Both pieces-The Public Life of Jeremiah Barnes, and My Pen Pal- are narrated, and are narrated beautifully. Both are narrated by sounds coming out of speakers. The only difference between both is that in The Public Life of Jeremiah Barnes, we can see what is going on (thanks to the view master).
So we know that both have a great deal of narration.... But what stories do they actually tell? The Secret life... tells us about a man that is by no means normal. Mr. Barnes made falsified keys to heavy duty power equipment. He than went on to "borrow" them. However, unlike most thieves, he didn't use the equipment. In fact, he maintained it. Obviously, Barnes was just plain bored with life, and he wanted to put together a crazy puzzle. The equipment was appearing everywhere, and had the police so confused they called in higher authorities. They eventually caught him, and threw him in jail.
What i learned is that everyone is weird in their own special ways. Some people need more to life than just going to work and coming home every day. Like Jeremiah, some people need to steal heavy machinery and maintain it and play a cat and mouse game with authorities.
My Pen Pal, also narrated, was very similar but very different at the same time. The story was about a 10 year old girl, Sarah, and a General, named Manual. Manuel was thought to be a drug dealing dictator. He was an enemy of the United States. In fact he was said to belong to a special fraternity of international villains. He was truly a hated man.
Sarah sent him a letter, commenting about his hat. The next thing you know is that they are pen pals and he invited the young girl to come to his county....
She obviously goes, and she learned many things about this "enemy." When she first arrived, she received a teddy bear. Even Sarah's mom was incredibly surprised at his appearance. He was a small man. He was also a nice man. He acted like a father to Sarah during her short visit. When Sarah was swimming, she got knocked over and the General ran right to her and dried her off with a towel. He was acting like her father.
The whole experience showed Sarah many things. It also showed me something. It showed me that there is more to someone than their actions or their title. We should never judge someone by what they have done, or by what people say about them. Sarah gave General Manuel a chance, and it worked out for the best. The event taught her to live more responsibly.
The nice thing about the narration of the two pieces is that it allows us to fill in some of the blanks. We hear what is happening, and we also add our own visual images and we edit it in our heads to what we want to see. Narration comes in many shapes and sizes. The narration for the two pieces I covered was perfect for both-
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
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