Rewrite:The Orator.

I thought this visual text would be a perfect idea for my rewrite, since it's a definite post-colonial based Movie as well as the fact that the main character in this movie himself is very Quiet in a lot of ways. The movie is all in Samoan, based in Samoa and is produced and directed by a Samoan as well. Saili, (main character) is given a hard time about being a Dwarf and the size he is in the village. However he shows throughout the movie that he is not intimidated at all by others , with the help and encouragement from his wife who unfortunately passes away towards the end because of a bad sickness she had. After being anointed to become one of many chiefs of the village , he didn't step up to his title until the day he went to his wife's family village to claim her body back respectfully for himself to bury at their home. A lot of cultural aspects is taken into place in this movie but what I wanted to re-write about particularly were parts where Saili would sit down quietly and just think to himself. I will , if possible bring out what his thoughts are during those times.    

An Ideal Husband rewrite.

Oscar Widle in this peice of literature addresses the negative (and somewhat hypocritical)
effects of Moral society. In the play Morals are upheld as being of utmost importance. One character however, saves the marriage of the protaganist (Robert Chiltern), by convincing his wife that love should previal over her high moral standards of "an ideal husband". Though this seems honorable and revolutionary to an extent, I want to re-write this in the modern time, reversing the situation.

In 1895 (the time of the play), Morals were everything. Oscar Wilde critiques this, by writing from his Aesthetic standpoint, with the idea that love conquers all in this play.

In 2013, which is when my re-write is set, Aesthetics (pleasure) is everything and means everything.

My goal for this text is to critiques Wilde's views and accept that though he had important points, An ideal is found in a balance between living by Aesthetics as well as Morals.

I will come from a Postcolonial standpoint in my writing, accepting that Wilde thought that his ideal was better than that of morals. However, when Aesthetics takes over, we have seen widespread discourse (eg, binge drinking culture). Upon my post-colonial reflection, I have deduced that niether extremes are ideal.

In my re-write I will flip the characters around. Lord Arthur Goring was the one who represented the Aethsetic. He will become an upright, moral member of society.

Here are my planned characters:

Lord Goring: Morals and Pleasure in balance, but doesn't really fit in with many people becuase he focuses on his job etc.

Lord Caversham (Goring's father): Drunken, womanising father who is disapointed in his son becuase he believes he is a too uptight. He verbally abuses his son.

Robert Chiltern: Gorings best friend. He is in a de facto relationship. He lives for pleasure, but it actually makes him feel worse becuase he is in a deep debt. He is a local body politian.

Gertrude Chiltern ( Roberts wife): Hippie, drugs, alcoholic

Laura Chevely: Tries to seduce Goring and bring Chiltern down.

Not sure if I will change the names yet. The post-colonial ideas that I will tackle in my re-write are those of Moral high ground, versus living for Aesthetic pleasure, and how society really turns out when everyone is all on one side.

Appreciate any and all feedback.

Hi,

For my re-write I was thinking of doing Shakespeare’s play of King Lear. I want to write from the perspective of Cordelia, Lears youngest daughter, who is banished by his father for not properly faltering him. Cordelia is only present for the introduction and conclusion of the play I would like to write what may have happened during her banishment. Some ideas I could write about are her feelings of rejection from her family, jealousy of her sisters and her choice to return to her father.

I always felt sorry for Cordelia she only did what was right and was continually punished for it.

Any ideas?

Brief 1 Re-write: Manga plot

Hello all,

Hope we all going well with our rewrites.

It really took me a while to learn about what post-colonial is and I'm still not sure if I'm going the right way.

In general, post-colonial is about resisting place and culture alienating (people who were brought from their "home" to new places they've never been to), reviving native cultures that were once suppressed and so on. From a point of view of a descendant of a colonised country, this post-colonial theory raises considerably amount of awareness upon reading a piece of literature. I tried to recall my memory of stories, fantasy fictions and movies that may trigger the theory but I can't quite say what the oppressed wanted to say. Newspaper is said to be another source that post-colonial can appear but I haven't got the hang of it.

As of now I chose to go with the manga called SHINGEKI NO KYOJIN (Attack on the titan). It's original can be found here.

So then, the idea here is there are a bunch of titan-transformers in the middle of the human and they are quite alienate themselves and their human friends. I decided to give them a say based on their feeling about the place and the people (who only look at them as monsters). On another hand, the walls which protect the minority of human is actually made from titans, this mean the titan-transformers may end up the same or wipe the humans out themselves as other titans other than them seem to be witless and only move on instinct.

My idea isn't complete yet. Let me know if you have any suggestions, I'll be more than happy to hear it. :)

Simon

Of Mice and Men Rewrite

Just finished watching the Of Mice and Men 1992 film (if you haven't seen it, it is a great watch!) and am leaning towards my original idea of being in George's head a little more and and share the process of how/why he decided to shoot his best friend and how it effected him in the future.
After watching the film and being part way in reading the book, i find it really interest the link between candy and his old dog also being shot in the head to "stop him from hurting it's self" and Lenny.

Thinking George too felt this way about Lenny, that he's no good to himself and instead of being hurt and misunderstood constantly (Lenny) that it is better to him not to ever be hurt again... I find it very interesting the love George shows through out the novel to Lenny but then takes this 'sudden' action.

I think using candy in the story as for shadowing the ending (ie dog) can be continued when i add to the ending of the novel. After Candy's dog was shot for a few days he was down and out, but then hope became  his 'crutch' some may say. He focused on the house him, Lenny and George were going to buy, specially now he doesn't have to bring his old dog anywhere. It's almost like he can start doing things that he could before because he always had that dog with him. Maybe we will see the same with George, doing things he couldn't do before because of Lenny... And maybe strive to get that house more than ever to keep him promise to Lenny.

Anyway those are my thought thus far.

Holly Adams

Rewrite Idea... Bible story?

As an aspiring Christian writer, I wanted to rewrite a story in the bible.

It actually sounds pretty blasphemous... but never fear, I will do a lot of research here.

My idea is about the "Woman at the well"

She doesn't have a name, all we know about her is that she had five husbands and lived with a guy who wasn't her husband at a time which considered this most scandalous.
Oh. She was also a Samaritan, which meant Jews refused to talk to them, plus she was a woman - which meant men did not talk to them.

So... she's a victim of three things. One: Sexism Two: Racism and lastly: Level of sin?

The fact that a lone lady is coming to a well in middle of noon, the well being the focal point of gossip and social interaction, shows how much she was scorned. Probably because of the above description of her. But why? What gives these other well ladies the right to scorn her? They have never sinned in their entire life? I felt pretty strong about this part. This self given right is always the root of all oppression. "Men are better because Female sinned/ Men are better because we are stronger etc" "Jews are better because Samaritans believed the wrong bible" "I'm better because I sin less than that woman"
So! I thought this would be a great opportunity to show the views of these oppressed people from the woman's eyes.

The interesting thing is: After she meets Jesus, she becomes the key figure in leading the Samaritans to Jesus. So... she must have a pretty strong personality to live through all that and have the courage to gather/save people who scorned her in the past.

So my rewrite will focus on power paradigm. Drawing a parallel line between the oppressed colonizers and oppressed woman back in the days.

I'm playing with the idea if I should make the guy who she is in a relationship with but not husband: into a woman. But perhaps putting ANOTHER reason why she is oppressed is a little too much for the poor lady.

My direction is:

Show the horrible treatment of woman/race/sin level(?) she suffers.
She fights through all the hardship and believes what she wants despite the opposition.
Perhaps the guy she's living with is a wonderful man and she is fighting for happiness with him?
In the end, glimpse of hope as she gets to the well? (where the bible story starts)

This is probably going to change alot, but here's the first planning! :)

Weeks 1-2: Start of an Idea

 It has taken some time for me to come up with an idea for Brief 1's Re-Write, and much of that time involved exploring my literary interests. My interests are quite sporadic since I read whatever grabs my attention, however I do tend to read crime/legal fiction & non-fiction, autobiographies, coming-of-age stories, and a bit from the horror mystery genre. I read often so newspapers, newsletters, magazines, blogs, newsfeeds, online articles/essays make up for the time when I'm not reading a book.

I'm not going to dwell on the exploration process but I settled on basing my re-write on two canonical texts, (The Adventures of ) Sherlock Holmes and Aesop's Fable, The Lion and The Mouse. I'll be integrating The Lion and The Mouse into the Holmes' re-write narrative, as an allegory of the relationship between Holmes and the island of Samoa - set on the southern coastline 18 months after the 2009 Tsunami. The plot will be of a crime mystery nature and it'll be told from a Samoan/Traditional perspective, with the purpose of challenging the British Empire that the characterisation and adventures of Holmes embodies.

Over the coming weeks, I'll be looking into the theories and themes explored in the assigned texts for this paper (Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea, J.M. Coetzee's Foe) as well as those within the canonical texts (including other relevant elements), plus research on events during and after the 2009 Samoa Tsumani that will help with developing my re-write.

There's more to come in regards to the storyline, since it's still work in progress. Not to worry - I'll have it posted up very soon in detail.


Katie

Esther Leaving a little early Monday night

Hi everyone,

I sent out a message via AUTonline, but I also wanted to add here that I will have to leave a little after 5pm tomorrow night (Monday, week 5) due to a family commitment.
The lab will remain open for you all to use, and I will be there to catch up with everyone at 4pm.

Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause,
See you tomorrow, Esther :)

Thoughts on the re-write...

When I first starting thinking about this assignment, I wanted to do something epic - and bible stories came to mind. I was thinking about the story of Lot's wife who was turned into a pillar of salt for looking back when Sodom and Gomorrah burned. We never even know her name but her story always kinda stood out to me when I was a kid and subjected to Sunday School. The story goes that Lot received two visitors, (angels in disguise) who had come to destroy the city because the people there were so depraved. Lot took them in for the night and protected them from the city folk braying for their blood. The city guys gathered at Lot's house and asked him to deliver the visitors "so that we may know them" - apparently this is code for "we want to shag them". Lot says nah, you can't have these dudes but take my two virgin daughters instead. Nice one Dad! I imagine that Lot's wife wouldn't be too stoked about this prospect. In return for protecting them, the angels warn Lot that they're going to destroy the city and tell him to make a run for it with his family. They are told not to look back but Lot's wife can't resist - hence the transformation into a pillar of salt. For what? Not obeying the patriarchy? God? Depending on what version you read, some say she was punished with salt because she forgot the salt in the bread when she cooked for her husband's mysterious visitors. A bit harsh! So anyway I was thinking the story has elements of 'female oppression' - i.e the fact that she remains nameless and that her daughters are offered to the crowd to protect the visiting men. The women seem kind of voiceless to me, yet suffer the most. The story also has elements of homophobia and suspicion of strangers or outsiders. Food for thought.

HOWEVER...

I just read the new book by John Boyne (who wrote The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas) - it's called This House is Haunted. I think it has a lot in common with Jane Eyre. It's basically a ghost story (no kidding!) set in the 1860's about an orphaned 21 year old who accepts a job as a governess in Norfolk. Everything is of course, not as it seems and it turns out the house is haunted by the children's mother who was hanged the year before for murdering their previous governess and attempting to murder her husband. Her husband survived the attack, but has been left totally mutilated and lo and behold, he's hidden away in the attic (with his head all bashed in - not a pretty sight). Anyway, the mother (Santina) was Spanish, brought to England in her late teens by her new husband and not really accepted into his family (Monied English society and all that). In her childhood she had been a victim of sexual abuse and therefore when she has children of her own she becomes quite manic, and wont let anyone take care of them, lest they be hurt. When her husband insists on hiring a governess - the done thing in their circles - she loses the plot entirely and beats the governess to death with a fire iron. Awesome! Anyway, I would quite like to give Santina a voice - to describe the events of her childhood, her alienation in England, her fears (irrational or not) etc, which all ultimately lead to her freak out (very Wide Sargasso Sea-esque). Even in death she can't leave her kids and is depicted as this evil spectre up to no good but I'd love to rewrite her as a mother who fiercely defends her children no matter what - providing protection that she never had as a kid back in Madrid.

ReWrite - The Outsiders

I am still trying to decide what to do a rewrite on, first thing that came to mind however was the text 'the outsiders' by S.E.Hinton. I quite like that story so now I'll have to choose a character to bring to life, so to speak. I was actually going to rewrite on a piece of literature from the Polynesian literature but couldn't find anything, still looking though. If nothing comes up i'll stick with 'The Outsiders'

Well, this is what I have thus far. Work in progress :)

Thus far I have decided to focus on Ponyboy's (main character) eldest sibling, Darrel, nicknamed Darry. I have chosen to have him as my focus point because he is mentioned often during the text and is the one who is holding their family (3 siblings, all boys) together. Their parents were killed in a car accident leaving Darry playing the 'parent' role to keep the 3 boys together.

As suggested, I'll start off by pointing out Darry's characteristics from the text and carry on from there

• Loyal
• Protective
• Rough
• Caring (shows it in an unusual way, especially towards his younger brother - Ponyboy) - hard love
• Plays parent role to help his younger siblings Sodapop and Ponyboy stay together
• Short tempered
• Hard Worker - has two jobs to support his brothers, does house work, etc
• Mature for a 20 year old and looking after his siblings
• unofficial leader of their little 'gang' the greasers
• Smart and Successful - "Darry didn’t deserve to work like an old man when he was only twenty. He had been a real popular guy in school; he was captain of the football team and he had been voted Boy of the Year. But we just didn’t have the money for him to go to college, even with the athletic scholarship he won. And now he didn’t have time between jobs to even think about college." (Hinton, 1967)
• physically fit, the greasers (gang) call him superman

Reference List

Hinton, S. (1967). The Outsiders. United States: Viking Press, Dell Publishing.

Nia's Re-Write - sione's wedding & sione 2: unfinished buisness

This idea came to me while I was looking through my small library of movies. I came across the movies Sione’s Wedding and Sione 2: Unfinished Business. Watching these, I quickly realized that I could not fathom the fact that Sione was having extramarital affairs with multiple women, despite already having a wife and kids. The first movie was based on Sione’s Wedding and it was romantically captivating at the end with the wedding ceremony. Sione looked lulled by his new wife and her by him. Yet, in Sione 2, Sione is not only deceiving his family, but he is also dead. I could hardly comprehend his deceitful manner, yet alone, fathom he was already dead!

So, what I would like to know is, how someone could go from romantically lulled, to deceitful ignorance. Better yet, how Sione’s moral compass became so broken?

This re-write idea is a voice of reason for Sione’s transition between the two sequel movies, Sione’s Wedding and Sione 2: Unfinished Business. 

Re-write Ideas (Brainstorming)

For my first Assignment I was thinking of re-writing a superman comic called Superman: New Krypton. Written by Geoff Johns, James Robinson, and Sterling Gates with art by Gary Frank, Alex Ross, Renato Guedes, Jamal Igle and Pete Woods and published by DC comics. 

The synopsis of the entire story arc is about an entire Kryptonian city of Kandor (from the planet Krypton) now resides near the Fortress of Solitude in the North Pole, populated by 100,000 Kryptonians.

Although distracted by the recent death of his father Jonathan Kent, Superman attempts to aid the Kryptonians in their assimilation with the rest of the Earth, something very few Kryptonians seem interested in, including the city’s leaders, Zor-El and Alura, Supergirl’s parents.

What I hope to do with text is to re-write from the perspective of Batman (Bruce Wayne) and his thoughts on the assimilation of the new alien race with an already over populated planet. The re-write will look into Batman's mind, especially his worries with 100,000 supermen flying around. 

Title goes here....

So we are suppose to give voice to a voiceless character in a book and tell their story....Well I think I'm going to do that Nana from "Peter Pan" she literally does not have a voice because she is a dog. I started to read J. M Barrie's and at the start of the novel Nana does not have any 'lines' so to speak. Only her actions, which are sometimes interpreted by either the narrator or one of the other characters, tell us her story. I think I'm going to do something akin to "Wide Sargasso Sea" with Nana; give her background story along with her view of Peter. Not 100% sure where this will go, but I think reading the true story will help some.

Midnight's Children - A Re-Write

Being of Indian descent and knowing fairly little about my ancestors' motherland I am constantly striving to gain more knowledge of India. I have recently stumbled upon a movie named Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, and enjoyed it so much that I have acquired a copy of the book on which it was based.
As with most books that have been converted to movies, the real essence resides within the pages of the book. Rushdie had spent 2 years on downsizing the 600 page book into a 130 page script (Nolen, Stephanie,2011). 

Midnight's Children is a tale of an Indian boy named Saleem who is born on the stroke of midnight with telepathic abilities, he discovers that he isn't the only one with special abilities, he 'sees' other children who have been born close to midnight with similar abilities and is constantly battling with his identity and India's transition into independence. 

The writer uses characters and symbols as allegories of events in India which happened before, after and during India's independence and partition (Pakistan and Bangladesh.)

It was awarded the "Booker of Bookers" Prize and the best all-time prize winners in 1993 and 2008 to celebrate the Booker Prize 25th and 40th anniversary. In 2003, the novel was listed on the BBC's survey The Big Read. It was also added to the list of Great Books of the 20th Century, published by Penguin Books.

I feel that by basing my re-write on this book, it will not only give me an insight into India's rich past, but also will give me an opportunity to  explore what it would be like to have lived back then in a colonized India transitioning into a post-colonized India (like my ancestors).

Idea for Rewrite

Hey guys!

For my rewrite I'm planning to do it on the film Lion King, a very popular Disney children's film. I want to write from the perspective of Scar, Mufasa's brother and Simba's uncle. In the film he is portrayed as the bad guy.
I'm still not sure how it will relate to the themes of the paper, I'm still a bit new to post-colonial themes. Perhaps being socially oppressed? An outcast from the other lions because of the colour of his fur? Issues of racism, neglect, being the minority, could all come to play in this rewrite.
I want to write about events that happen prior to the events of the first film. Some ideas could be the severed relationship between him and his brother - jealousy, family issues, identity, etc. An idea of finding his place in the world and a place he belongs (where it be with the hyenas or the pride). Also, how his past has transformed him into the bad lion that is portrayed in the film.

Scar is actually one of my favourite characters from the film, he's a brooding figure, malicious and cunning. With the rewrite I really want to dive into the reasons he had become like this (this would be entirely fictional of course and may not agree with the film's portrayal).

I would really like to hear what you guys think about this idea. Or should I think of something else to write about?

Thanks!

Of Mice and Men Idea

Hi,

I was thinking of doing the John Steinbeck novel 'Of Mice and Men' as I loved it in school. One thought was to continue the ending of the novel and follow George on his difficult journey (after just shooting his best friend Lennie in the head).  However not too sure how to connect that within the frame work of this assignment.
My other idea is to give voice to the only black hand on the ranch, Crooks. A bitter older man who decides he can trust both George and Lennie. But why is he bitter, lonely and angry in the first place? I would love to give him a voice and to give reason to the reader as to why he may be like this.

So those are my two ideas, im thinking the second one may be much 'easier' to fit into the assignment frame work.

Holly

Initial Ideas.

An Ideal Husband is probably Oscar Wilde's most popular play after "The Importance of being Earnest". It is set in 1895 and contains themes of love, marriage and the role of women. The "Hero" of the story is Lord Albert Goring, who is a dandy- someone who values Aesthetics over morals. Aesthetics are the most important part of life, and dandyism became somewhat of a cult in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Oscar Wilde was himself a Dandy, and Lord Goring is a personification of Wilde. I want to re-write the play in way that exposes Dandyism for what it really is, or what it has become: commercialism. In the play, Goring is the Hero because he saves his friends marriage by asking his wife to loosen her moral standards so that she can continue to love her husband. This works in this time period, because Morals prevailed so strongly in Victorian society.

However, nowadays, the Aesthetic-Moral relationship as been flipped right around. What we have now is a society where the majority hold little regard for moral integrity, and hold Aesthetics, (in the form of commercialism) in high esteem. I want to address this issue by having one character (in the  minority) taking the high moral ground, while the rest of the characters value Aethetics. I was thinking of telling a story of finiacal instability, so that the people in the play, despite that fact that they have no money, still try to buy all of the latest material, aesthetic things.

This will be a direct reflection of how in "An Ideal Husband", The Victorian moralists hide their somewhat shady and corrupt histories.

Still have to work out the plot properly. What do you guys think? Is anyone familiar with this play that can offer any advice?

Thanks,
Josh

ideas for re-write

I'm a little bit lost with all the ideas for re-write,
and I am thinking towards re-writing a character from "The Great Gatsby".
Myrtle Wilson - Tom's lover, whose lifeless husband George owns a run-down garage in the valley of ashes. Myrtle herself possesses a fierce vitality and desperately looks for a way to improve her situation. I want to write in her perspective of life but I am unsure of relating to post-colonialism..

Please help me if you have any ideas thanks