflict of the story arises and that the soldiers are faced with a conflict that in turn, proves to be deeply complex in that it is both internal and external.

1. What is the genre of this story? Are there any other possible genres this story could fall into?

As we grow up, we hear fairy tales and we read them into our lives. Every word and every image is imprinted into our minds. The fairy tales we read are never abandoned. They grow with us and our dreams become molds of the many morals and happily ever afters fairy tales display. We tell children fairy tales when they go to sleep and they read them in school and we even have them watch Disney adaptions that reinforce them further. Generally, they were everywhere while we grew up and they continue to be present while children are growing up now. But what influence do these stories have? We casually expose our children to these tales, but in some cases they can have particularly, harmful personal effects on them, although there is nothing completely or visibly “bad” about them or about the characters in them. Before we divulge our youth to these stories, we should assess their substance and see what sort of effect they may be having on them. They have received so much scrutiny and have been studied by many. Recognizing fairy tales effects on the minds of children is vital in their development. This paper will focus on the underlying messages that the average person wouldn’t recognize in these everyday stories. There’s a modern distort with fairy tales because while they still are widely popular with the youth, they influence children’s self images, outlooks on reality and expectations for their futures, especially for young women.