Drifting Dionysus
Dionysus had always been a unique child. Being the only god of all the Greek Gods to have a mortal parent, Semele, and with his violent, unpredictable tempers, his father, Zeus, was forced to send him away, and to live with his grandparents on the isolated suburban area of Hampton, New York. Dionysus was god of the vine, giving him a dual nature, one that was at times joyful and the other that was angry and violent. Since Dionysus mainly lived around elderly people, he was unaware that he was not like other teenagers. With Dionysus’ unpredictable tendencies to wander, one day he found himself in the hectic and dangerous streets of Manhattan, New York,
Stumbling out of Penn Station, Dionysus was surprised to see the differences between Hampton and Manhattan. He came across a small café and he ordered everything green that he could find on the menu. As the midnight hour approached, he left the café with and walked aimlessly around the dark and cold streets of New York, until he was confronted by a group of males. The guys had spotted Dionysus from a park and they immediately thought he was one of the many rich college kids that though it was safe enough to aimlessly stroll around the streets of New York, late at night. Frightened, Dionysus began to run but the boys quickly caught up to him.
“Empty your pockets,” said the oldest boy.
“No”
“I don’t have any money,” said Dionysus
“Fine, give us your watch,” said a younger boy
“No! My grandmother gave it to me.”
As the boys fell over with laughter, the oldest boy began to beat him, but Dionysus was a lot stronger than they thought. Just as Dionysus was about to get away, the boys grabbed a rope and tried to tie him up, but every time they tied a knot, it would fall apart. Realizing that there was something weird about Dionysus, all of the boys started to run down the street, just as the NYPD came flying around the corner, in response to a robbery in the area. Out of all of the boys, Dionysus was caught once again, and brought down to the police station for questioning.
“Where were you coming from at this time of night,” said the officer
“A café on 6th street.”
“Well then, why were you running down 8th street?”
“I was being chased by a group of guys!”
“The tried to rob me and then tie me up, I swear!”
Unsure of whether or not Dionysus was telling the truth, the officer ran his name through the system and discovered that Dionysus was the son of the most powerful, feared, and admired God, (term used when referring to the highest officials of the department) Zeus, of the entire bureau.
After Zeus and Dionysus finally reunited after so many years, Zeus brought him back to meet the rest of his family, but he was not met with great enthusiasm. Dionysus and his cousin, Pentheus, immediately hated each other. Dionysus’ different way of life and his extreme passion for anything green, highly bother Pentheus. So Pentheus gathered a group of his friends, as did Dionysus, and they headed to battle.
“Get off of my property, or I will call the guards.”
“My father owns this property, so it is more mine than it is yours.”
“ Tree hugger!”
“Demon”
“You should not try to battle me, I have special powers!”
Pentheus’s comment about trees triggered Dionysus’ violent side and they began a bloody battle. Pentheus managed to scare off Dionysus’ followers into the hills. As Dionysus calmed down, he once again tried to reason with Pentheus, but his angry overpowered his judgment. Pentheus ran after Dionysus, only to find him surrounded by all of his follower, his sister, and his mother, Semele.
“You tried to hurt my son,” yelled Semele
“When you attempt to hurt a god, you die instead.”
Pentheus immediately realized his wrong doings, but it was merely too late.
As nightfall set, the air became cooler and damp, Dionysus’ followers and everyone
else surrounding the hills grew even angrier, but before anyone realized, Semele quickly and flawlessly lunged at Pentheus.
As the sun rose, a trail of blood and bones could be seen leading up to the hills.
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2 comments:
Megtacognition
I began the story by trying to create a short story based on the myth, The Wanderings of Dionysus.
My ideas were stimulated by the events that occurred in the myth. For instance, after Dionysus wandered from Greece, a group of pirates tried to capture him, however, normal equipment cannot be used to tie him down. Using this information, I used a group of young teenagers to beat up Dionysus and try to tie him down; however, they were incapable because of his strengths. Also, the task of incorporating Hemingway’s style into the story sparked the idea of creating a dialogue between two characters that used short, concise, lines. Also I tried to incorporate his use of technique that has one character pause in the middle of the conversation and then speak again.
My audience is people who enjoy reading Hemingway’s stories and those who can better understand his choice of style. My purpose was to create a short story based on Hemingway’s style of using shot sentences that targeting the most significant points of the story. I also tried to incorporate Hemingway’s style of dialogue that broke down the dialogue line by line and also had one character say one line right after another, in order to have the character pause and then continue, all of which are actions that occur in real-life conversations.
From the first draft to the final draft, I chose to eliminate certain words that did not allow the story to flow easily. I also condensed a few sentences that were too wordy and did not exemplify Hemingway’s style well.
I had trouble with creating a story that could effectively display both Hemingway’s style and at the same time, resemble another story that included some of my ideas. At times, I found myself thinking about where I should take the story next and how it still could connect with similar events in the actual myth.
I repeatedly face roadblocks that involve creating introductory and concluding paragraphs. I have trouble with determining the best method of grabbing the reader’s attention and then ending the story with a line that makes my paper unique and something that they will remember. I can eliminate these problems by planning out my paper more and thinking about the greater meanings of the text, which will lead to in-depth thinking and better thesis statements.
I decided to keep certain things in my paper because I felt they were the core elements that connected my story to both Hemingway’s style and the plot of the myth. For instance, I tried to keep the majority of the sentences short and concise, I also kept the idea that Dionysus and his father reunited and Dionysus went to live with him because in the myth, Dionysus was sent away as a child to live without his parents, but he later returned. The return of Dionysus sparked a number of problems, which I also tried to display in the conclusion of my paper.
Carla and Sodaba helped me after I had finished writing the first draft of my paper.
Both Carla and Sodaba critiqued certain parts of my paper, such as shortening certain lines or using different words to express my ideas, which helped me in deciding with parts to keep or eliminate.
I see improvement in the creative aspect of my writing because it is difficult for me to create a story in general and then modeling that story after another one was an even bigger obstacle that I faced. Specifically shortening particular ideas so that my paper would immediately get to the most specific parts, just as Hemingway does in his writing.
I still need to improve the quality of my paper. Although I used certain important events from the myth, I feel as if I did not explain and/or convey those ideas in the best way. I was a little vague in some areas, as I continued to struggle with getting the point of the story across by using Hemingway’s methods.
My paper’s strengths are attacking the most specific elements of the myth and using them in a condensed format in my story. I also feel that my paper is strong in using Hemingway’s specific techniques of dialogue, such as pauses and parentheses, which gave a little more depth to the character’s situations.
My paper’s weak points are not using the best words to display the meaning of certain situations. Although the words I chose are not extremely complex, another aspect of Hemingway’s style is to choose words that are not very complicated, making his stories more of an easy read.
In the future, I desire to be able to write papers that have well formulated introductory and concluding paragraphs; and ones that clearly identify strong thesis statements. Also, in creative writing, I hope to be able to write papers that give a more unique, funny, and interesting content.
THE HEMINGWAY / FAULKNER DEBATE (Points)
- Argument #2 -
Topic: Hemingway gives limited information
-no personal voice
-says too little
- too much dialogue
A good writer is able to include and engage the readers, all of which Hemingway fails to do.
Hemingway doesn’t:
• take risks or discuss societal issues in this writing:
Faulkner deals with the differences in social classes in “A Rose for Emily” and how these
differences cause a person to be shunned from her community.
Faulkner focuses on issues that the readers generally face in their own lives.
Hemingway, however, doesn’t address issues that readers normally face and when he may discuss particular topics, he tries to go around the topic. For instance, in the Hills Like White Elephants, (121) the guy constantly refers to a “simple operation” and how they just let the air in and then it’s all perfectly natural.” (121). From that, the readers can assume that he is referring to having an abortion, however, Hemingway tries to go around the topic instead of directly stating the conflict.
• Setting
Setting: unspecific, unclear: time place and time frame. In both “Hills Like White Elephants” and “A Clean, Well-Lightened Place,” Hemingway uses similar settings, some bar in Spain.
• Style
Hemingway’s personal style: (159) “He’s drunk now, he said He’s drunk every night” ( 159 footnote) describes that Hemingway favors a style device that causes “the character to pause, then speak again- as often happens in speech.
Dialogue usage:
(158) “Hemingway is a master of swift, terse dialogue, and often castes whole scenes in the form of conversation.” – This device is often confusing, especially since he doesn’t use names, for instance, in “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” he refers to the characters as older and younger waiter or one waiter and the hurried waiter.
Readers don’t know Hemingway’s thoughts, as if her hides behind the characters
Use of Spanish: confusing, doesn’t directly translate into English – nada …..(161) then English version unclear- whole situation and reason for why Spanish (nada) is incorporated with the words of a prayer.
• Ending
There is no real conclusion (162) Older waiter “…Now, without…” he just goes to bed, there is no resolution to the problem and readers are then confused as to if their actually was a problem.
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